Clay Cutten (Public Viewpoint, May 30) is correct that not all criticism of President Obama is racially motivated. Liberals as well as conservatives do criticize specific policies and actions. However, the kind of global criticism that implies Obama can't do one thing right, that attacks him for taking vacations and trying to keep fit (even as most other presidents have done), or that invents ludicrous conspiracies about his birth and education, is something else.
This kind of demonizing is new in my experience, and I've been a voting citizen for 60 years. The nature of this unrelenting, almost hysterical criticism strongly suggests racial prejudice.
The claim that Obama is the worst president we've ever had is contradicted by repeated surveys of historians and political analysts, whose lists of the 10 worst presidents usually include G.W. Bush and Warren Harding along with some 19th century presidents--but not Obama. Several other historical presidents had no more elected experience than Obama did before attaining the presidency. Herbert Hoover had never held any elected office.
Cutten refers to Obama's refusal to negotiate in last year's debt ceiling debate -- after Senate Republicans had refused 19 times over a six-month period to hold conferences to negotiate the issue. In his first term Obama did negotiate repeatedly with Republicans -- on a couple of occasions liberals thought he gave away too much. The Republican idea of political negotiation often looks more like extortion, or a demand to surrender.
A lot of people don't seem to get the concept of international diplomacy to prevent wars. Cutten attacks negotiating with Iran because it is an adversary. But countries including ours have always negotiated with other nations that look like enemies or have been enemies. Would somebody please read some history books?
Cutten repeats the boilerplate that Southerners left the Democratic Party because it became too liberal and socialist. So when did they become more liberal than FDR? Coincidentally, the exodus began after the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.
Could Cutten please provide examples of how the Democratic Party has become representative of the Hollywood and academic elite? How would this explain why a majority of the nation's voters elected President Obama for two presidential terms?
Let me close by saying that I vote Green whenever I can, and am no yellow-dog Democrat. Also I don't like Obama's economic team, which is the same as G.W. Bush's team, nor the drone war, and I think we should have left Afghanistan much earlier. In other words, one can criticize the president without fitting him with horns and a pitchfork. I think history will judge him in the top fourth of presidents.
Coralie Koonce
Fayetteville
Commentary on 06/10/2014