Michael, Shh. Um, Michael, Cool It. Jeez, Michael, SHUT UP!

If I were Barack Obama, that's what I would have been saying, and eventually screaming, at the TV last night. Michael Eric Dyson appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night as a "Barack Obama supporter" and, in my judgment, hurt his candidate's cause.

First, he referred to the incident where Hillary Clinton choked up a little while talking to voters on Monday as "The Crying Game," explicitly tying it to the 1992 Neil Jordan film. What was THAT supposed to mean?

Then he attributed Obama's loss to the Bradley Effect -- that white voters will tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate but then vote for a different candidate once inside the booth. Of course, the Bradley Effect may or may not explain the gap between the polls showing Obama a lock in New Hampshire and his actual narrow loss to Hillary Clinton. It does not explain why New Hampshire voters actually preferred Clinton over Obama.

So, Dyson had a theory about that: "New Hampshire voters, after seeing Obama's swagger, so to speak, from his confidence because of his Iowa victory, may have rejected him, repudiated him, or at least had second thoughts about pulling the level, so to speak, for a black man."

White people scared of a black man's "swagger?" If I'd have said that, I am sure I'd be criticized, and deservedly so. Dyson went on to say that race was definitely a part of the calculus that people use in deciding to vote, but then fought with fellow panelist Pat Buchanan over whether his race was part of his appeal, for instance, to African Americans. In summary, Dyson was arguing that if people do not like Obama, it's because of race; if they like him, it has nothing to do with race. How does that make sense?

Then, Matthews played the video of Clinton's "verklempt" moment and Dyson was off to the races. Clearly enraged, he fulminated against what he perceived as her race-tinged arrogance:

... now Hillary Clinton, through her noblesse oblige, implying that some people get it right, some people get it wrong -- through her tears, she is really expressing a horrendous viewpoint. That is, that she has a kind of copyright on what the goodness of the country should be and therefore Barack Obama has somehow been excluded. ...

All I'm suggesting is that, even through her tears, the sentiment that was being expressed ... is to suggest that "I am the only person. I'm gonna get it right, he's gonna get it wrong," and there's an implicit racial subtext there. There's a racial subtext there: Don't let a black man run this country. ...

"Rolling the dice," "playing loose and fast" -- I am suggesting that those are code words that black people are used to when people are trying to suggest to somebody that they're not quite able to step up to the plate.

Watch the Hardball segment here and see what you think.

Here's my point: One of the reasons Obama has been as successful as he has been -- think of it: the first African American presidential candidate who has a real shot at the nomination and even the Presidency -- has been the "post-racial" quality of his candidacy. He has asserted his heritage as a proud part of his identity, but not suggested it should entitle him to any different treatment.

Now we see surrogates -- Dyson and Congressman Jesse Jackson in a bizarre interview with Norah O'Donnell -- suggesting that voting for Obama, or against Hillary, ought to be ALL ABOUT RACE. I don't think this is good for the presidential race, and I certainly don't think it is wise for the Obama campaign.