"Guess Who's in the White House"

On April 1, a USA Today/Gallup Poll indicated that President Barack Obama had a job approval rating of 44%, while 50% of those polled said he should not be re-elected as President. The poll also indicated that 26% said that he deserved "a great deal" of the blame for the state of the economy, while 42% said President Bush did.

About two months before the USA Today/Gallup Poll, President Bush had given a speech before a Republican gathering and had said with an air of confidence: "I left office with my values in tact," which drew a round of applause. His statement was incomplete. It should have concluded with the words, "and with the country in a big mess."

That mess included an annual federal budget deficit of $1.3 trillion, a projected federal deficit of $8 trillion over the next ten years, owing to tax cuts, mainly to the wealthy that the Bush administration did not pay for, a nearly trillion dollar prescription drug bill for the pharmaceutical industry not paid for, and the loss of $3 trillion in federal revenue owing to the recession.

The recession was also part of the mess, as was a huge fall in stock market shares, a loss of 750,000 jobs a month, and over 8,000,000 jobs lost, a collapsing corporate financial system, two major automobile manufacturers, General Motors and Chrysler, on the verge of going under, and America's image in the world at low ebb.

President Bush walked away from the audience he spoke to clutching a fantasy. And President Obama stepped into office with an overload of huge problems. He also quickly learned that the Republicans in Congress had decided, under their House and Senate leadership, to do whatever they could to make him fail as President.

That included vigorously opposing his legislative agenda; in the Senate, holding up scores of his appointments to cripple the functioning of his administration, and using the filibuster an unprecedented number of times- - to date, 113 times- - to delay, thwart, and to suppress legislation that the House sent to the Senate that would advance the President and the Democratic Party's agenda.

Republicans in the Congress decided not to be the party of "loyal opposition", but the "party of no," the "party of extreme partisanship," and the "party of obstruction." Republicans in the Senate are presently holding up 293 bills that the House has passed and sent to their chamber.

All that has been described has been placed heavily upon the shoulders of President Obama. It should be taken into account when considering how to rate his job performance. The other matters to take into account are the things he achieved during the sixteen months he has been in office.

But before revealing that, I want to preface that discussion by recalling the plot to the movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" directed by Stanley Kramer which starred Spencer Tracey, Katherine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, and Hepburn's niece.

The plot was the following. The parents, played by Tracey and Hepburn, were to be confronted with the fact that their daughter, played by Hepburn's niece, was going to marry a Black man, played by Sidney Poitier. The plot called for the parents to reject the marriage simply because the fiance was a Black man.

This could be the only reason, because the fiance was tall and handsome, had stellar personal qualities, was well educated, well spoken, and was an internationally famous medical doctor and author. In the end, the parents transcended their racial biases and were able to accept the marriage.

Now back to the political situation at hand, that of President Obama's low job rating and a wish that he not be re-elected. Given what he has achieved over a period of sixteen months, these negative views seem clearly to be related to the phrase: "Guess Who's in the White House."

The following are some of the things that President Obama has achieved sixteen months into his administration:

Within 3 1/2 weeks of it and aided by the Democratic Party in Congress, he got a $780billion Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed to deal with the recession and massive unemployment. The Act included giving 95% of working families a tax cut.

After 16 months, and also aided by the Federal Reserve, the President has halted the recession, gotten the American economy back into growth, has elevated the stock market from 6500 points to over 11,000, that has helped to recover and protect 401ks, and retirement and pension funds. Unemployment has been stabilized at 9.7%, and in March of this year, 162,000 new jobs were created.

The President and his economic team were put in charge of managing the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Plan (or TARP) to bail out or to salvage 18 of the largest banks in the country, to keep the corporate financial system from collapsing. This was done successfully, which included spending only half the TARP funds, getting the banks to pay back most of what had been borrowed, and with the government and taxpayers making a profit. The President also:

Saved both General Motors and Chrysler, holding out a future of millions of jobs that are related to auto manufacturing.

Signed the ESCHIP legislation that extended health care to 11 million children.

Signed a bill that outlawed cigarette advertising targeting children.

Signed a bill to guarantee women equal pay for equal work.

Put a Supreme Court Justice on the high bench.

Signed a bill to give educational benefits to veterans.

Passed and signed comprehensive health care reform legislation that seven previous Presidents had failed to pass. According to the Congressional Budget Office this health care reform legislation will reduce the Federal deficit by $138 billion over ten years and $1.2 trillion over two decades, which will represent the largest deficit reduction legislation ever passed in the country.

Passed and signed an education reform bill that will save $68 billion over ten years by having the government issue student loans and not the banks, and that will allow the government to invest more money directly into American education.

Lowered 25 different taxes for Americans.

Invested $3.4 billion in developing the electric smart grid to expand this form of energy in the country's future.

Proposed a comprehensive climate change and energy independence bill that was passed by the House, and that Republicans are stalling in the Senate.

Proposed comprehensive corporate financial reform legislation that was passed by the House, that Republicans in the Senate initially sought to kill, but which they now, under Presidential and public pressure, seem willing to join Democrats in that body in passing.

Received the Nobel Prize for Peace on the assumption made by the judges that he would make the world safer and more peaceful. The President is earning that prize. He got the Russian President Dimitry Medvedev to sign a START agreement to reduce each country's nuclear stockpiles.

Since the USA Today/Gallup Poll, the President assembled 46 world leaders in Washington, D.C., who all signed a pledge to secure lose nuclear material within four years. Russia agreed to destroy 34 tons of plutonium, which could help to make 17,000 nuclear weapons.

Ordered hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments to grant hospital visitation rights to same-sex partners, and to allow gay men and lesbians to make decisions regarding the medical treatment of their partners.

As can be seen, President Obama has done a number of important things during his sixteen months in office (some of which are also achievements of the Democratic Party). One can see how his approval rating could and should be much higher than 44%, and it is mysterious to say the least that 50% in the USA Today/Gallup Poll would not want him to be re-elected.

Are we witnessing responses that could be related to a distressing thought for many Americans, and that would help to explain why President Obama has not been given proper credit for what he has achieved, and why many insist that he has not served the country well? These peculiar reactions seem clearly to be related to the phrase: "Guess who's in the White House?"

The Political Lynching of President Obama

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2008 has sent the Republican Party into a hysterical tailspin. This party has been considerably anti Black since the early 1980s and has its base among Whites in the eleven states of the former Southern Confederacy, who are the Republicans primarily in this tailspin.

The cry that shoots up from this element, and from other Republicans, found in the Mid-West and West, is that Obama has to fail as President! These elements are relying upon the Republicans in Congress to do whatever they can to make him fail. Feeling charged with this task, they have formed themselves into a political lynch mob in this body and have been engaging in actions to try to achieve this objective that amount to a political lynching of the President.

The Republicans in Congress have been against virtually everything that the President has proposed and sent to Congress for discussion and legislation. They have engaged in the tactics of saying "no" of "no show" for legislative committee meetings, of being obstructionists (rather than the party of the loyal opposition), and of being against bi-partisan political action.

In the U.S. Senate, Republicans have used the rules of that body to delay, thwart, or prevent legislation from being discussed or passed, or as a means to try to kill legislation, or to block Administration appointments. They have used the filibuster to date 112 times, something wholly unprecedented in American political history, to try to do all of the things mentioned.

The filibuster has always been an undemocratic political device, and is not to be found in the discussion of the Senate in the Constitution. It permits a single Senator, or an elected numerical minority of Senators, to dominate, thwart, or prevent an elected majority of Senators from passing policies or laws. It also allows less populated states to have a greater voice in the chamber than large populated states.

Why is this anti-democratic, dictatorial political device permitted to continue?

And yet the present situation in Washington, D.C. where the Republican Party in Congress is pitted against the President in such a confrontational manner is not wholly unprecedented. It is to be recalled what occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Walter White, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, went to the White House to ask President Roosevelt to get Congress to pass an anti-lynching bill.

Roosevelt told him that that was not something he would try to do even if he wanted to. He was concerned about the reaction of the southern white Democrats who controlled most of the important committees in the House and Senate. He said to White, as revealed in the latter's autobiography, A Man Called White: If I come out for the anti-lynching bill now, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can't take that risk.

In other words, as Roosevelt saw it, southern Whites in Congress and in southern states, would rather see the country collapse than have their ability--which they regarded as their inherent right--to dominate and control Blacks, and to be able to do with them or to them whatever they wished.

But even this kind of extreme behavior from southern Whites was not unprecedented and had a horrendous antecedent.

The eleven southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861 were willing to break up the Union, rather than see the U.S. government engage in action to end slavery in the region and the White domination, control, and gross economic exploitation of Blacks. This is another meaning to be assigned to the Confederate flag.

In 2009, it is Deja Vu once again. President Obama has proposed a major overhaul of the American health care system, climate change and energy independence policies and legislation, major educational reform, and effective regulation of the corporate financial sector that had recklessly plunged the country into a financial and economic mess. All of these things are important for the American people, the country, and the country's future.

But the Republicans in Congress are seeking to prevent this kind of legislative agenda from being passed and signed into law. They exhibit a lack of hesitation, conscience, and moral distress about inflicting possible catastrophic harm upon millions of Americans and the country, as long as they can prevent Obama from succeeding as President. This assertion cannot be put down to wild talk or baseless accusation. There are, as seen, historical precedents.

Including the recent instance of Deja Vu whereby southerners especially in the House and Senate were against Obama using federal funds to try to save Chrysler and General Motors, which are both important to the economy of the Mid-West. They permitted themselves to countenance the failure of these auto-makers and the hardships this would present to the people and economy of the region, if it meant that Obama would not have a political success.

So what is the primary motivation for trying to make Obama fail as President? Some pundits have said that the Republicans in Congress are seeking to weaken Democrats for the 2010 elections, and President Obama and the Democrats in the 2012 elections.

This view seems plausible, but it has little merit as Republican behavior in Congress results in the public giving the Republican Party low ratings in the polls.

Former President Jimmy Carter was closer in pinpointing the primary motivation for this incredibly extreme and reckless political behavior demonstrated by Republicans in Congress and without the government. He said it could be traced to the racist belief found among these hostile elements that a Black man should not be President of the United States.

This is a good answer, but it is one that has to be taken further to gain the full meaning of it.

The Presidency has become the last stronghold of white male dominance and exclusivity in American life, which has seen both features severely eclipsed over the past several decades.

The following used to be positions held exclusively by white men in the country, but are no longer: U.S. Senator and Representatives, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, UN Ambassador, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, U.S. Attorney General, governor, Lt. governor, state attorney general, mayor, police commissioner, fire commissioner, Fortune 500 corporate president or CEO, major college or university president, major foundation head, astronaut, NFL head coach, Major League baseball manager, NBA head coach, NFL quarterback, and other flight positions in the country.

But there was the office of President. That office was still held by a white man. It was still in the hands of the "proper" one to lead the country, who could establish and implement policies, legislative programs, and laws, and who could also build constituencies and galvanize people, institutions, and regions of the country to keep America the way it was "supposed" to be.

But the white male dominance and exclusivity in the White House, and the hoped for future this might provide, was taken away when Obama, a Black man, became President.

This loss and racist fear of the future has plunged many Republicans and the Republican Party itself into depths of irrational political thinking and political behavior.

For instance, electing a Black man, Michael Steele, to head up a political party that has been considerably anti-Black since the early 1980s. And thinking that this could be interpreted as something other than racist "tokenism".

Trying to convince themselves and trying to prove by forgeries that President Obama was not born in the United States and was not a citizen of the country.

Showing utter disdain for Obama as a human being, which is so telling.

Calling Obama, alternatively, fascist, Nazi, communist, marxist, socialist, terrorist, or jihadist, which are all euphemisms for what they would really like to call him publicly, but can't get away with doing so.

Endeavoring to silence or censor moderates or kick them out of the Party, fearing that they would be supportive of the President and his legislative agenda.

Believing that the minority Republican Party in Congress should be regarded, even by the Democrats, as the majority party in that body.

Seeking to build a party of ideological purity, that succeeds in alienating political independents and dividing the Republican Party and moving it to the edge of splitting into two parties: the Republican Party and the Southern White Party.

Virtually making bi-partisanship un-American and a form of political evil, while endeavoring at the same time, to make extreme partisanship American and a form of political good.

Wanting Republicans in Congress who do not seek to govern, to legislate, or to do the country's business. But to be "nay-sayers" to policies, programs, and laws, and who seek in any way possible to obstruct or sabotage the legislative process and paralyze the functioning of the Senate, and thus, of the U.S. government--to try to make Obama fail as President.

Believing that putting this kind of political face before the American electorate--as the "do-nothing" and "obstructionist" party--is the way to gain voters and donors for the Republican Party, and give it a viable future.

Politically lynching President Obama is the means that the anti-Obama Republicans in the Congress and without are using to try to win back the White House for a white male occupant, to get "their country" back, and as the means to "prove" that a Black person does not have the inherent capacity to be President of the United States.

We are told that they are honorable and fair-minded Republicans in the Senate, but they are all involved in this political lynching of the President. So what does this say? What would be the response of the Republican women in the Senate if the political lynching was of a female President? Would they participate in the lynching or be supportive of it?

Now that Democrats have lost their 60 votes in the Senate, it is to be expected that the Republicans will seek to step up their lynching of President Obama. They will not only require 60 votes for all significant policies and laws in the Senate, they will also reject or suppress policies, programs, or laws that the Democrats in the House send to the Senate. To date they have suppressed over 290 bills.

This is the political future that Republicans in Congress and without offer the American people, beginning with the Congressional elections of 2010. They envision this as assuring Obama's failure as President, and it also has them saying to the national government, the American people, America's relationship to the world, and the country's future: "You can all be damned!"