by William Thomas

There was a time not so long ago when Americans, regardless of their political stripes, rallied around their president. Once elected, the man who won the White House was no longer viewed as a Republican or Democrat, but the President of the United States. The oath of office was taken, the wagons were circled around the country, and its borders and it was America versus the rest of the world with the president of all the people at the helm.
Suddenly, President Barack Obama, with the potential to become an exceptional president, has become the glaring exception to that unwritten patriotic rule.
Four days before President Obama’s inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails the country flounders.
Wishing harm upon your country in order to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well.
Subsequently, during his State of the Union address, which is pretty much a pep rally for America, an unknown congressional representative from South Carolina, later identified as Joe Wilson, stopped the show when he called the President of the United States a liar. The President showed great restraint in ignoring this unprecedented insult and carried on with his speech. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so stunned by the slur, she forgot to jump to her feet while clapping wildly, 30 to 40 times after that.
Last spring, President Obama took his wife Michelle to see a play in New York City and Republicans attacked him over the cost of security for the excursion. The president cannot take his wife out to dinner and a show without being scrutinized by the political opposition? As history has proven, a president in a theatre without adequate security is a tragically bad idea. Remember: Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
At some point, the treatment of President Obama went from offensive to ugly and then to downright dangerous.
The health-care debate, which looked more like extreme fighting in a mud pit than a national dialogue, revealed a very vulgar side of America. President Obama’s face appeared on protest signs white-faced and blood-mouthed in a satanic clown image. In other tasteless portrayals, people who disagreed with his politics distorted his face to look like Hitler complete with mustache and swastika.
Odd, that burning the flag makes Americans crazy, but depicting the president as a clown and a maniacal fascist is accepted as part of the new rude America.
Maligning the image of the leader of the free world is one thing; putting the president’s life in peril is quite another. More than once, men with guns were videotaped at the health-care rallies where the president spoke. Again, history shows that letting men with guns get within range of a president has not served America well in the past.
And still the birthers are out there claiming Barack Obama was not born in the United States, although public documentation proves otherwise. Hawaii is definitely part of the United States, but the Panama Canal Zone where his electoral opponent Senator John McCain was born? Nobody cares.
Last month, a 44-year-old woman in Buffalo was quite taken by President Obama when she met him in a chicken wing restaurant called Duff’s. Did she say something about a pleasure and an honor to meet the man or utter encouraging words for the difficult job he is doing? No Quote: You’re a hottie with a smoking little body.
Lady, that was the President of the United States you were addressing, not one of the Jonas Brothers! He’s your president for goodness sake, not the guy driving the Zamboni at Monster Trucks On Ice. Maybe next it’ll be Take Your President to a Topless Bar Day.
In President Obama, Americans have the real deal, the whole package and a leader that citizens of almost every country around the world look to with great envy. Given the opportunity, Canadians would trade our leader, hell most of our leaders, for Obama in a heartbeat.
What America has in Obama is a head of state with vitality and insight and youth. Think about it: Barack Obama is a young Nelson Mandela. Mandela was the face of change and charity for all of Africa, but he was too old to make it happen. The great things Obama might do for America and the world could go on for decades after he’s out of office. America, you know not what you have.
The man is being challenged unfairly, characterized with vulgarity, and treated with the kind of deep disrespect to which no previous president was subjected, it’s like the day after electing the first Black man to be president, thereby electrifying the world with hope and joy, Americans sobered up and decided the bad old days were better.
President Obama may fail, but it will not be a Richard Nixon default fraught with larceny and lies. President Obama, given a fair chance, will surely succeed, but his triumph will never come with a caveat as with President Clinton, “If only he’d gotten control of that zipper.”
Please. Give the man a fair, fighting chance. This incivility toward the leader who won over Americans and gave hope to billions of people around world that their lives could be enhanced by his example just naturally has to stop.
Believe me, when Americans drive by the White House and see a sign on the lawn that reads: “No shirt. No shoes. No service,” they’ll realize this new national rudeness has gone way, way too far.

By Derryck Green

Dear Mr. President:
With all due respect, your economic stewardship has been a nightmare.
Whether our nation’s lingering peril comes from your misunderstanding of basic economic principles, your rigid and religious-like devotion to political progressivism or because the economy simply isn’t your priority, credit and fault, nonetheless begins and ends with you.
As such, I’m writing to you in an appeal to the one thing that didn’t contract during your presidency: your ego.
No matter how you attempt to spin the news, clear-thinking Americans know — many from personal experience — that the economy isn’t improving.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics says the national unemployment rate dropped to 7.3 percent in August. But the rate for Latinos only dropped to 9.3 percent. The rate for Blacks increased to 13 percent, with Black teens at 38.2 percent.
America is still millions of jobs short compared with before you took office, and many of the jobs created during your “recovery” do not pay as well.
The labor force participation rate is at a 34-year low of 63.4 percent, and has been under 64 percent for 19 straight months. Ninety million Americans are no longer in the labor force. Teen employment is tragically low. Almost a million people have given up hope of finding a job in this job market.
More than 250 companies reportedly reduced employee hours and cut jobs altogether in attempts to survive under your signature legislation, ObamaCare.
As captain of this rudderless ship, Mr. President, you are responsible for the fact that more Americans are on disability insurance than people living in New York City. Reinforcing the truth of this sad and unfortunate reality, the Cato Institute notes welfare programs in 35 states provide more of a financial incentive to not work. In 13 states, the welfare equivalent is above the $15 per hour “living wage” promoted by so many of your supporters.
Since your 2008 election, the median family income has dropped for most Americans. For whites, it was a 3.6 percent decline. For Hispanics, there’s been a 4.5 percent decline. For Blacks, your most loyal constituency, it’s a much larger 10.9 percent decline.
But that’s not all. Your economic policies resulted in a spike in poverty, particularly distressing for Blacks at almost 26 percent. This is in combination with Black labor force participation at a rate of 61.4 percent and an unemployment rate continually at or near 13 percent during your presidency.
According to the National Urban League’s 2012 State of Black America, the Black economic gains over the past 30 years were wiped out in the recession and your so-called “recovery” that followed.
These statistics aren’t abstract numbers, Mr. President. These numbers represent real people who continue to press on despite losing hope and faith in you as our leader.
Many may excuse your lack of leadership, preferring to instead blame the economy on everything from obstinate conservatives to lingering pains of slavery.  You blamed “phony scandals.”
Sir, these excuses do you no favors. Actually, these excuses further expose your inability on the job and your reluctance to accept responsibility.
It’s precisely why the American public no longer trusts what you say or do. It’s also why you have been found wanting as a leader in the international community.
These critiques aren’t because of your Blackness, but because of your ineffectiveness. The frustration is palpable. In the spirit of Dr. King, whom we all just celebrated for his leadership, you’re rightly being judged on the content of your character — along with the actions brought forth from it — and not by the color of your skin.
History may not be as kind to you as it seems in the bubble in which you currently reside. Becoming the first Black president of the United States may seem to be a historic achievement right now, but being “the first Black” simply isn’t enough in the long-term.
Your novelty has worn off.  It’s time you actually do something of substance to warrant the reverence in which you see yourself and which American posterity will remember you. You have three years left. The clock is ticking.

Respectfully yours,

America

Derryck Green is a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 Black leadership network. Comments may be sent to Project21@nationalcenter.org.