A meme is taking hold on the left that opponents of President Obama can’t accept a black president. But that’s baloney that has turned moldy. President Obama is being treated just like every other president has been by his (or someday, her) political opponents–very roughly. Ask George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, good grief, ask George W. Bush!
Now Maureen Dowd has wielded the cudgel–making her ilk are the real race-baiter. From her column:
I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race. I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.
But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — [Me: Harry Reid called Bush a "liar" and proudly noted he had never apologized. Democrats booed him during a State of the Union speech.] convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.
Dowd is the racist if she thinks that just because Obama is half African-American, he should be treated with kid gloves. True, Wilson was rude. He apologized. Big deal. The president is tough. He can take it.
But the country can’t take being divided again down racial lines from the demagoguery of race baiters like Dowd–who seems to think that raising this charge and attacking Obama’s political opponents as racist will somehow help Obama’s poll ratings. But that is nuts. He won–to the applause of even those who voted against him–because of a deep yearning in this country for a truly post-racial society. Dismantle that crucial core of the Obama magic, and he’s really in political trouble.
I said this before, and it is growing more urgent because it is not just the Marxist radical fringe anymore, evidence Dowd: Obama should disavow all racial politics, most especially from his friends. It has the potential to both destroy his presidency and tear this country apart.
Update: Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has stated that the president doesn’t think that opposition to his policies is race based. From the story:
“I don’t think the president beleives that people are upset by the color of his skin,” Gibbs said. “It think people are upset because on Monday we celebrate the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse… and we had to do some extraordinary things.”
I’d use a different word than “extraordinary,” but never mind. Gibbs comment is a good, if mild, start, to slamming the door on liberal race-baiting. But the subject is so toxic the president’s own voice should be heard clearly on this. Indeed, the best thing would be for him to strongly condemn Dowd’s column, but I know that won’t happen.
September 13th, 2009 | 3:51 pm
You are assuming that the President — and those around him — don’t want to tear this country apart.
I fear that some on the left wouldn’t mind if America disappeared, because of their emotional feeling “fiat justitia, ruat coelum,” and that others on the left are actively engaged in a Gramscian effort to tear down everything that stands in the way of One World, One Ruler, and One Ideology. (It remains to be determined whether they want the ruling ideology to be Marxism-Leninism or Islam, and the ruler to be the First Secretary or the Caliph, but wither way, American power is the only thing thwarting them.
September 13th, 2009 | 4:42 pm
I don’t disagree with the vast bulk of this, but this:
The president is tough. He can take it.
I think this president has demonstrated, time and again, that he is more in the mold of a Mario Cuomo than a George W. Bush, insofar as how well he handles criticism. (That said, I am not implying that he should be treated with kid gloves, only stating that he is remarkably thin-skinned for a politician.)
September 13th, 2009 | 8:51 pm
Obama wasn’t too thin-skinned when he was called a liar on live national television Wednesday night.
September 14th, 2009 | 12:53 pm
I wouldn’t expect much more than “mild” condemnation of the racist meme from Gibbs, if that. I think he probably believes, as does Obama, that it can serve their purposes to have others attempting to play the race card for them. That’s been part of Obama’s M.O. all along.
Although to me, it’s now sounding more than a little desperate to have “mainstream” liberals like Dowd jumping on the Janeane Garafolo bandwagon (remember her analysis of the tea party protests as “racism, straight up” ?
More and more people are realizing that remaking one sixth of the country’s economy, and in a huge rush to boot, is probably not a good idea. Many of those people (independents especially) voted for Obama in the first place. They’re not going to appreciate being called racists, and in the end I predict this strategy will backfire.
September 14th, 2009 | 1:53 pm
I’m of Neal Boortz’ opinion about the race of the president (in short, he says that given the racial history of this country he can’t blame those blacks who voted with their emotions). I’m only sorry that the first black president has to be this guy. I would have liked to remember such a historic election raising a more worthy person to the office.
September 14th, 2009 | 9:17 pm
The birther nonsense sounded more than a little racist, and Glen Beck said something about health care reform being reparations. And then there was the Gates incident and all the outrage that a black man might mistakenly presume racism existed in a situation where it has so often existed in the past.
I see no evidence that most opposition to Obama is flat out racist, or primarily racist. I do think I see some subliminal racism from some on the Right.
September 14th, 2009 | 9:25 pm
“You are assuming that the President — and those around him — don’t want to tear this country apart.”
Me too. I’m assuming they’re decent, patriotic people, who criticize their country becaue they love it and want to see it live up to its ideals, as I’m sure you do ffrom yoyr perspective. I also guess that while you may not be racially prejudiced, your belief that a significant number of people on the Left at this late date are Marxist, or that a significant number have ever favored Islam (??!), indicates prejudice, an unwillingness to see them for what they are, a need to make them out to be the Other.
September 14th, 2009 | 10:36 pm
If you don’t think there’s a racist element to the Obama-hating out there, you’re not paying attention. I mean, “the Black House?” It’s to Obama’s credit, and it benefits his effectiveness, that he doesn’t play the race card and quashes it when it comes up.
I knew he had it right when he was asked to comment on a possible law against kids wearing their pants hanging down, which is far more prevalent among black kids. Instead of dodging the (mostly irrelevant) question, he went on for a bit about how passing a law seemed a bit extreme for this situation but, “hey, a brother’s gotta pull his pants up.”
THERE is a guy who’s in balance.
September 15th, 2009 | 4:15 pm
Most of the criticism of President Obama isn’t of the “black house” type, Padraig. Those who make racist comments deserve to be called onto the mat for them; those who strongly disagree and keep race out of it do not deserve to be referred to as “racists.”
September 16th, 2009 | 11:17 am
Padraig,
You’re right. Wesley J. Smith is not paying attention. Or he’s paying attention (desperately, it seems) only to what confirms what he (thinks he) already knows. Or he’s just not being honest. At least a conservative like Rod Dreher can call a spade a spade. See:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/09/rush-limbaugh-hits-racial-bott.html
Secondhand smoke indeed. This stuff is noxious.
September 17th, 2009 | 12:59 pm
bmm, I wasn’t referring to legitimate dissent or criticism. I’m all for that; nobody gets a free pass. I used the term “Obama-hating” because there’s a lot of cheap shots out there, from monkey caricatures to ghetto references, that are clearly racial. I even heard comments like “I will never accept a black man as my President.” Does that strike you as “criticism?”
September 18th, 2009 | 3:46 pm
No, it doesn’t. That’s racism. But that’s also a small minority (no ugly pun intended) of the opposition to the Obama administration. If you have a 9/12 rally with 500,000 or 1,000,000 people, and twenty show up with hateful or racist signs, and the media decide to videotape ALL TWENTY, people will get an idea that opposition is mostly racially based. But that’s not the majority of what’s going on.
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