* My Sun-Times column this week is about race. One always has to tread carefully on this topic, but whoever did the art for the Sun-Times did me no favors by using a photo of the late Rep. Lou Jones instead of Louanner Peters. Oy. My phone started ringing about the screwup at 7:30 this morning.

For the record, I have no control over the Sun-Times page layout.

* Anyway, on to the column, which compares Gov. Blagojevich’s reaction to the stories about how he gave two African-American women pardons/expungements to Barack Obama’s reaction to Geraldine Ferraro’s goofy comments.

First up, Blagojevich…

The Sun-Times story on [Sharon] Latiker never mentioned her race, and no photo was included. But that didn’t stop the governor from sending out one of his top aides to play the race card.

Deputy Gov. Louanner Peters was former Congressman Gus Savage’s chief of staff for 10 years. Savage was the guy who blamed his 1992 Democratic primary loss on the “white racist press and the racist, reactionary Jewish misleaders.”

Anyway, Peters held a news conference last Friday and invited several African-American leaders to attend. She told reporters that the Sun-Times story on Latiker was either ginned up by Madigan or represented a media “focus on African-American women. It has to be one or the other.” The Sun-Times developed the story without Madigan’s input, so that left just race.

* Now, Obama…

Instead of surrounding himself with African-American leaders, as Peters did, Obama scheduled a news conference to announce an endorsement by several retired military leaders. The backdrop to his event was a group of older, (mostly) white men. Obama refused to characterize Ferraro’s remarks as racist. Instead, he said they were “ridiculous.” Which they were.

* Conclusion…

Blagojevich is a fading politician facing the possibility of indictment and is therefore desperate to hold onto the one voting bloc that has yet to completely turn against him. Claiming reporters have racist motives is a tried-and-true and often supremely cynical formula for cranking up the base, but its success may be diminishing in the “Obama Age.” Still, it’s all Blagojevich has left, so he used it.

Obama has a different task. Check out this quote of a 63-yearold Ohio woman from a recent Bloomberg story: “If Obama gets in, it’s going to be a black thing, and it’s going to be all blacks for blacks.”

America obviously still has more than its share of racists. Obama has to show that he’s “post-racial” to allay the fears of people like that Ohio woman. He took another step in that direction this week.

Ferraro may have done “Sen. Lucky” a favor. Peters only reinforced the governor’s image of desperation.

* Meanwhile, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire” is the assumption that most political reporters go on these days. That’s not always the case. For instance, check out this AP story posted yesterday afternoon about Barack Obama’s Illinois “pork” projects and whether he was hiding something…

Public records reveal some of the projects he sponsored as a state senator, from literacy programs and park improvements to drill team uniforms and jazz-appreciation events. They add up to more than $6 million.

But that covers just two of Obama’s nearly eight years in the Illinois Senate. State records don’t detail his projects from other years, and his presidential campaign has not responded to repeated requests from The Associated Press for information.

* The Obama campaign was stupid for not responding. When they did, it blew a huge hole in the AP’s conspiracy theory. Here’s the updated AP story…

After repeated requests from The Associated Press for that information, Obama’s presidential campaign said Thursday night that he made no other extra spending requests during the rest of his legislative career. What’s shown in the public record is the only spending he added to the budget, the campaign said.

Along the way, the Chicago Democrat stopped inserting pet projects into the Illinois budget because he felt the system was getting out of hand.

* Obama’s campaign seems to have a real problem communicating with the Illinois AP. Here’s a completely screwed up story posted by the IL AP earlier this week…

Sen. Barack Obama was among eight state officials and others consulted about who should be appointed to a state board that later became involved in what prosecutors describe as a fraud scheme, according to a memo discussed Monday at Antoin “Tony” Rezko’s trial.

Um, no. That’s not what the memo says at all. The memo just says that Obama was a co-sponsor of the bill which rewrote the law that was set to expire at the end of June, 2003. There is no way you can read that memo and conclude what the AP reported. Zero.