Finally, a leader has come forward to address the unrelenting disrespectful attacks President Obama has had to contend with since winning office. Former President Carter tacked the issue head Tuesday during a response to a question at a town hall forum at his presidential center in Atlanta. He said: “I think it’s based on racism.” “There is an inherent feeling among many people in this country that an African American ought not to be president, and ought not to be given the same respect as if he were white. And this has permeated politics ever since I’ve been involved in it back in the 1960s, not only in the South, but also in many places throughout the nation.”
Carter added, “And the outbursts that we see, the scatological language, the sign that I saw on television last night, “We should bury Obama with Kennedy,” for instance, and “Obama is a Nazi,” and Obama’s picture with Hitler’s moustache on it—those kinds of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate over whether we should have a national program in health care. It’s deeper than that.”
Carter continued, “I think it was a dastardly thing to do, and I believe it was so bad that it’s going to be corrected by the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans in the weeks ahead.”
Carter’s remarks have caused racists within the Republican party to quickly dismiss his comments as divisive and off the mark. But it seems President Carter was merely identifying a political reality that many Americans, liberal and conservative alike, have been unable or unwilling to acknowledge, namely that the current anti-Obama sentiment coming from the Right has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with race.
Of course, the White House has issued a statement that President Obama does not believe the attacks are racial in nature. To be fair, not every attack is race-based. For example, the health care bill introduced by Senator Baucus looks like a corporate give-away and insults the American people’s intelligence. Substantive attacks on the bill would be warranted. That said, Obama must stay above the fray. By taking the difficult position that the attacks by birthers, teabaggers and other radical fringe elements in the GOP are not racially motivated, President Obama maintains higher ground.
Go, Carter!