I remember way, waaaayyy, back, when Glen Beck was the hot new thing at Fox and he had jumped on the “tea party” bandwagon… and I linked to a midwestern (Indiana) “tea party” gathering (with video) in a bar/restaurant… which was filled with brown shirts which more than a little bit fit the stereotype of wanna-be nazis and klansmen. I’m not sure if anyone around here remembers that or not, but there were some protestations by a few that I had over-reached.

Around that time I had switched my avatar to the Obama one, because I thought the winds blowing at that time were pretty clearly racist. I think many other people knew that in 2007/2008 also, but there were hold-outs who refused to accept that a portion, perhaps a large portion, of the strong negative reaction to P.B.O. was racist in origins.

While I am critical of President Obama in his presidency, I felt and still feel that the bigger issue is the still-surviving social dynamic left over from the days of slavery and the War of the Rebellion, and in that regard what President Obama has been able to be is a mirror into the American soul.