From Sam Stein. I keep posting these because the climate is worsening. I appreciate and respect any and all political dissent, even when its directed at the guy I support. But keep it real. Don't make it personal. And sure as hell don't make it racial.
But alas...
Race-based attacks and criticism of President Obama have been on the rise during the dog days of August. And they're not just happening at health care town hall protests.
A reader sent over a picture of a group of protesters camped outside Rep. Susan Davis's (D-Calif.). "Neighborhood Day" event this past week, brandishing signs calling the president a Black Supremacist and suggesting he's a Nazi disciple.
"Black National Socialism Is Not Utopia," reads one poster.
Another has a picture of Obama's former preacher, Jeremiah Wright, juxtaposed with a picture of Adolph Hitler and one of picture of Obama and Wright together. "Obama's Church: Black Supremacist," it reads.
The protesters, the reader writes, were small in number. But their presence outside the event indicates that four weeks into August, the highly personal and often racially tinged vitriol directed at the president shows no sign of abating.
Earlier this week, Idaho Republican gubernatorial hopeful, Rex Rammell, said he'd buy a license to hunt Obama. Meanwhile, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, (R-Kans.) expressed her wish that the Republican Party would find a "great white hope" to take on the president in the next election.
Asked about Jenkins' comment on Thursday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton gave the freshman congresswoman a pass for the eyebrow-raising remark.
"I saw that report," said Burton. "I also saw that her spokesperson backpedaled and said that that was a poor choice of words. We obviously give Congresswoman Jenkins the benefit of the doubt."
