Obama 'Doesn't Think?'

I've had enough of white Americans disparaging President Barack Obama and feeling like they can get away with it because he's African-American.

In the latest episode of "let's see what we can call him now," the President has got Nevadans' panties in a bunch for daring insinuate that Las Vegas is a stupid place to spend your money (never mind that even Southwest Airlines attendants refer to it during their pre-flight patter as "Lost Wages," or that every movie about down-and-out losers convinced that life isn't worth living is set in Las Vegas). Or that Las Vegas truly represents everything that is despicable about American culture; there isn't a single activity in Las Vegas that isn't designed to part you from your money, that doesn't appeal to your lust for either cash or poontang, and isn't designed to replicate rather than enhance life (I'm thinking here of the the fake canals at the Venetian hotel).

I don't know anyone who's gone to Las Vegas on business who hasn't come back morbidly depressed. The reason they say "what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas" is they don't want anyone to know how stupid and miserable to feel for having gone there.

But no, the President isn't allowed to disparage Las Vegas, no more so than hick politicians can pick on Sin City (aka New York) with impunity. Whoops.

Even members of his own party, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are piling on the President, kowtowing not simply to their constituents, but the know-nothing, ignoramus, xenophobic portion of their electorate.

"The President needs to lay off Las Vegas and stop making it the poster child for where people shouldn't be spending their money," Reid said. "I would much rather tourists and business travelers spend their money in Las Vegas than spend it overseas."

Yeah, damn foreigners!

But at least foreigners have the courtesy of showing our President proper respect, even if he is Black. Unlike the Mayor of Las Vegas, who had the temerity to suggest that "this president is a real slow learner" and that sometimes, "he doesn't think."

Oh really. Informed persons would label the President anything but slow. But it seems no one needs to really be informed when spouting off insults about the President.

It's true that we live in a democracy, and that it's our right to criticize (and even insult) all of our elected officials -- and that we often do, often in unflattering ways. We jumped on Gerald Ford's uncharacteristic clumsiness with both feet, and on George W. Bush's malapropisms with alacrity. But there was a basic respect for the office underlying even the harshest criticism, and a sense that there were limits.

It's not just hate-mongering Rush Limbaugh who accuses the President of lying either; I watched Neil Cavuto do it during the closing moments of his show last Monday night.

It's easy to understand why so many people are angry at the President; he wants to change so many things and challenge their assumptions. From farm subsidies to gays in the military, the President is acting on as many fronts as he sees -- and doesn't seem to agree that he should take things one step at a time. He seems to see things as inter-related and complex, which is why he has addressed issues like:

- banking reform;
- reforming No Child Left Behind;
- college student loans;
- food safety;
- greenhouse gas emissions;
- federal lobbying regulations;
- unemployment and economic growth;
- corporate tax rates;
- torture;
- the Taliban;
- network neutrality;

and this is just the first year -- during which he accomplished quite a bit more than people would like to give him credit.

His ambition has opened him up to a lot of criticism, rightly or not. But the tone of that criticism is unlike any I've ever seen, and there's only one explanation for it. Whether it's a congressman from South Carolina, or a sitting Supreme Court Justice, or a congressman from Ohio holding up a sign in the Capitol building while the President is speaking, the fact is that white men are comfortable treating the President with a lack of respect because he's Black.

It makes me sick and, yes, ashamed of my country.