***UPDATE: Spike Lee begins the charge the Times and Politico called for.

In one of the most cruel and vicious personal attacks you’ll ever read, today’s New York Times pretends to wring its oh-so sensitive hands over the following — while their true agenda is much more insidious:

It is safe to say that no other Republican on the campaign trail this year — or ever — has begun a speech with the phrase “Awww, shucky ducky!” the way Herman Cain did[.] …

Few candidates compare themselves to a flavor of ice cream, but Mr. Cain is intent on letting people know that he is like “Häagen-Dazs black walnut,” the point being that he is certainly not a flavor of the week because it “tastes good all the time.”

Mr. Cain, who is black, has a penchant for gold ties because, as he explains with flirtatious flair, “that color happens to look good against this beautiful dark skin.” …

He has no qualms, for instance, about playing off black clichés: should he become president, his Secret Service codename should be “Cornbread,” he wrote in his memoir[.]

Then comes the “some say” hit that reveals the real motivation behind this piece of character assassination disguised as furrowed-brow concern:

Of particular concern, some say, is how he seems to make a parody of black vernacular and culture.

“It makes the hair on my neck stand up,” said Ulli K. Ryder, a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. “The larger issue that a lot of people have, and I certainly have, is that he uses a certain kind of minstrelsy to play to white audiences. Referencing negative stereotypes in order to get heard to a white audience in the 21st century is really a problem.”

Take “shucky ducky.”

“It’s a nonsensical thing, down-home Southern black vernacular,” Ms. Ryder said. “It’s coded as a black vernacular and it’s uneducated black vernacular, so I find it really interesting that he would reference that, seeing as he is not that.”

What the New York Times (and the equally Leftist Politico) are up to here is the most cynical kind of race-baiting we’ve seen from the MSM when it comes to Herman Cain. I fear this is only the beginning of the beginning, especially if Cain continues his ascent as a GOP frontrunner.

Here’s what Politico and the New York Times are really up to…

The rise of Herman Cain means that if the MSM is going to hold tight to negative narratives regarding conservatives, (and especially the tea party) that they’ve spent years crafting and are counting on to help re-elect Barack Obama, they must do two things:

1. Toxify Herman Cain in the Black community in the same way they toxified Justice Clarence Thomas. Obama’s Media Palace Guards have to strip Cain of his identity as a Black American and tag him as a sell-out. Otherwise, he could become a magnet to other Blacks and that would literally be the end of the Democrat Party.

2. Keep alive the idea that conservatives and especially tea partiers are racist by portraying Cain as the kind of “minstrelsly,” sell out white racists are willing to accept.

If Cain were a liberal Democrat these exact same jokes and folksy sayings of his would be portrayed by the race-baiters at the New York Times and Politico as a Black man proudly holding on to his identity, culture, heritage, and background — which, obviously, is exactly what it is. But to portray Cain in that manner, as a Black Republican comfortable with who he is among conservatives, won’t further the two goals listed above. In fact, reporting the truth would have the exact opposite effect. So the narrative simply cannot be allowed to become “Tea Party Republicans accept Black man in their fold.” Because that kind of narrative is an existential threat to all things Leftist. The Left’s allies at the New York Times and Politico know this and, as we see here, are taking the mercenary action necessary to try and snuff this threat. And so they will twist this truth into something unabashedly cruel — into a minstrel show.

And 2012 hasn’t even begun.