Commentary

Obama Criticism: Race Versus Reality
The same people that elected the president haven't recently discovered he's black; they have discovered he's untrustworthy.

By Dan Kennedy
Business & Media Institute
8/11/2010 11:48:37 AM

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All last week, poll results had pundits like Chris Matthews puzzled and outraged that a near majority were willing to question President Obama’s very legitimacy. Matthews and co. chalk it up to ignorance, stupidity and – most of all – racism. But for the most part, they’re wrong.



I’ve just returned from a business trip to Idaho Falls, Idaho. It’s a place where, yes, they drive pick-ups, own guns and carry Bibles. But, no, they are neither racists nor radicals. In fact, they prefer to be apolitical, focusing on family and community and being as trustworthy as they are trusting. They are salt-of-the-earth Americans.



The small business owner I visited there owns a thriving local dairy that employs 50 people – including a foreman who migrated from Mexico and and legally obtained U.S. citizenship with my client’s help. The dairy milks 200 cows, bottles milk and delivers it to 2,800 homes and even makes ice cream that is shipped nationwide. My client is up with the sun and is still at work after dusk.



My client, along with others I met on this trip, talked a lot about the constant conundrum of Barack Obama: Is he unimaginably sinister or unbelievably stupid? Or both?



Nobody likes to see the president as an internal enemy. But as one fellow in a place I stopped for coffee put it, “by his chosen associates and his own actions we must judge him.â€