I was kind of slow catching up on this one. Barack Obama did a bunch of news shows Sunday to push his health care proposals. Last night, I got around to listening to a podcast of his appearance on "Meet the Press."
Health care aside, he spent a good part of the time dismissing Jimmy Carter's assertion that a lot of opposition to his presidency is based on racism. I think that was a smart tactical move on his part.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to suggest there's something wrong with speaking up if you've been a target of genuine racial discrimination. In fact, it's wrong NOT to speak up under those circumstances.
Still, it's difficult for a national leader to inspire confidence by playing the oppressed victim. People will follow him because they believe he's leading them in the right direction, not because someone's told them that our racist history morally obliges them to do so.
Besides, going along with Carter on that one would likely tick off the people -- I'll go out on a limb here and say the vast majority of them -- who have concerns about his policies and aren't racist. Obama needs to get a bunch of them on his side, and lumping them in with racists wouldn't help.
So is any of the criticism directed at Obama racist? Absolutely! Just take a look at this, from the urban legends verification site snopes.com.
The fact that some people apparently are taking it seriously means there are a lot of dim bulbs out there. It's not in any of our interests to let them control the debate.
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