Filed under: News, Politics, President Obama, Race and Civil Rights
Retired General Colin Powell says that critics of President Barack Obama have failed to critique him on the issues and have instead delved into "nonsense."
Powell, appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, said that "fringe" elements in this country are not dealing with the issues. Instead, the focus is on whether Obama was born in this country and whether he is a Muslim or really a Christian.
"Let's not go down low. ... Let's attack him on policy, not nonsense," Powell said.
Powell is right.
If you disagree with Obama's stance on health care, fine, we can talk about it. If you disagree with his plans for an economic stimulus, let's get a cup of coffee.
But if you spout the Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck nonsense about Obama not being a Christian and not being born in this country, then lose my number.
The tales about Obama not being born in this country are not based on fact and has been proven to be untrue. The last time I checked, to profess faith in Jesus Christ was one of the main requirements of calling yourself a Christan. I've heard Obama do that.
The latest nonsense to come out about Obama is that he was influenced by his Kenyan father's anti-colonial thinking. Dinesh D'Souza offered up a ridiculous and profoundly unprofound assesment of Obama's thinking in a recent Forbes cover story. D'Souza wrote:
It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.
Gingrich jumped on D'Souza's assessment of Obama like a hungry dog would a piece of red meat:
"What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" former House Speaker and potential Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said. "That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."
Uh, Obama met his dad once, when he was a child. What scares me is that Newt Gingrich can publicly spout this nonsense while having an actual shot at being our next president.
Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post reported that the Columbia Journalism Review called D'Souza's article a "fact-twisting, error-laden piece of paranoia" and "the worst kind of smear journalism - a singularly disgusting work."
"I think it represents a new low," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
While I applaud Powell's comments, he didn't go far enough in explaining why the 'fringe' is in such an uproar about Obama.
The answer: They still haven't come to grips with the skin color of the guy sitting in the Oval Office.
Unfortunately, in America, it still boils down to race. The fringe element that Powell speaks about knows that they can scare a certain percentage of Americans with a brand of xenophobia based on the fact that Obama is black.
The idea that Obama is different lighted an easy path to the slippery slope of the president being a non-American Muslim who wants to overthrow the government he now heads. Many Americans rejected that idea when they voted for Obama. Those same folk need to step up and reject the nonsense now.