Obama, Not the 'Post-' but the 'Most' Racial President

Obama, Not the 'Post-' but the 'Most' Racial President
David Limbaugh
7-16-10

While President Obama has touted himself as a post-racial president, he has built a record demonstrating precisely the opposite. Is it Obama's bitterness, or is the incessant playing of the race card by him and many of his supporters merely calculated political exploitation -- or both?

Let's look at a non-exhaustive list of examples since Obama took office.

--Feb. 18, 2009: Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, accused the nation of being a nation of cowards on race.

--April 2009: NewsBusters reported that at the behest of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, Democratic Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein demanded a government inquiry into how the electronic Portable People Meter (used to measure radio ratings and which experts believe to be a far more reliable measure than the previous system) collects data. Obama's FCC indeed ordered an inquiry in the name of "diversity" because under the modern system, hip-hop ratings had declined and conservative talk ratings had increased.

--May 2009: White House press secretary Robert Gibbs warned critics of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to measure their words carefully, implying they were race-based.

--May 2009: The Obama-Holder Justice Department dismissed a case against New Black Panther Party members for voter intimidation, even though it had already won the case. Former Justice lawyer J. Christian Adams said that the NAACP lobbied Obama to have the case dismissed and that the case was dismissed based on the Justice Department's outrageous policy of not prosecuting such cases against blacks when they involve white victims.

--July 2009: Not having heard all the facts, Obama accused Cambridge, Mass., police of "acting stupidly" in arresting a friend of his, Harvard professor Henry Gates, for disorderly conduct, dangling race as a motive for the arrest.

--August 2009: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights raised constitutional questions about the Obama administration's giving preferential treatment to minority students for scholarships and favoring medical schools that have records of sending graduates to areas with inadequate health care services.

--September 2009: A video surfaced of Obama's "green jobs czar," Van Jones, saying, "You've never seen a Columbine done by a black child." It's "suburbanite white kids" who do it.

--September 2009: Obama's FCC "diversity czar," Mark Lloyd, was seen on video saying, "There are few things, I think, more frightening in the American mind than dark-skinned black men." He also said, by the way, that the Fairness Doctrine wasn't enough to restore fairness to broadcasting. In 2005, Lloyd had complained that white Americans owned and controlled 98 percent of all federal broadcast licenses. Lloyd suggested at one point that white media executives should "step down" in favor of minorities.

--September 2009: Politico reported that in a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama "opened with a fiery civil rights talk, ticking off racial disparities, calling for greater enforcement of civil rights laws and saying that the new White House Office of Urban Affairs is working to address inequality." He also compared Obamacare to the civil rights struggle.

--October 2009: The Obama-Holder Justice Department overruled a decision by the city of Kinston, N.C., to do away with party affiliation of candidates in local elections, saying that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.

--February 2010: After Obama had twice insulted Las Vegas and discouraged tourism there, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman strongly criticized him, which led Obama supporters to accuse Goodman of racism.

--March 2010: The Obama administration filed a brief supporting racial preferences in university admissions.

--March 2010: Rep. John Lewis alleged that tea party protesters hurled racial slurs, but videos of the alleged incident did not corroborate it, making many believe the charges were fabricated.

--March 2010 -- The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said tea party opposition to Obamacare was based on hatred for "people of color." New York Times columnist Frank Rich made similar allegations.

--April 2010: WorldNetDaily reported that Gerry Hudson, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, said white American workers are "so f---ing rabidly racist" their sentiments can be used to scare blacks into supporting comprehensive immigration reform.

--April 2010: The Washington Examiner reported that a reporter asked a black protester whether he was "uncomfortable" as part of the tea party.

--Then there's the administration's playing the race card against Arizona's non-racial-profiling law, Obama's suggesting al-Qaida is racist, Obama's saying Israel is suspicious of him because of his middle name -- as opposed to his horrendous policies toward it -- and the NAACP's calling the tea party racist and then denying it.

It turns out that others are noticing this above-described phenomenon, as well, as a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that fewer and fewer people believe Obama's presidency has advanced racial relations -- 4 in 10, compared with 6 in 10 when he was inaugurated.

This is a very sad turn of events in this nation.