Woodward’s Book Title Is Music To The Ears Of Racists

Back in the east, in Asian countries persons of a lower caste or social standing are not supposed to look straight into the eye of a person of higher standing. So whenever you scold them or instruct them they are supposed to keep their eyes downcast or look at the ground instead of at you straight in the face. Students and devotees are not supposed to look at the master.

A similar type of obeisance existed here between the slave owner and the slave.

So when we elected an African American president, many die-hard racial supremacists -- yes, perhaps only a few of them here and there -- could not stomach the fact that now a black man is leading the country.

Take, for example, an honest confession from Chris Matthews of MSNBC Hardball. After he listened to President Obama’s State of the Union message on January 27, 2010, he was dumbfounded. “I forgot he was black tonight for an hour,” he said. “He’s gone a long way to become a leader of this country and past so much history in just a year or two. I mean it’s something we don’t even think about. I was watching and I said, wait a minute, he’s an African-American guy in front of a bunch of other white people and there he is, President of the United States, and we’ve completely forgotten that tonight — completely forgotten it.” This meant, according to his confession, that’s what usually comes to his mind when he sees him, that he is a black man, but this time that recognition did not occur. “I didn’t think of him in terms of the old tribalism or old ethnicity,” he said.

Another boo-boo came from Glenn Beck, the famed Obama-hater, on June 14, 2010. During the vast BP oil spill, Beck asked his listeners: “What is it that Barack Obama knows that he won’t even bother to meet with the guy (the CEO of British Petroleum) to hear him out? What is it? Tell me, I’d like to know. Does the fact that BP’s CEO, is a capitalist, is that what does it? … He’s a white CEO, maybe that’s it. He’s a white CEO.”

To say that Mr. Obama was reluctant to meet the CEO of BP because he is white, a white CEO, is so foul-mouthed and uncivilized, that one wonders what frames of reference are there in the minds of pathologic Obama-haters.

The whole controversy over his birth certificate stemmed from an eagerness to pin down the President as one who is not qualified to lead the country. Chris Matthews chastised Mitt Romney recently for “playing the race card” when Romney said in jest that he can produce his birth certificate.

Of course, one would remember President Carter’s statement in 2010 that much of the opposition, President Obama was facing was because he is a black man. Mr. Carter, coming from the south, knows the thinking of several die-hard racists.

Now, comes Bob Woodward’s book with a major premise that there was a “leadership gap” in the Obama administration. And many persons in the U.S, would reply, “Well, what do you think? Here is a black man trying to lead us white people, the majority and the powerful in this country.”

The belligerence, stubbornness, uncooperativeness of the Republicans is thus glossed over.