To the Editor:
Re “Boy, Oh Boy,” by Maureen Dowd (column, Sept. 13): Finally someone has said what I believe many Americans have been thinking since the start of the town hall meetings.
Do you think that if Barack Obama were white and his name were, say, Barry O’Shea, the streets and town halls of this country would be as crowded with demonstrators as they have been?
There would still be citizens who legitimately disagree with the president’s policies, but their number and demeanor would be substantially different.
Unfortunately, Ms. Dowd is correct when she says that there are many who just can’t believe that a black man is president and will never accept it.
Joe Aceste
Levittown, N.Y., Sept. 13, 2009
To the Editor:
Representative Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s recent address to Congress showed an unacceptable disrespect for both the presidency and our political traditions.
Knowing virtually nothing about Representative Wilson, I can’t say whether his behavior reflected mere boorishness or something worse, as Maureen Dowd contends. But in suggesting that criticisms of President Obama that she finds unpleasantly sharp (like calling him a “socialist”) are animated by racism, Ms. Dowd crosses a line.
Many Americans—including, apparently, a growing number of those who voted for him—believe that President Obama’s policy prescriptions would, in fact, move this country in the direction of European social democracy, and they don’t like it.
They shouldn’t be intimidated from voicing full-throated opposition to those policies—including some commonplace hyperbole—by unsubstantiated accusations of racism.
Howard F. Jaeckel
New York, Sept. 14, 2009
To the Editor:
There are certainly those in this country who want President Obama to fail because they do not want to see a black man succeed. Conservative pundits know they can play the race card against the president, because he never will use it against them.
Clearly, the Joe Wilsons and Sarah Palins of the right have used fear tactics and falsehoods to whip their followers into a frenzy.
Contrary to their assertions, it is not President Obama and his ideals that threaten to destroy the country, but the far right, which has, yet again, successfully twisted the ideals of America to generate hatred and divisiveness.
President Obama must use his considerable oratorical skills to go on the counterattack, or he will lose this battle.
Cindy L. Harden
Brooklyn, Sept. 13, 2009
To the Editor:
By suggesting that racial issues may have prompted Representative Joe Wilson’s ill-advised outburst against President Obama, and, by extension, that conservative criticism of Mr. Obama is racially motivated, Maureen Dowd has invoked the “nuclear option” used by the left to silence any opinion critical of its policies or biases.
The public’s discomfort with Mr. Obama has everything to do with his continual overreaching attempts to use ultraliberal solutions to deal with the nation’s problems, and nothing to do with his race.
Mr. Obama’s professorial and condescending attitudes toward his critics have only made things worse. His pre-election “hands across the aisle” promise has proved to be a joke.
Everyone seems to agree that we need a national dialogue on race, but to date the dialogue seems more like a hectoring monologue.
David W. Annand
Knoxville, Tenn., Sept. 13, 2009
Note from KBJ: Progressives don't understand how language works. By overusing the term "racist," they drain it of meaning. It becomes an all-purpose invective, like "communist" and "fascist," both of which have been overused since the 1950s to the point where, today, they have a slightly comical note. To call someone a fascist is to say, roughly, "You're not really a fascist, but I despise what you stand for." To call someone a racist is to say, roughly, "You're not really a racist, but someone might think you are if I call you that, and come to hate you as a result, and that's good enough for me."
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 