Unemployment hangs around 9 percent, despite promises that if spent a trillion dollars on a stimulus, it would stay below 8.5 percent. The national debt has skyrocketed to an unsustainable $14.2 trillion. The housing market is moribund as foreclosures run rampant. Gas is eating up about 9 percent of US household budgets. The regulatory state is making it ever harder to run a business or have a job, and the border remains dangerously unsecured, while natural disasters hammer the US from one end to the other as the president searches for his lost apostrophe overseas.
These are not good times for any president, but this president’s own actions have made them far worse. But Rep. James Clyburn thinks he knows why President Obama’s approval rating is weak: Because you’re a filthy racist.
House Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, on Wednesday blamed most of President Barack Obama’s political problems on racism.
Clyburn, who’s from South Carolina and is a close ally of the president, offered his views in response to a question about Obama’s re-election prospects next year.
“I think they’re improving every day,” Clyburn said. “I think the president has been a good president, a great commander in chief.”
There’s problem number one right there: By what criteria has Obama been a “good” president? The extravagant government waste? The high unemployment? The partisan attacks on state economies and laws? Clyburn doesn’t answer any of that, because he knows he has a Get Out Of Logical Arguments card to play:
“You know, I’m 70 years old,” he said. “And I can tell you; people don’t like to deal with it, but the fact of the matter is, the president’s problems are in large measure because of the color of his skin.”
The Race Card: Don’t leave home without it — if you’re a racer.
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