The Color of His Presidency

New York Magazine ^ | April 6, 2014 | Jonathan Chait

[2ndDivisionVet]

Optimists hoped Obama would usher in a new age of racial harmony. Pessimists feared a surge in racial strife. Neither was right. But what happened instead has been even more invidious.

A few weeks ago, the liberal comedian Bill Maher and conservative strategist and pundit Bill Kristol had a brief spat on Maher’s HBO show, putatively over what instigated the tea party but ultimately over the psychic wound that has divided red America and blue America in the Obama years. The rise of the tea party, explained Maher in a let’s-get-real moment, closing his eyes for a second the way one does when saying something everybody knows but nobody wants to say, “was about a black president.” Both Maher and Kristol carry themselves with a weary cynicism that allows them to jovially spar with ideological rivals, but all of a sudden they both grew earnest and angry. Kristol interjected, shouting, “That’s bullsh*t! That is total bullsh*t!” After momentarily sputtering, Kristol recovered his calm, but his rare indignation remained, and there was no trace of the smirk he usually wears to distance himself slightly from his talking points. He almost pleaded to Maher, “Even you don’t believe that!”

“I totally believe that,” Maher responded, which is no doubt true, because every Obama supporter believes deep down, or sometimes right on the surface, that the furious opposition marshaled against the first black president is a reaction to his race. Likewise, every Obama opponent believes with equal fervor that this is not only false but a smear concocted willfully to silence them....

[Olog-hai]

Much less seven sentences.

[Olog-hai]

Never mind that record’s gratuitous attacks on Reagan.

[driftless2]

Chait is one of those libs who you think would have enough intelligence to understand the dangers of too much government or government stepping outside its constitutional boundaries. But it's almost impossible to reason with libs like Chait...they have a deep-seated, almost inexplicable hatred of conservatives that is immune to reason.

Back in the thirties in Russia, Chait would have been one of those loyal communists cheering on Stalin's show trials and his slaughter of other loyal commies...right up to the time Stalin put Chait against the wall.

[Salamander]

I think the birth certificate just has an “X” where the daddy’s name should be.

[Salamander]

It’s not as though I ever listened to that band so I missed that.

:)

[noinfringers2]

First, I have seen many racially mixed married people with children in the newspapers and on TV, so your life’s experience on this issue appears to be quite limited. as to your point of a black male donor. I have tried to point out that a ‘black male donor’ might not be the case. As to my belief for a chronicle , call it a theory if you so want, I tend to think that such involves mother Stanley Ann, an Indonesian Guru and Muslim cult leader named Muhammed Subuh along with Hawaii’s records keeper Loretta Fuddy who died in a somewhat odd airplane accident and others along with associated world geographic locations such as Indonesia, Hawaii, Kenya, Seattle, and into Chicago with Valerie Jarette who now is Obama’s adult guru. History when fully and accurately disclosed will be very interesting as to President Obama