Being blunt for a moment

There are a lot of mean, partisan things I could say about how the right wing (and their toadies in the media) got all bunched up about Obama telling kids to stay in school, work hard and set goals, but it's pointless.

It has nothing to do with the speech itself. Obama could have recited the pledge of allegiance and they would have run about to anyone with a microphone or camera and said i was the worst thing to befall this great country. It doesn't matter WHAT Obama does or doesn't do because it's not about actual actions.

It's about two things:

1) Undermining his authority. The same people who said speaking out against Bush was treason are leading this. They want to weaken Obama, make his supporters think that he's given up, he's caved in and all of their work is for nothing. That way, their energized base will show up at the polls and sweep them into power, just like they did in 1994. All that matters to them is personalizing the anger and making Obama the target. De-Legitimatize him and when things start to turn around (as they already have in the area of foreign affairs) he gets none of the credit, just the blame for whatever wildfires they can create on cable and radio.

2) They hate that a Negro is in the White House. Oh, no one is coming out and saying it in the media, they're smarter than that, but they weasel it in. "We don't know who he is" gets to the fear of the Black Man. If a White man had been as public as he has been over the last 8 - 10 years, NO ONE would say "We don't know who he is," but they can spread the fear of the "other." That's where the Birthers come from, going back to the old fears of a black man being from "somewhere else". It lives on in the tearful White Southerners who cry and shout "I want my country back!" when NOTHING has changed other than the color of the man in charge.

Elvis Costello once said "I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused", and while he's not exactly a paragon of racial tolerance, I agree with him on this one. I NEED to get past being disgusted and move toward being amused. History shows that this sort of bullshit withers and dies over time. Clinton beat the bastards again and again, and Obama is much smarter than Clinton was (which is no easy feat), but I see the foaming racism and those who foster and nurture it and it disgusts me.

I see it in people who don't even know they are being fed ancient fear of the dark skin and the other and the evil black man, but know that they Just Don't Like That Guy. Some are writing that this will drive moderates toward the Democratic Party and that Obama is playing chess, slowly putting everything in place for another massive win.

I don't see it.

In the long term, tolerance and progression wins, but in the short term Nixon won two terms, Reagan (who called black people "Negroes" in speeches up until he could no longer give them) won two terms by demonizing "welfare queens", and Bush won two terms by scaring the living shit out of people.

As Han Solo said: I have a bad feeling about this.