LAST WEEK PRESIDENT OBAMA made a surprise 20-minute speech during the regular White House news conference. His appearance seemed to be a surprise even to Press Secretary Jay Carney, as it certainly was to the press. The president explained that he felt compelled to speak following the verdict in the George Zimmerman case, because it the acquittal had become of paramount interest to the American public, and especially the African-American community.
The president went on to explain, often in a halting manner, how he felt, as an African American himself, about the verdict. Outwardly it appeared to be a relatively proper effort to explain his thoughts on the matter. In reality, what the president went on to do during that 20-odd minutes was basically exacerbate the matter. By making it personal — as he all too often does — he simply made it worse.
This president has a very annoying habit of jumping into this type of situation in a clearly biased manner. He has done it several times now. Just as annoying is his failure to step in and comment at times where such presidential interjection would have been appropriate, or even necessary. Unfortunately, this man marches to his own drumbeat, and he has no concept of correct cadence.
Barack Obama appeared not to be concerned that his views on the Zimmerman trial were hardly called for, especially when it reflected an obviously biased viewpoint. I know there are some among my readers who might find this to be a somewhat antagonistic viewpoint, but folks, if you examine that short speech you cannot in all honesty fail to see how the president had already convicted George Zimmerman in his own mind.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the president’s job performance rating has plummeted 10-15 points in solidly blue California in the last six months, an across-the-board decline that is steepest among his most fervent backers. A bare majority of California voters, just 52 percent, now approve of Obama’s record in office, with 35 percent holding no opinion, according to the poll of 846 registered voters.
The poll, like many others released in recent weeks, shows Obama has suffered the biggest erosion in support among his core supporters, including women, whose approval of the president has dropped a whopping 15 percent in the same period. The same poll, however, shows the majority of Californians — 57 percent — still view Obama in a favorable light, a figure that has remained steady since February. Yet the president’s approval rating in the Bay Area, one of the strongest Democratic bastions in the country, is down nine points to 60 percent.
But folks, among African-American voters, the support for the president remains steady at 65%. That number needs no explanation. That sort of loyalty is exactly why this president goes out of his way to comment publicly on such a flashpoint issue. It is why he risked the negative reaction he has in fact received from this latest intrusion into affairs well outside the White House purview. No other group in the nation supports this man like the black community, and there should be no surprise that he would acknowledge that loyalty in such a way.
Yet in doing this, he has revealed to the rest of the nation just how far he is willing to go to maintain the positive support of the black community.
Barack Obama is clearly selective in his in views on race. He appears to choose to be black when it suits his purpose, not so much when it doesn’t. When you look at his life on the whole, you discover that Mr. Obama has spent the greater part of it surrounded by a great number of influential white people. One of his parents was white, as were two of his grandparents. Mr. Obama was never around his father enough to know him or the rest of his family in Kenya. It was not until he began college that he was exposed in any way to the black community, and not until he moved to Chicago and got married that he became involved and part of that community.
The president became a black man only as an adult. For a great deal of his early adolescence, I don’t believe he actually knew who he was — but as an adult he chose to be black. It was obviously a good choice for him. I am not so sure it was for this country.
History will tell. But it does make one wonder if the president would have been so outspoken had the Zimmerman trial concluded during his second campaign last year. That is something to think about.
Jim Pugh is a Benicia resident.
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What a disgusting, racist post.
Yeah…as Obama was growing up, I’m sure everyone he encountered would say…well, he hasn’t been exposed much to his father, so I’ll consider him white. So, he must not have any idea of what the black experience in America is like.
Obama didn’t come out as pro- or anti-Zimmerman. He said he accepted the verdict and left it at that. But, in a time of continued facial misunderstandings, he could offer life experiences to add context to the situation.
Many conservatives have applauded Obama’s comments. The only ones I’ve seen condemn it are the those that push hate for ratings like Faux/Limbaugh/Beck. Racists like Pugh are their target audience.
So sorry to see a blatant racist like Pugh resides in our community. This was simply disgraceful.
I am not a racist nor is Jim Pugh. I fully agree with his article. But at the same time I do know there will those that disagree and will go way over the edge and take the easy way out. Just call Jim and anyone who agrees with this article a racist. I take that term very serious and resent anyone calling me a racist. I do believe some will and I will be prepared to counter with some very harsh statements. I do not want to do that. So lets all be careful how we use words. Calling someone a racist is a very harsh statement.
How about Sharpton, Jackson, Holder and a few others which could include President Obama. They have one thing in common. I would never call them racist because I do not believe they are. But they are not helping this very terrible issue. Just what would you call them jill or is it real american or Benician. I guess we will never know till you tell us your true name Just an opinion like all other comments, just an opinion.
When did Jim Pugh become a white man?
Excellent piece, Jim–one of the most objective and insightful you’ve written. Benician and Petersen need to get some education and read Thoma Sowell’s book titled “Black Rednecks and White Liberals.”
Good comment. I will take the heat, so go right ahead and blow off your steam against a very fine article. The Forum page is an opinion page for writers to write an article. At the same time they attach their name and picture to the article. I would hope the folks that comment would all have the courage to attach their full name to their comments. I do know that we know who some are that attach only letters or single name tags. I take no political sides on this issue. I believe all should attach their name to their comments. Lets now see who has the courage to stand by their comment with their name. Bob Livesay
Thanks for the random book recommendation Bruce. Nothing biased about Thomas Sowell’s perspective, right? I believe “get some education” should be rephrased as “get some indoctrination”.
It’s funny how comments here can get sidetracked within milliseconds.
Optimistherb has his opaque glasses on backwards and upside down, as usual.
Jim,
Thanks for having the courage to write on this subject, one which is not getting the attention that it should. Too many of those who reside in this country are petrified to discuss race relations, for fear of being falsely labeled; ‘racist’. The truculent fashion in which this phrase has been used has become more than simply tiresome, it has become too predictable, and like the boy who cried wolf, is now equally as ineffective.
One of the (very few) reasons for optimism when 0bama was elected was the potential for the role he could play in improving race relations. He being of mixed race and raised in a primarily white upper middle class world (his Mother’s parents, educated at exclusive Punahou School) 0Bama was well placed to bridge the divide.
Unforunately he has increased the divide through his actions, as well as those of the DOJ and others.
Here is a poll of interest which serves as confirmation:
Poll: Race relations have plummeted since Obama took office
Gee…what could POSSIBLY have happened since Obama was elected to negatively impact race relations? Hmmm…wasn’t it the core of one political party that shouted until hoarse….
1) Obama’s a Muslim!
2) Obama’s a Kenyan!
3) Obama’s a Nazi!
4) Where’s the birth certificate!
5) Barack the Magic Negro!
6) You lie!
The base of the Republican Party, which you so tightly align yourself to, has been disgraceful. The sheer hatred for they’ve expressed for our President since Day 1 is despicable. But, it’s all Obama’s fault, isn’t it? I expected nothing but continued ignorance from you, DDL. Thanks for refusing to disappoint me.
According to the poll:
58 percent African-Americans now believe race relations are very or fairly bad
compared with 2009, when only 30 percent of blacks held an unfavorable view.
Curiously unique numbers. Tough to imagine that Republicans can hold such a sway over the black populace.
So, when the GOP does their race-baiting, it’s only finds its way to a GOP audience? Really? None of it finds its way to a black audience, eh? I don’t suppose it has anything to do with people like Beck saying that Obama has a deep-seated hatred for white people…never mind Obama was raised by a white mother and later by white grandparents. Do you think quotes like that escape the black audience? What about states run by the GOP that attempt to limit minorities ability to vote? That has no influence?
Nor could it be the Republican congress doing all it can to ensure the rich get richer while the poor get poorer? No influence there, either?
Nah…none of this can be true. It must be Obama’s ‘hate whitey’ message. Yeah, that’s it. As you blame Obama for anything and everything…sure, why not?
I think your comment is very interesting. I would like to see further evidence of Republican race baiting. By the way Beck is not a Republican.
And you blame Obama for this rather than his covertly racist enemies?
Robert if they are secret how do you know he has that type of enemy? Just curious. I hope you can help us all out with this secret list. But then again it would not be secret would it.
His enemies are not all secret but many conceal their racism, often unsuccessfully. A list would take all night and tomorrow.
General Jim Pugh once again amazes us with his ability to deny the President the right to personal views expressed in the venues available to him that General Pugh reserves for himself and ardently practices. The pugilistic gentleman, General Pugh, once again displays hubristic self-blindness so glaringly obvious to any fairly balanced reader as nearly to defy belief. But, we must believe it, because that is his stock-in-trade on which we can always rely. Air-Admiral Pugh invariably projects his contemptuous bias upon the President as on all mere mortals not himself and upon any tainted with the dangerously open outlook of Liberals or the people-serving wishes of Progressives. In his view, sociability and empathy are Socialist devices aimed at depriving him of his portfolio and all properties and profits he hopes to leave his posterity. He doesn’t care that every cent he draws from carbon-fuel investment starves an infant in Africa by contributing to desertification of the globe. His heirs can fly to another planet far away where they can start the processes of ruination all over again. The more I read of Mister Pugh’s warlike representations, the more I know he is my enemy and a death to civilization. If this post disappears, I’ll take steps.
Obama is not all we wished, but his heart is in the right place. His head, unfortunately, is surrounded by a lot of hard bastards who totally believe their own fancy acts. Were he in D.C. at the White House,, Massa Jim would be one of them.
Robert Shelby this was an opinion article written by Jim Pugh. No one has any problem if anyone does not agree with the article. You do not agree with the article. But to attack Jim Pugh personally with remarks like “General, Air-Amiral” and other remarks that have nothing to do with the article. I do not think your comment will disappear. It should stay up so the folks can see just what Robert Shelby is all about. By the way how do you take action? Very interesting.
The author of the above piece asks the question: Where are we now? Good question.
Speaking truth to power….
This excerpt and the article below, gives the community more to consider.
Beyond some standard chest-pounding in which he claimed to be upset about how the super rich are getting at the expense of “the middle class” (the terms “working class” and “lower class” are beyond the parameters of acceptable discourse in the U.S.), Obama offered nothing to suggest that he will make any serious effort to diverge from his longstanding service to the deep pockets masters of corporate and high finance America. He made: no call for a major public works program to end the scourge of mass unemployment, rebuild the nation’s rutting infrastructure, and save livable ecology; no call to break up or nationalize the nation’s leading “too-big-too fail” and expanding banks and financial institutions; no call to restore the disastrously repealed Glass-Steagal separation between commercial and investment banking; no call for raising the minimum wage to a reasonably adequate $15 an hour; no call for the restoration of union organization rights (as included in the forgotten Employee Free Choice Act); no call for the federal rescue of endangered public worker pensions in Detroit and other U.S. cities; no call for serious progressive taxation of the nation’s super rich, who sit atop the most unequal and wealth-top-heavy nation in the industrialize world (its level of disparity more comparable to Latin America and Africa than to Western Europe and Japan); no call for a financial transactions tax to provide funding for the expansion of poor people’s nutrition or schooling or medical care; no call to re-negotiate NAFTA and other investor rights “free trade” bills to include meaningful labor and environmental protections; no call for expansion of the food stamps program (SNAP); no call for the public financing of elections to temper plutocracy; no call to remember the populist and egalitarian yearnings of the Occupy Movement, which he helped destroy with a coordinated federal campaign of repression even as he opportunistically stole its rhetoric for electoral deployment against “Mr. 1%” Mitt Romney; no call for the equalization of school funding.
There was NO call, really, for anything that would contribute significantly to rolling back the savage inequalities of the current Second Gilded Age in America. The president did, however, make sure to indicate he will resume his Wall Street-approved campaign to downwardly adjust Social Security and Medicare in the name of “deficit reduction” – and in defiance of technically irrelevant majority public opinion.
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-obama-disgrace-deepens-by-paul-street
Will I would guess you are not an Obama fan. You never cease to amaze me.
Will, I fear you are right, but would suggest a president has to be very careful to seem cooperative to the real power brokers around him. He wants to live though his term and keep his family safe. Life is fragile.