A completely incompetent news gathering organization or deathly afraid of offending powerful liberals. Those are our only two choices after this weekend’s performance.

While the entire Western world ruminated on comments made by BET founder and Charlotte Bobcats owner Robert Johnson in Columbia on Sunday, McClatchy downplayed Johnson’s broadside directed at Barack Obama.

In fact, The State — McClatchy’s very own Columbia outlet — produced what may be an all-time howler of a headline on a story that buried Johnson’s comments in the eighth graf: Clinton stays positive | Democratic hopeful avoids criticism during campaign stops in Columbia. This front-page story was accompanied by a huge picture of Hillary waving and grinning with — former S.C. Gov. Dick Riley.

That is not how The New York Times saw things Sunday afternoon:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, who is campaigning today in South Carolina with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, just made a suggestion that raised the specter of Barack Obama’s past drug use. He also compared Mr. Obama to Sidney Poitier, the black actor, in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

At a rally here for Mrs. Clinton at Columbia College, Mr. Johnson was defending recent comments that Mrs. Clinton made regarding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She did not mean to take any credit away from him, Mr. Johnson said, when she said that it took President Johnson to sign the civil rights legislation he fought for.

Dr. King had led a “moral crusade,” Mr. Johnson said, but such crusades have to be “written into law.”

“That is the way the legislative process works in this nation and that takes political leadership,” he said. “That’s all Hillary was saying.”

He then added: “And to me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –­ and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book –­ when they have been involved.”

Moments later, he added: “That kind of campaign behavior does not resonate with me, for a guy who says, ‘I want to be a reasonable, likable, Sidney Poitier ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’ And I’m thinking, I’m thinking to myself, this ain’t a movie, Sidney. This is real life.”

A former Clinton campaign official in New Hampshire had to resign last month after he publicly suggested that Republicans would probably use Mr. Obama’s drug use in his youth, which he first wrote about in his memoirs, against him.

The Times report prodded a statement from Johnson, which the Times posted here. It is newsworthy itself for trying to back away from the obvious drug use angle Johnson intended to raise:

My comments today were referring to Barack Obama’s time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect.

When Hillary Clinton was in her twenties she worked to provide protections for abused and battered children and helped ensure that children with disabilities could attend public school.

That results oriented leadership — even as a young person — is the reason I am supporting Hillary Clinton.

None of Johnson’s response along with bits of his original statement are missing from the AP dispatch The Charlotte Observer runs with today on 4A.

Better still, the Observer’s A-front is taken up with a long, pre-planned Tim Funk feature on Mike Huckabee and evangelicals, much the same way The State’s A-front is taken up with two canned McClatchy pieces: one on John McCain and another on Hillary’s days in New Haven. For the record, that’s three front page political stories in The State, none of which made Johnson’s remarks the focus of coverage. Unreal.

This could not happen by accident. Instead, it has all the hallmarks of skipping over something embarrassing so as not to make a prominent local figure look bad. There is also danger in drawing attention to a racially charged topic in which there is no “safe” place for a liberal to land. Agree with Johnson, Obama’s camp and chunks of the civil right movement is angry. Dismiss Johnson, you got Hillary, Johnson, the labor movement and the poverty industry mad at you.

Best to let someone else focus on Johnson’s comments, then hope they go away. To recap, one of the biggest political stories of the year unfolds in a McClatchy town and McClatchy misses it. City of Charlotte official partner Bob Johnson makes screaming headlines the world over and the Observer puts wire copy on A4.

Bonus Observation: In that Huckabee piece, there was this oddball bit:

That view was echoed Sunday by the Rev. Mike Hamlet, senior pastor at First Baptist North Spartanburg and a Huckabee friend for decades.

From the pulpit, Hamlet urged all evangelicals to consult their biblical principles when they vote Saturday — just as they do when they deal with everything from finances to parenting.

And while he said his comments shouldn’t be called an endorsement, Hamlet saluted Huckabee’s “strength and character.”

“It is refreshing,” he said, “to have someone (in politics) who is not afraid to say the name Jesus.”

Guess the Rev. Hamlet has never heard of George W. Bush. He should be ashamed of himself for pulling that fake victim crap.

Update: Here’s Sister Toldjah on the all the attack-Obama stuff.