Alternative title: "presidential race." More clever, but I figured no one would read it.
I've heard the concern several times, usually from white liberals. They fear for Obama's safety. Some crackpot redneck racist is going to take a shot at him, they say, as if presidents aren't already stalked by countless legions of terrorists and crackpots and thus could somehow be in more danger. Okay, so instead of merely 4 million people lining up to kill the U.S. president, there's 5.
More interesting to me is that these folks never for a minute stop thinking of Obama as a black president. Whether it's talking about how enlightened we look to the world for electing a person of color, or talking about the historical momentousness of his election, or whether it's, yes, these racist crackpots clinging to their guns, race is always at the forefront. And perhaps this should be so. Perhaps our country has reached a point where we're so weary of the strains of racism and we're going to deal with them overtly.
I'll bet five bucks against. Any takers?
New presidents enjoy about a 200-day honeymoon. Sometimes it's less. Clinton was carved up immediately, as was W., until 9/11 anyway. Sooner or later, though, every president is publicly hatcheted. They're viciously mocked. They're blamed for things that presidents do not control. We love us a scapegoat.
I watch with interest to see how race affects this. Minority readers are probably thinking the nastiness is already more intense. White liberal readers are probably thinking it will be only white racists who so indulge. White conservative readers? They're thinking "I daren't open my mouth." Me, I think all of the above.
Think back to the early days of Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43. The popular ridicule of their early presidencies was, in order, he's inarticulate, he's a philandering horndog, he's a moron. Now imagine the reaction in the press if anyone said such things about Obama. They'd skip right over the obvious—him? huh? how so?—and launch right into a competition to see who could breathlessly use the r-word most often in their coverage.
That's an extreme example, but I think it's what we can expect. Can we mock a black president in 2008 America? No, certainly not. But I also fear we're not mature enough to fairly criticize him, and that would be a shame.