Just Asking

By now, the entire population of at least one planet knows that the New York Post printed a "racist" cartoon last week which, it is charged, likened President Obama to a chimpanzee. The racism hustlers like Al Sharpton have been operating at full boil, and there continue to be demonstrations and calls for the cartoonist and editor to be fired.

I only heard about the cartoon from a TV report on the controversy, which means that I could not see it "fresh" so to speak. But I think I would have taken it literally: this was a satirical jab at the stimulus package by a right wing paper, and it condemned everyone connected with the bill. I would not have seen a racist subtext which pointed to the President. After all, it was Congress that actually "wrote" the bill, or at least wrote more of it than Obama did. You might even say that people who actually read that imaginary message were seeing a "missing link" (sorry).

But truth is irrelevant to this mob. Even Julian Bond, nobody's idea of a showboat, pushed the wacky (and potentially dangerous) suggestion that it was an implied call to assassinate the President.

But something else is missing here, and it relates to why I haven't heard any public figure or anyone in the media mention it at all. The most glaring omission in this entire brouhaha is the President's own reaction to the cartoon. After all, he is the one who is supposed to be offended. Why has'nt he made a public comment? And, much more important, why has nobody asked him what he thinks?

I think I know why. It is because the power groups that feed off of our cultural divisions, including the media, are afraid of what he might say. By now, we are pretty confident that someone as practiced in "togetherness" jargon as Obama would rephrase the conflict into something that would be so bland that nobody would be guilty of anything! And yes, that even includes the New York Post!

A circle of protection has formed around the President. Racism is simply too profitable a product to lose, and public outrage is one of its biggest moneymakers. President Obama threatens "white guilt" peddlers like Sharpton because his soothing academic demeanor is a real buzzkill. Instead, better to let the self-appointed guardians of their race speak for him. You can be sure they never asked his permission.