I had to check the calendar and make sure the year was 2011 and not 1850 something when I heard that South Carolina Democrats are criticizing GOP Governor Nikki Haley for checking the "White" box on her voter registration form.

Haley is of Indian descent - no box on the form was provided to reflect that.

The governor stayed silent on the matter, although her allies accused the Democrats of the lowest-grade politics: race-baiting. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, has never emphasized herself as South Carolina's first female and minority governor and the country's second Indian-American governor, but it has earned enormous national notoriety. (emphasis mine).

Todd Shaw, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina and an expert on African-American studies, said deciding what box to fit a person in is a very Southern concept. To him, race is a matter of self-identification, or allowing a person to check the boxes that may apply.

"I always expect political parties to be political," Shaw said. "I think what is just as interesting is that it draws all of us into the fight: 'This is what we really understand this person to be.' Are you who I say you are or who society says you are?"

Dick Harpootlian, the Democratic Party chairman, said whether Haley listed her race as white or not doesn't matter to him. The point is, he said, that the governor has a pattern of twisting the truth.

"Haley has been appearing on television interviews where she calls herself a minority -- when it suits her," Harpootlian said. "When she registers to vote, she says she is white. She has developed a pattern of saying whatever is beneficial to her at the moment."

I bolded the section above because it directly contradicts what the Dem chairman was quoted as saying about Haley "saying whatever is beneficial to her at the moment." This was a racial attack by the Democrats, trying to get whites riled up at her.

Democrats have been pulling this crap in South Carolina for 140 years and know all the tricks. As the article points out, not only is it technically accurate for Haley to identify herself as "white" but that there is no law in South Carolina that says you can't check whatever box identifying race you choose.

The fact that it is a non issue reveals the Democrat's true motivation - to stir up trouble for the governor in a most nauseating racial way.