The arrogance of being president while being black

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http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/27/841263/-The-arrogance-of-being-president-while-being-black

it's the derision and meanspiritedness that is exhibited by those who take special glee
in their less than constructive observations.

Those who repeat the same ass shit every single time with nothing new to add,
other than additional insults.

Those who really have convinced themselves, in their little mind, that they "Must" be smarter than this President, on every issue, every time....although when they actually look at their own lives, they fucking know they can't even manage that right, let alone much else.

Those who go out of their way to ignore any positive achievement made by this President,
and opt instead to only deride him some more.

Those who question the teleprompters, and can't and won't ever admit his brilliance without notes
in a 7 hour exchange.

Yep...fucking too obvious, if you ask me.

certainly flies in the face of the over whelming evidence.

but since that will never happen they go for ..seeing who can be more obnoxiously perverted.

Can you imagine their private meetings when they high five the next banal talking point to be delivered ad nauseum?

Who the fuck cares what the little whineyass victims think?

We don't even have worthy adversaries.

but then that wasn't as important to some.

Since the day he was elected, I have said that the repugs will criticize his every move and blame him for everything. It is sad that a man with such great promise has to be the one to go through this. Hopefully, the next black president will have an easier time. Hopefully, the fundie crazies, the teabagger crazies, and the racists will settle down once they get used to the idea. I'm not holding my breath, though.

same thing. His race is the reason for ALL the disrespect shown to him. Not his policies but his race. Period.

and they disrespect democrats, too.

i certainly agree that there's plenty of completely inappropriate disrespect shown regarding president obama due to his race.
but imagine if the same guy had won the election, only he were white. you KNOW that they'd still be calling him a socialist fascist liberal big government whatever-they're-calling-us-these-days.


of course, in their politics of identity-over-issues, the republicans are the party of "white men & proud" and democrats are the party of "others and their sympathizers" so if president obama were white he would move from being "black" to "black sympathizer" which is no different to a republican.

when did you hear people CRYING that they want their country back? When was a Dem. disrespected during a SOTU speech? The examples go on and on...

just not "all".

a president hillary clinton certainly would have gotten plenty of disrespect, although you could argue that they'd just substitute one hatred for another.

but if somehow, the president were, say, dennis kucinich, you know they'd still be showing him disrespect. i mean, they've been disrespecting all of us for years now and they weren't picky then about race.

obama's race just amps it up for them. a LOT.

I'm talking about what HAS happened vs. what has never happened in the past.

so you're supposed to compare to a hypothetical situation where the only thing different was race.
using concrete past examples for comparison is merely a convenient substitute that may or may not apply.

in this case i think it's not clear. they treated president clinton poorly, though not this poorly. but they did establish a trend and i think they were always going to treat the next democratic president worse than they did president clinton.

i think race makes it easier for them to sell the disrespect thing but they were always going to show disrespect for our side.

same way as Obama. I'M saying that no other Dem. president HAS been treated the way Obama was and I gave examples. Even you said Clinton wasn't disrespected this badly. I don't know ANY Dem. president who was called "uppity" or "arrogant," was accused of being a "usurper," a "secret Muslim" (or any other thing equivalent), was asked repeatedly to prove he's American, was called a liar & disrespected during his SOTU, etc.

Can you honestly tell us that you set out to find out what mean things Bill Clinton was and was not called?

or shouted at during a SOTU speech?

http://mediamatters.org/research/200501120012
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=14683

That's a very bad accusation (not to mention false).
Did Coulter believe Clinton was black?

Limbaugh called him a sexual predator: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:IeslO1NxuNUJ:www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_111109/content/01125112.GUEST.html+rush+limbaugh+calls+bill+clinton+sexual+predator&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

The RW lunatic fringe used to be limited to those people. Now, U.S. congressmen do and say the things I posted about the president.

Odd.

Let me also point out that the Daily Kos diarist at no point singled out congressmen. He talked about the media and said that "not only republicans" hold Obama to a higher standard. i think it was irresponsible of you not to do research on Bill Clinton before overplaying the race card.

to congressmen (who are SUPPOSED to be respectful of the president).

Let's talk about the media, journalists, AND congressmen.

Your admission that only congressmen (although you have not done researched on what congressmen said about clinton) hold Obama to a higher standard because he's black undermine the Daily Kos diarist, who accused even the left of being driven by racism.

"the mainstream media doesn't do it because he's black" and I made no such "admission" about congressmen holding Obama to a HIGHER standard. You are 100% wrong in your understanding of my posts (which I don't think are very hard to comprehend).

I know how the MSM has treated Obama, but I don't pretend they didn't treat Clinton like shit too.
Note that I'm the only one doing the research about Clinton, while you hold all the evidence back. I'm pretty sure you've heard of Mediamatters..and if you type "Bill Clinton" in the search box, you will find tons and tons of articles denouncing the MSM treatment of Clinton.

unique to Obama and worse than anything done to/said about Clinton.

I'd rather a guy yell at me during my speak than a ton of congressmen from the other party impeach me.

Obama hasn't. Whatever Clinton got, there was some vestige of truth in the accusations.
There are none when it comes to Obama that I can tell.

bingo!

That's my whole point. Republicans have a lot of things they hate (or pretend to hate), including certain sexual behavior that has nothing to do with skin color. And of course, the fact Clinton was a BIG DEMOCRAT.

Why didn't they give white Bill Clinton a pass, even though he messed with an intern? I mean, he was white, wasn't he?

However, getting Blow jobs while in office from someone other than your wife,
and then denying it; well that could easily be up to debate of how wrong that might be!

So for you to believe that somehow they is a parallel in one's skin color
and one's sexual moral behavior is rather, well,.....totally off-the-wall wrong.

I understand your position, as trashing Clinton is part of pretending that he was respected.
I'm also wondering how many DU'ers believe, or believed at that time, that Clinton should have been impeached due to a blowjob.

is less deadly, a blow job or sending young men and women off to die for a lie?

for a REASON (although not a very VALID reason IMO) is nothing compared to what Obama has gone through even BEFORE he was elected.

And unless you were in Saturn, you would know this. And as far as I know, Hillary and Edwards were white.
I bring up the pre-election period because you brought it up first.

and other things.

Or asking him where was his flag pin, by folks not wearing one.

Yep....that was soooo "nice" treatment. :sarcasm:


:eyes:

Tell us how David Brooks wrote nice pieces about Obama, and about how Penny Noonan and the Washington Post's Kathlyn Parker took Obama's side. Mention how the New York Post endorsed Obama against Hillary, and how Limbaugh only pretended to "endorse" Hillary when Obama was seen as the favorite to win it all.

or some shit, that started an entire saga that didn't end to this day.
Yeah.....Drudge barely said nothing. :eyes:

The only reason the right "favored" Obama during the primary, is that they
didn't really think the Black guy with the funny name was ever gonna win the general election.

Doh! :crazy:

Are you going to tell me with a straight face that that story was good for Hillary Clinton? it provided munition to those who wanted to play the race card, even though Hillary's camp denied having knowledge of anyone in her campaign sending that picture.

Haven't heard anything stated about Hillary and this incident since.

but you're like a dog with a bone....which you can have.

You are now on my ignore list till the pizza comes.

Trust me. Opposition parties throughout the world will choose to attack the President more often and more agressively than one of his officials. Among Big Democrats, Obama is bigger than Hillary.

That's why Limbaugh pretended to "endorse" Hillary only when Obama was perceived to be the likely winner in the primaries--because attacking the biggest opponent makes more sense.

Posted a picture of this war hero next to a picture of OBL. I'm not saying there is no racism. I have fought against it all my life. But all our Democratic presidents and candidates have faced some serious smear campaigns. The swiftboating of John Kerry was a horrendous smear. The right uses whatever they can.

His pastor's serum was run in a loop by every single cable and network news program for weeks. Palin was given front and center authority and exposure to cheer on racists at her rallies with almost no one in the media pointing that out until it really started getting out of control and the crowd began to attack the media. William Ayers was discussed constantly as though being on the same non-profit board with someone for a brief period constituted a deep relationship with a terrorist.

This was carried on CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and not just Fox, and in every major newspaper.

Give me a break. He was treated like crap by the vast majority of the media and there was not one hour that went by when it wasn't either mentioned in some condescending way that he is Black or the question asked: "Can a Black man win the presidency?" I'm sorry but that is a major insult and degradation of this man and his accomplishments whether they meant it or not. It's like: "He's accomplished a lot and he is an intelligent and decent man, but oooo-weee, did you notice he's Black?" It was disgraceful. There is no way of saying the campaign by the media to ignore almost everything about this man except his skin color wasn't denigrating and offensive.

Clinton and Edwards were by no means treated worse than or as bad as Obama.

I have to admit this exchange is based on very subjective opinions, because for some reason I believe an impeachment vote to be a very serious thing.

attacked, insulted, etc. for no reason. And I'm saying no other president, who did exactly the same things Obama did, would be treated that way.

You are in the fragile position of having to defend a blowjob as a good reason for impeachment.
If it's not a good reason, then Clinton got screwed by Republicans unfairly.
If he was white, Why didn't Republicans give him a pass?

Could it be that they moved to impeach him because he was a Big Democrat whom they needed to discredit in order to score political points?

ENOUGH IMO. But it was valid. It was for lying under oath. Your "logic" is so twisted, thinking that my position should be that he should get a pass because he's WHITE. No-his race shouldn't give him a pass for doing something wrong.

I really can't keep trying to make you understand something you clearly can't/don't want to.

You, however, are attempting to compare apples to oranges in order to say that race has
nothing to do with anything. You are wrong about that, no matter how many posts you make
in this thread saying the same thing over and over again. It will still be wrong.
Democrats may be treated awful (no one is disputing that), but a Black President is being
treated worse. The part you can't or don't want to see? HE'S NOT DONE ANYTHING TO
BE TREATED AS HE HAS BEEN, PERIOD.

I'm done talking to you about this, cause it is obvious that you ain't gonna do anything
but repeat what you have already said. I'll agree to disagree, and for me, the road ends there.
Bye!

I'm done with that poster, too.

To some people, it's all a competition to prove that Obama tops everyone else, including other Democrats that have been savaged by the media and Republicans.

And you tried to lessen the stupidity of Republican attempts to impeach Clinton.

I like Obama and would pick him over any Republican. But I'm not blind yet.

Great post. As smart, articulate, and reasonable as our president is, we can't expect anyone to fix the last eight years overnight. Not only has he kept us out of a depression, begun bringing troops home from Iraq, and more---he has done so without much help from Congress, and downright mutiny from the GOP.
While I don't agree with some of his decisions, I still don't want my money back. President Obama was and is the best person for the job, and deserves
more credit than he is currently getting.

it's easy to pick out the president:

white white white white white white white arrogant white white white white . . .

--

I hope the Cosmos is on his side too, blackwaterdog!

"'He's weak, he's spineless, he's got no balls, primary him in 2012'.." Fuck that.

They wanted Clinton impeached, and made up tons of lies about him. I don't think I even need to re-visit all those well-documented smears. Please do not say Bill Clinton was treated with respect.

The GOP hates Obama with passion because the GOP hates Big Democrats with passion. They can't stand Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Neither are black.

Does anyone doubt that the smears against Hillary would have been comparable or worse than those against Obama. After all, Republicans and the MSM in general were more anti-Hillary than anti-anything during the primaries.

Al Gore was smeared more than most politicians, and he didn't even make it to the White House.

And this is all before the internet exploded to the levels it is now. In the last decade, internet use has grown humongously. This provides an expanded platform for haters to spread their hate. And even so, Clinton and Gore were savaged.

Has any of you checked out freerepublic and seen what they say about Al Gore? I recommend taking a look one of these days. Their hatred is pathological. Because they are wingnuts, and they hate Big Democrats.

acknowledge the existence of racism in any concrete, immediate context.

Yes, they admit that racism exists, but it usually seems to be some ethereal concept always somewhat removed from their reality. And whenever anyone points it out, they deny its existence in that case - instead, accusing the person who points it out of "playing the race card" - usually after prefacing the accusation with "racism is real . . ." and bookending it with "you're making it harder for people to deal with racism when it really happens." Of course, to many of these people, racism NEVER really happens. Instead, they keep kicking the can down the road with a dismissive and, frankly, patronizing, "THIS isn't racism. I'll tell you when something racist happens. So just shut up already until *I* tell you when you can complain because you're getting on my nerves."

The fact that white presidents have been subjected to bad treatment does not negate the very obvious fact that much of the attacks on President Obama are race-based. I'm quite sick and tired of being told that I'm overreacting to something that I know all-too-well - often by people who do not seem the least bit interested in better understanding the perspective of those of us who know exactly whereof we speak.

Bill Clinton was not accused of hating white people - or black people for that matter. Jimmy Carter was not depicted in racist, stereotypical caricatures. I am not aware of any previous presidents who were spoken to and about as if they were the hired help. Presidents 1-43 were not consistently referred to by their race.

You can pretend it doesn't exist or try to deflect it all you want. But the bottom line is that President Obama IS being treated differently by many people - some in positions of power in the government and the media - because he is a black man. Period. If, for whatever reason, you choose to close your eyes and ears to that fact, so be it. But it is a plain and simple fact.

Thank you so much for calling out the all-too-common tendency among some liberals to proudly and frequently tout their opposition to racism in the macro sense while failing to ever step up to the plate to actually address it when it matters.

:applause:

in General but they're republicon racist assholes..of course, they'd have extra contempt for President Obama.

:dem: :dem:

"The racism coming from the Right is obviously clear and shameless, but there's also some hidden and maybe subconscious and disturbing underline tone behind some of the things that I read here and throughout the Left blogosphere, even before the end of Obama's first year - 'He's weak, he's spineless, he's got no balls, primary him in 2012'. It'll be dishonest to deny that."

"Somehow it turned out that the one president who treats even his biggest opponents with the utmost respect – is the arrogant one. I wonder why."

Amen. Kicked and rec'd

they are all so disrespectful towards him.

"I've seen so many presidents. Some were feared, some were hated, some were adored, some popular and some not. But all of them, without exception, were treated with the highest respect deserve to the office of the president of the United States."

Did he sleep through the '90s? Carter was also treated poorly. Are the Clintons and Carter also AA?

Obama by comparison has had way easier.

:eyes:

because even he admitted that there were racist undertones in the horrible treatment of Obama. And folks bashed him for it and accused him of "pulling the race card."

:eyes:

Anyway...once again I really don't understand why people don't think these folks can hate democrats and be racist fucks at the same time.

That was the criticism made against the Dailykos diarist.

It's not whether racism exists or not. It's how much of the hatred stems from racism, and you think a lot of it stems from racism, and some of us think the attacks on Obama are overwhelmingly based on the fact that wingnuts hate Democrats.

the problem with the poster's claims is either there is no racism or some how Obama is immune to racism. Neither claim if valid and put's a real irony in the poster's "what are they smoking?" comment.

This goes to the heart of the problem---that people overplaying the race card sometimes get so overzealous in trying to exaggerate racism that they make thinks up.

A race-baiting diarist saw a picture of Obama that looked unusually dark. He immmediately cried race, accusing Hillary of doing it on purpose.

Factcheck.org later analyzed the video and concluded that the video was dark over-all and no deliberate retouching had taken place. The Kos diarists were embarassed and had to apologize.

This same mind-frame is what led the diarist in question on this thread to make the ridiculous statement that "all presidents have been treated with the highest respect deserved."

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/did_clinton_darken_obamas_skin.html

nothing you have brought up changes that in any way shape or form

It sad to see that so many people on DU have such a hard time openly acknowledging racist words, actions, and threats that are directed toward the first black president of the US. It's an ongoing problem in our country - many of us feel much more comfortable denying that racism exists than confronting it. For racism deniers that pop up whenever it is mentioned that Obama is singled out for racist treatment, there seems to be emotional comfort in the idea that Pres. Obama is facing _exactly_ what other presidents have faced - nothing worse, due to his racial and cultural identity. This is a perfect mindset for continuing the denials of unequal treatment that have led to a long legacy of racial apartheid in this country THAT STILL PERSISTS. Take some time to travel around this country beyond the tourist sites and downtown business zones and it's easy to see how much the geography of our country reflects an economic and racial apartheid.

The race and perception issues obviously go beyond what we think about Pres. Obama's performance in office, and I've been as critical as anyone about certain aspects of his economic and health care policies. But the whole "playing the race card" meme dies hard - whatever that nonsense phrase "playing the race card" is supposed to mean. We still have a very long ways to go on issues of race, public perceptions, and the achievement gaps that are a huge impediment to economic and social health in this country - too many of us don't get it yet. Denying the undeniable fact that Pres. Obama faces discrimination due to his race sure doesn't help.

At least we're trying to move forward by having a conversation...I guess.

But to pretend that Obama is treated poorly by the Republicans and right wingers because he's black is not entirely factual. Some of them may be racists, but they would have opposed just as strongly any Democratic president, whether it had been Hillary, Edwards or anyone else.

:shrug:

Obama would have an inkling of what the Clintons went through if:

1. A special prosecutor persecutes him, his wife, his staffers and friends for 5 years; leaving them with huge legal bills (the Clintons owed over $2M to their attorneys by the time they left the WH).

2. They drag the First Lady in front of a grand jury and grill her for several hours.

3. When he gets impeached for lying about a private sex act because they couldn't find anything else to charge him with after years of investigating every aspect of his and his wife's lives and they needed to justify the $50M to $70M they spent on their witch hunt.

Then, and only then, will Obama even come close to going through the same level of hell that the Clintons went through during their years in the WH.

;-)

the treatment.

They persecuted the Clintons for years, way before Bill had his fling with Monica. Obama has gone through nothing even remotely comparable. Going after Bill for his sexual peccadilloes was just an excuse to justify their witch hunt.

I dont understand why race is such an issue. The facts speak for themselves. Broken promises and continuation of the past regime's policies plus protection of the aforementioned perpetrators. Many here idolize him for some reason. Personally, I dont like the way he turns his nose up as he lies to us.

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the way no other Dem. president has been disrespected???

Other Democratic presidents were disrespected far worse.

Besides, how about respecting others? Everyone called him "Mr. President" at the healthcare summit while he addressed them by their first name. If this was an official setting, then he should have addressed them by their title, just as they were addressing him. Particularly since some of them are old enough to be his father, like McCain for example.

:eyes:

manage to have nothing but praise for the Clintons. Hmmm...

Which other Dem. president had a Repub. shout "YOU LIE" or anything else during a SOTU speech? Which other Dem. president was considered by a large group of people not to be an American? Which other Dem. president had calls of impeachment for NO valid reason? I could go on, but I won't waste my time. You obviously still haven't gotten over the primaries.

To receive respect one must give it too. There was a dissonance in hearing an older man like McCain calling Obama by his title while the much younger man kept calling him "John". I certainly don't care for McCain's politics, but it still didn't seem right.

As for Wilson, the guy is a jerk. There's no argument there.

may not like it, but Obama out-ranks McCain. And with all the things McCain has said to and about Obama, I couldn't care less if it "didn't seem right" to you. The president was calling the others there by their first names for any number of legitimate reasons, including wanting to look friendly to them. I'm sure if any of them asked him to call them "Senator," he would've. Just like, I would hope, they would stop using the term the "Democrat Party" which is VERY disrespectful.

Read the non LW blogs and the newspapers. Obama may outrank any senator, but calling someone by their proper title would not diminish him, quite the contrary.

The RW refuses to call the Democratic party by such name because they want to show their disdain, but that is another topic altogether.

;-)

A 19-year old Lieutenant can call a 50-year old Private by his first or last name or by his rank, but that Private has to call the Lt. "sir." Know why? Regardless of the age difference, that 19-year Lieutenant OUTRANKS that Private. It doesn't matter if the two of them are in an official capacity or at the grocery store (though things do get more informal at grocery stores.)

It is the exact same thing with the President and members of Congress. Your ridiculous attempts to find fault and criticize President Obama for EVERYTHING are tedious and tired to the extreme. Everyone is so damn sick of it. First he "used a teleprompter" then he "bowed to low" to the Japanese emperor, now you have the nerve to try to pretend that your criticisms of his calling members of Congress by their first names are legitimate and not part of this idiotic need you have to tear him down EVERY SINGLE CHANCE that you get. Please, for God's sake just STOP.

The difference with the military is that it's not a democracy, ranking rules. Any president needs some support from the other side, so it behooves him to appear cordial and equanimous in certain situations like the HC summit. The end result was that the punditry and some of the newspapers brought up the word "arrogant" over and over. Strategically speaking, it would have been better not to have said "I'm president" and to have called the others there by their title. It would have made him appear the bigger and better person and shown the Republicans to be petty and small minded.

Perceptions.........

;-)

The President outranks EVERYBODY. Deal with it.

And I'll "calm down" the millisecond you stop hating on this President.

I just think that he was not the best qualified candidate for these difficult times and I'm far from being the only one who thinks so. Knowing how to navigate around the shark tank that is Washington takes time. Experience does matter in life.

:shrug:

you would be "far from being the only one who thinks" that too. Damn sure doesn't mean that's even close to being right.

post is ignorant.

Obama promised things during his campaign and has/is doing the opposite while in power. That is lying.

Obama's time in office has made clear to me that a black person in a position of power has to work twice as hard (at least) in order to get the same level of respect and credit.

always referred to as Hillary?

Aren't the media always creating scandals out of nothing issues whenever they can to boost their ratings?

It isn't racism just because it happens when a black man is in office...nor more than it is sexism when a woman is running for president...

We don't get to cherry pick. Face it..the majority of Americans voted in an African American man...and that includes white Americans.

"pals around with terrorists" and other nasty lies. Hillary WANTED to be called "Hillary." Her signs said, "Hillary for President," "Hillary '08," etc.

Nobody created a scandal here. It's a fact that there are those who use code words to express their hatred of a Black president. He did nothing to deserve the charge of being "arrogant." He's president and happens to be intelligent-much more so than our LAST president. And those who "want their country back" and call Obama names are doing so because they can't stand the thought of a Black man having such a high "rank" in this country.

Comments about their age, hair, bodies, make-up, clothes, etc. have nothing to do with their experience, capabilities and intellect. So yes, some comments were sexists and some criticisms of Obama are racists, but to make a blanket statement as the Op made that no other president has been disrespected as much as Obama is inaccurate. Come to think of it, how much did we respect Bush?

;(

We made so much noise, fortunately, that their unfunny little joint column was cancelled.

According to Media Matters, Chris Matthews has called her "witchy," a "strip-teaser," and a "she-devil."

For which they later had to apologize. I wonder how well it would have gone for them if they had used the "N" word on Obama........

Disrespecting women is nothing new. Read this article, the comments are very interesting.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/28/mary-hillary-clinton-betrayed-in-the-end-by-senate-boys-c/

This certainly isn't the DU of yesterday.I remember when real issues were discussed.

All you need to do is perform a search on UCSD.

One poster in particular led on it.Originally the UCSD story was unrecced.

it all by themselves.

He's a victim of his own rhetoric. If he would only walk the walk the left would continue to be his most ardent supporters.