I’m mad at Obama, and I’m no racist

Jimmy Carter is right and Jimmy is very wrong. There is some racism in America, but the overwhelming majority of opposition to President Barack Obama has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with people feeling they suffered from a rip-off recession and now suffer in a rip-off recovery.

Many Americans, myself included, are mad as hell because we are victimized by impersonal and greedy economic forces on the one hand, and asked to support an escalation of a war without any success strategy on the other, which is not the change we voted for.

Stories of soaring and skyrocketing Wall Street and banking bonuses are side by side on the news with stories of joblessness that is in truth higher than 15 percent, with credit card interest rates rising, with home values falling, with foreclosures mounting in a Grapes of Wrath economy that for most Americans is little different from what it was under President George W. Bush.

Even now, the president gives a speech that reminds us of how little has been achieved for change on Wall Street and banking, and even now speaks of healthcare in generic terms, not waging the fight he should on key issues while he gives speeches of "Yes, we can" and tells stories of "I'm all fired up and ready to do," which bear no similarity to Franklin Roosevelt or the Kennedys.

My column in The Hill today is tough, tough on the president for not fighting for the reforms that would have created a historic political realignment and stood up for average Americans against impersonal forces, and tough on Republicans for being the Party of No that is allowing itself to be a homepage for hate.

The president once had support over 70 percent, and none of those people were racist. The Democrats won a huge election for the White House and both houses of Congress and none who voted for them were racist, while many who voted for them then, and are disillusioned now, dissent for very good reason, as I do.

It is true there is still racism in America, and the media in particular should be aggressively criticized for giving a misleading high profile to every nutcase, fruitcake and shouter.

But it is insulting, morally wrong and politically destructive to take the very legitimate grievances of people being screwed in a rip-off economy and call it racism.

Republicans need to take some inventory about how they are allowing their party to make honored guests of those who hate.

Democrats need to take some very serious inventory about how little we have gotten after electing a highly popular Democratic president and a Democratic Congress with large majorities that seems incapable of doing what was promised during the campaign.