When a majority of voters elected the first African-American to the highest office in the land, one would have thought it was a positive sign that racism had been dealt a serious blow. After all, without millions of whites voting for Barack Obama he would have had no chance of being elected president. John McCain, his white opponent, lost the race, even though the overwhelming majority of voters are white. Hence, if racism were as prevalent as some race-baiters proclaim, President McCain would be occupying the White House right now. Furthermore, given the fact that approximately 96% of blacks voted for the black candidate, we could make the argument that blacks are the racists in this country. Yet, most fair-minded people, me included, didn't try to make that argument because it wasn't hard to understand the motives of blacks, having dealt with a history of discrimination, favoring the first of their race with a serious chance of becoming Chief Executive. Although I voted for McCain because I believe his service to the country merited his ascension, when Obama was elected I felt it was a good sign that we had achieved a milestone in race relations.
Apparently, others thought of it as a way to silence opposition to the new president's agenda. The Machiavellians in our midst have concluded that most whites are too afraid of being labeled racist; hence they would meekly submit to anything said or done by the first black Commander in Chief. Consequently, when thousands of Americans attend town hall meetings across the country and marches in Washington to protest what appears to be a government power grab that is unprecedented in the history of our nation, they are labeled racists by the cunning cynics on the left.
When Jimmy Carter (unquestionably the worst president in modern history) said that opposition to Obama was based on racial bias, he was using a tactic to stifle debate. It's a tactic that has been abused to the point of being laughable. If opposition to a president was based on the darkness of his skin, George W. Bush would have been the blackest president in the history of this, or any country. Not a single day went by that Bush wasn't pummeled by the liberal elite. Every utterance was parsed and ridiculed; every move he made was subjected to mockery by late night comics and leftwing radicals.
While standing up under a constant bombardment of calumny from every wacko on the other side of the political spectrum, Bush had no choice but to take it and continue to do his best to protect this country. He didn't have a cadre of supporters claiming that he was being heckled because of his skin color. The plain fact is that Obama is taking a lot of criticism and losing support because of his liberal policies, not because of his epidermal pigmentation. Nevertheless, his acolytes would have us believe that any disagreement with him indicates bigotry. If the day ever comes that a president is impervious to criticism, we'll know we've become a dictatorship. Whenever the race card is used, it reminds me of a poker player who, every time he has a losing hand, will deftly slip an ace from his sleeve as he cheats his opponents with a sly grin and scoops up the pot. Those who want to allow this government more control over our lives are finding out that they have a losing hand. Hence, like the card shark, they pull out the race ace in an attempt to steal this country.
It's difficult to defend against a charge of racism because it's like trying to prove a negative. For example, X must be true because there's no proof that X is false. So, if you're called a bigot, even though there's no evidence to back it up, it puts you on the defensive, as if you have to prove you didn't do something, simply because someone said you did. It is a despicable tactic because it besmirches the memory of all those people, of every race, who fought and died in the struggle against actual racism. To his credit, President Obama has rejected the race card cheats, but, that's unlikely to stop them from inventing more devious ways to equate the success of his presidency with some fanciful, color-coded distortion of the issues. In the meantime, it's important that we don't get distracted by this obvious canard. With an economy in distress, soldiers fighting for freedom around the world and a healthcare debacle threatening to tear us apart, we can't afford to allow intimidation tactics to keep people from voicing their opinions. It's bad enough that this bloated, rapacious government takes more than half of everything we earn; let's not allow them to muzzle us too.
Bob Weir is a former detective sergeant in the New York City Police Department. He is the executive editor of The News Connection in Highland Village, Texas. Email Bob. 
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