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PrintApril 28, 2011
Trump Smells a Rat. Williams Smells a Racist
Juan Williams says that it is hard not to see a pattern in the questions Trump raises about Obama. Juan characterizes the issues raised by Trump as showing that Trump thinks the president is not smart enough to write his own book, he is not smart enough to get into Harvard, and he spends his time playing basketball. "The pattern sure looks racial, smells racial, and invites Whoopi to call a spade a spade."
Let's put the shoe on the other foot. Let us presume that Obama were white and that Juan had serious doubts about his character and policies. Let us say that he further thought that if Obama won a second term that it would be injurious to America economically, politically and socially. Would he go after his character? If he thought that there was some doubt about the legality of his candidacy, would he bring that up and make an issue of it? If he thought that there was something fishy about his getting into Columbia and Harvard with poor grades at Occidental, would he bring that up? Would he at least demand that Obama make his records public like every other candidate? Would that make Juan a racist?
The point is that most "birthers", who think that Obama is a slick talking crypto-Marxist with a distain for America, would go after Obama if he were white. Now maybe Obama is a pragmatist and a sincere champion of America as a force for good in the world and the birthers are all wrong. That makes them wrong. It doesn't make them racist. And it doesn't make Trump a racist. Trump smells a rat. Trump has dealt with a lot of duplicitous sneaks in the business world and he smells a rat. Ok. He just smells something fishy.
On the other hand if following one's suspicions and trying to find out what is going on behind Obama's sealed records to get the measure of the man makes one a racist - if being skeptical and deciding dig deeper into an issue to avoid being blindsided is racist - then fine, being a racist is a compliment.
