"Obama Hates America"

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The Obama Hates America theme is not hyperbole. It has been relentlessly played for all it’s worth from the second that then Democratic presidential candidate Obama announced in February 2007 that he would seek the White House. It almost certainly will be played hard again in the days leading up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Obama’s one little step that could feed the wacky line is not telling yet where and how he’ll commemorate the day. This in itself supposedly is enough to show that the president disrespects, minimizes, or is cavalier about the hallowed day. It’s none of those things. But it’s just another in the pile of supposed anti-American sins that Obama is guilty of. The nutty knock of Obama as America hater is driven in part by ignorance, in part by politics, and in bigger part by race. The ignorance behind the attack line is easy to understand, and predictable. His name, the birth certificate flap, his frequent statement’s touting religious respect and tolerance for Muslims, and his refusal to flaunt and wave around his very private and personal expression of his Christian faith fuel the stupidity and suspicion about who and what he really is.
The politics behind the attack line is just as comprehensible. The line was set by presidential rival John McCain and run hard with by Sarah Palin VP pick during the campaign. McCain dropped veiled hints that Obama was a far out left liberal who was soft on terrorism, the Iraq war, and the Patriot act enforcement. The implication was that once in the White House he’d give away the company store to America’s sworn enemies.
Palin skipped the hints. She practically roared that Obama pals around with terrorists, left dictators, and commies. And that an Obama win would mean a leftwing takeover of the country. McCain’s hint was shrugged off, and Palin’s hit was outright mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at by much of the media. But millions didn’t laugh. They actually believed that Obama fit easily somewhere between Osama and Castro. Polls continued to show that those that said that Obama was an alien and a closet subversive hovered in the low double digit figure. In the past month, the same polls show that the number who say that about him has doubled, and they all aren’t’ Palin clones and cheerleaders. A lot of Independents and Democrats say the same thing.
Then there’s the unstated; and that’s race. There’s always been a deep feeling among many whites that African-Americans are inherent rebels against America’s institutions and values. During the late 1960’s that feeling took off. The mass civil rights demonstrations, protests, the black power surge, and the urban uprisings turned the myth of permanent black rebellion into the myth of black radicalism. This is and always has been nonsense. Yet, when facts crash hard against ingrained beliefs, and especially beliefs fueled by racial loathing, it’s no contest which will win out.
So it won’t make much difference whether Obama picks the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery, or the moon, to commemorate 9/11. His name, his religious tolerance, his race, and the relentless GOP smear machine have created the perfect storm to tag Obama as the president that hates America. The tweets from Palin, rightwing bloggers, and talk show gabbers snidely implying that Obama’s is that are probably already typed out and ready to go on 9/11 and beyond.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

No Surprise so Many Think Obama’s a Muslim

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

It’s no surprise that so many Americans think that Obama is a Muslim. The Pew Research Center poll found a big increase in the number of Republicans that think that. Certainly that was no surprise. And only slight less surprising the poll found that lots of Democrats and Independents also think that he’s a Muslim. No president has ever had more pejorative labels slapped on him. He’s been branded a Bolshevik, socialist, Nazi (go figure that one), an anarchist, leftist, an alien, and of course, un-American.

But the Obama is a Muslim tag carries a special taint. No religious group in America has been more distorted, reviled, and demonized than Muslims. Simply utter the word, and this instantly conjures up for many dark images of bombings, terrorist attacks, war, chaos, destruction, and fanaticism. Muslims have stirred the nativist, xenophobia, and religious intolerance pulse in many Americans that has always lurked just beneath the surface in American life. Politicians have at times played to that impulse and it in turn translated it into a massive religious social revolt, and reaped big gains at the ballot box. The rumor and fear mongering images of Islam and Muslims escalated with the emotion throbbing September 11 terror attacks. The attack stirred tremors among Muslims that they would routinely be targeted, subject to search and surveillance, and profiled at airports.

The profiling alarm bells went off again after a soldier with a Muslim name shot up the military base at Ft. Hood back in November. The Council on American-Islamic Relations wasted no time and issued a loud and vigorous denunciation of the mass killing. The Council didn't know at that moment whether Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter, was a Muslim by birth, a converted Muslim, or even a Muslim at all. The name and the horrific murder spree was enough to drive the group to quickly distance itself from the rampage. Other Muslim organizations instantly followed suit and issued their own equally strong disavowal of Hasan.

This didn't stop the pack of Fox Network commentators, conservative radio talk show hosts, writers, and some officials from again openly shouting for even tighter scrutiny of Muslim groups. Airline bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab raised the decibel level on their call for transportation officials to openly profile Muslims at airports, train stations, and even on the open highways.

But this was a mere dress rehearsal for the Muslim scare that’s dogged President Obama. His speeches in Cairo last year to a Muslim and international audience, his repeated preaching of tolerance and outreach to the Muslim world, his occasional tough line on Israeli settlement expansion, and the topper, his White House Ramadan dinner, and a his favorable statement supporting the right to build a mosque at ground zero. This for many was smoking gun proof that Obama is not a closet but an avowed Muslim. Though some GOP political strategists have urged caution about making the ground zero mosque and Obama a campaign issue, the GOP will do it anyway. Fox News, the pack of right wing talk show hosts, and bloggers have had a field day doing everything possible to fan the fire of anti-Muslim sentiment. They have even dumped on the table an outrageously distorted, misstated, and misunderstood discussion of Sharia Law, and declared that any Muslim who believes in it and practices it does not believe in the Constitution and by extension can’t be a loyal American. The implication being that since Obama is a Muslim than he must also believe in the strict tenets of Sharia Law and therefore….. The dots have never been more wrongly and badly connected.

Since his initial statements on the ground zero mosque, Obama has kept silence on the controversy. There’s absolutely no need for him to say anything more about it. The issue will be fiercely debated by politicians and much of the public in the coming weeks. The danger though is that the issue will incite more rage in the days immediately before the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attack. Expect the Obama foes, and that’s nearly any GOP candidate or incumbent who can figure out a way to sneak a line or two about the attack, the ground zero mosque controversy and a sly hint that Obama backed the right to build the mosque into their speeches, to take a dig at Obama. Even some top Democrats facing tough reelection battles have backpedalled fast from Obama’s position on the Mosque. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was one. Expect more Democrats to follow him in the weeks to come.
The ignorance of so many Americans about Obama’s religious beliefs if nothing else refutes the old adage that religion and politics don’t mix. They do, and Obama’s foes have done everything they can to make sure that that’s the case with him.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Congresswoman Maxine Waters Speaks Out on Ethics Charges and Much More

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters took a virtually unprecedented step. She challenged the House Ethics Committee to fully release the entire report on her alleged ethics violation. The charge is that Waters used her influence to get the Treasury to funnel $12 million to One United Bank that her husband once sat on the board of directors of and had stock in. The bank is a member of the National Bankers Association, the minority banking assn. Waters asked the Treasury for a meeting with the NBA in September 2008. This violated the House code of conduct rule that states: Members ''may not permit compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest of such individual from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress.''

The ethics committee wraps its investigations in a thick cloud of secrecy. It literally takes an act of Congress to get the committee to publicly reveal the details of the case it makes against one of its own. That's the case again with Waters. The committee completed its investigation, and published its eyes only report on Waters in August 2009.

In this exclusive interview with NAM's Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Waters’ discusses the ethics charges against her, the targeting of Congressional Black Caucus members for ethics violations, the effect on the Democratic Party, her constituents, and the relation to the fall elections.





Interview with Maxine Waters



EOH: The House’s Office of Congressional Ethics charges against you were initially made more than one year ago. Why are they just being made public now?

MW: We have asked the ethics committee the same question. Why has it taken so long to bring the charges? The OCE report was made public just as the House was going into a six week summer break. That hurt, because there’s no real opportunity to contest the charges and that’s not fair. So that’s why we have publicly demanded that the committee release the full report that contains the specific charges.



EOH Many wonder because of the long time gap before release, were there any new charges?

MW. There are none. There’s nothing new.



EOH: Do you feel that you and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus are being targeted?

MW: I have no idea whether that is the case. True, there’s much speculation about that. I can say that in my case, we challenge the committee that if you have a real case, lay it out, and let’s see what happens.



EOH: Has the House Democratic Leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the OCE responded to your challenge to disclose?

MW: There’s been no response. We’ll be back in special session the second week of August to vote on a Senate passed aid bill for the states. We intend then to raise the question again about releasing the report.

MW: You’ve asked for a trial. What does that entail?

MW: It’s not really a trial. It’s more an adjudication hearing. The ethics committee members present the information they have. They call witnesses and hear testimony. Our side does the same. Then they weigh everything and make a determination to sustain or dismiss. But it’s the House members sitting in judgment.

EOH: In the report that was released, a representative from Treasury was very specific that at the time you asked for a meeting with the National Bankers Association, Treasury was getting 70 to 80 calls a day from all financial parties about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout and your call was simply one among the many. Why then is considered now a major offense?

MW: I believe this started with a Treasury employee who was a mentee of Karl Rove (a top GOP operative). He remembered that I had disclosed that my husband sat on the board of directors of One United Bank at one time. He took this public information to the OCE to make it look as if there was a conflict of interest. The committee looked at it and said “aha” maybe there is a conflict here. And because their investigation is so limited, they came up with the idea that I received some benefit from the meeting that I requested.

EOH: There’s nothing in the 80 page report that shows that you or your husband received any financial benefit from this meeting.

MW: That’s because there was no benefit, and I know that there’s nothing in the report that shows it. One United Bank did not get any immediate help from the Treasury. The Bank then went to the private market and got $20 million in loans to help them stabilize their lending. The bank’s investors did not lose anything. The way I see it the committee took bits from conversation and information between staff members about the economic crisis and the Treasury’s role in it and then pieced them together to try to make something out of it. And it’s not fair.

EOH: House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank is quoted as telling you “to stay out of it”

MW: That’s not true. When I learned that One United Bank was seeking help, I said to Frank that One United is one of your constituents (the bank is headquartered in Frank’s state Massachusetts) so you should take a look at this. He said “you’re right, they are my constituents, stay out of it, I’ll take a look at what One United is requesting.” That was said before the TARP bailout even came into existence.

EOH: The media and the committee made Frank’s words to you appear that he was concerned about a potential conflict of interest on your part.

MW: That conversation took place after the September meeting and before TARP came into existence, and it was only in relation to that.

EOH: The charges against you come on the eve of the crucial fall elections. What effect could it have on them?

MW: The Democrats don’t benefit from this this close to the election. It puts them on the defensive. Even if you argue that it seems that the ethics investigation process is working, the Democrats having to defend the process at this time doesn’t help the party. It’s hurtful because it gives the Republicans a chance to say, “See the Democrats have all those problems over there.” I don’t know if they’ll do that because they’re a lot of Republicans that have been investigated. But there’s nothing positive in this for the Democrats.

EOH: President Obama weighed in on Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel who also faces ethics charges) and said he should retire with dignity. Has he communicated with you on your ethics charge?

MW: Not at all.



EOH: Has the widespread reporting of the charges hurt or tainted you with your constituents?

MW: We’ve received many calls of support. My constituents know that I’m a strong advocate for small and minority business, and for those who don’t have access. Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, and the Wall Street financial houses, all have access to the Treasury. They can pick up the telephone on a first name basis and walk into their offices as they please. The day the meeting with the NBA occurred Treasury officials met with the Big Boys from the banks. My responsibility is to make sure that minority businesses have that same access. My constituents know that I’m always going to be under fire whether from challenging the CIA on drugs, police brutality or minority businesses and they understand that.

EOH: Will you take a deal if offered?

MW: No deals! I’m not going to the backroom. Bring it out.

No Smoking Gun in House Ethics Committee Report against Waters

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Embattled California Congresswoman Maxine Waters took a bold and virtually unprecedented step. She challenged the House Ethics Committee to fully release the entire report on her alleged ethics violation. The charge is that Waters used her influence to get the Treasury to funnel $12 million to a bank that her husband once sat on the board of directors of and had stock in. This violated the House code of conduct rule that states: Members ‘‘may not permit compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest of such individual from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress.’’

Waters’ challenge is unprecedented for two troubling reasons. The Ethics committee wraps its investigations in a thick cloud of secrecy. It literally takes an act of Congress to get the committee to publicly reveal the details of the case it makes against one of its own. That’s the case again with Waters. The committee completed its investigation, and published its eyes only report in August 2009.
The second reason Waters made the demand for full disclosure is more troubling. There is no smoking gun proof that she did anything wrong. This writer received a copy of the eighty page report. The report contains a summary of the allegation, a jurisdictional statement, procedural history, and a summary of investigative activity. There are eighteen exhibits of memos, affidavits, testimony and interviews with Waters and the other principals involved.

The committee interviewed Waters in June, 2009. She admitted that she called then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and asked for a meeting with the National Bankers Assn. The Association is the trade association for the nation’s 103 minority and women-owned banks. Waters requested that Robert Cooper, NBA President-Elect supply her with “talking points” to explain the purpose of the meeting. The meeting focused solely on the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the severe financial impact the takeover had on the minority banks. She did not say who should attend, or the meeting agenda. No member of her staff attended.

The report makes clear that the only financial interest Waters had in One United Bank was investment income deposited five years ago. She disclosed that in her financial disclosure statement. Waters was asked why she did not attend the meeting with Treasury, she stated “Why should , I don’t think members normally do that The NBA are their own best advocates, let them tell their own story, that’s how I see it.” Waters chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee. The ethics committee acknowledged that in that capacity she talked with Paulson frequently on issues involving the bank bailout, minority investment banks, money managers, and toxic assets.

Treasury officials routinely testify before her subcommittee. The committee noted that Water’s husband had resigned his position on the board of One United five months before the meeting between Paulson and the NBA in September 2008. The subsequent letters, memos and correspondence between Waters office and the NBA essentially confirm that a meeting was requested, the NBA officials did attend, and that her office was informed of the meeting.

The committee interviewed Paulson in April, 2009. He detailed the circumstances that led to the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the financial impact and confusion it caused. Paulson said that he received 70 and 80 calls a day from banks, and financial industry groups about the takeover. Waters’ call was one of them. Paulson was adamant that Waters did not “mention a particular bank” when she requested the meeting. Paulson quickly added that “even if she had mentioned that she had a personal financial interest in One United Bank that he would still have granted the meeting. He considered the request reasonable and non-partisan.
The same month the committee interviewed Congressman Barney Frank. Frank flatly said that he had frequent dealings with the NBA, and that One United Bank “was never a major presence.” When he thought of NBA “he thought of southern banks and not One United.” In December One United got $12 million in TARP funds, but Frank, who chairs the House financial-services committee, said it had nothing to do with Waters intervention. Franks wrote a provision in the federal bailout legislation that was specifically designed to aid One United. Frank has said he inserted it because One United was the only African-American owned bank in his home state, Masschusetts. In an earlier interview, he made it clear that Waters’ interest "had zero impact on the outcome because I would have done it anyway."

The actual committee report reveals in full detail that Waters did not profit from or influence decisions the Treasury made to help One United Bank, or any other minority bank. But the damage has been done. Waters is now firmly imprinted in the media and public mind as the poster politician for congressional corruption. She’s black, high profile, a ranking Democrat, and outspoken. That instantly made her an inviting target to dump on the political hot seat. The release of the full report should, but won’t change that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Van Jones Talks about Sherrod, President Obama and Race

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

In March, 2009 President Obama named attorney and environmental activist Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. It didn’t last. 6 months later he was out. He resigned after rightwing bloggers spurred by Fox talk show hatchet man Glenn Beck smeared him his for his activist past.
The White House took much criticism for quickly accepting Jones resignation, and not fighting back against the rightwing attack on Jones. In an exclusive interview with The Hutchinson Report, Jones talks about the parallels to his resignation and the pressure to resign on Shirley Sherrod, the power of the right wing smear machine, and President’s Obama’s caution on race.


EOH: The attack on Shirley Sherrod was very similar to the rightwing attack on you. You both were forced to resign, and your names were drug through the mud. What was your reaction to her forced resignation?

VJ: I had great sympathy for her. I know what it’s like to go from being a relatively anonymous government worker to then find yourself in the middle of a media firestorm. There was a difference though. I was an activist in the Bay Area. I was an easy target. But Mrs. Sherrod was like Rosa Parks. She was pure as the driven snow. She emerged as a force for healing.
But we’re also in a different media environment today. You don’t have old gatekeepers of truth and objectivity you once had in the media. You now have people who are deliberately distorting information, pumping viruses into the body politic and creating confusion. This is not just an attack on individuals. It’s an attack on democracy.

EOH: President Obama in his apology statement to Sherrod hinted at the power of the right wing smear machine to set an agenda of fear. But are they succeeding?

VJ: There is great power there. But the plus to that is that there is a pushback. So the next time someone deliberately distorts and doctors a tape, or disinformation. There will be those in the media that will say let’s slow down and take a closer look before we go public. In my case, the lies about me, that he’s an ex-convict, a communist, had been imprinted with the public by the right-wing. And by the time we could respond with the truth, the media had already moved on.

EOH: President Obama overreacted initially to the doctored tape of Sherrod when he supported her forced resignation. My concern is that this could happen again.

VJ: The Obama Administration is not full of dumb people. It was a learning experience for them. The bigger problem though is that Andrew Breitbart and those like him that distort and create distraction deliberately in essence will win if they prevent us from talking about jobs, energy and the environment crisis, and other crucial people’s concerns. These are the issues that really matter and for which Republicans have no answers. We also over obsess about what Obama is going to say or do on an issue or events which he often has absolutely no control over.

EOH: President Obama has been repeatedly challenged to frontally address the issue of race, even hold a much talked national racial dialogue. Should he?

VJ: We do need the dialogue. Race is an issue that will not go away. Many whites are fearful that they are becoming a minority in some places in the country. They are beginning to react. On the other hand, there are millions of whites who strongly oppose racism, but they are silent. Blacks are uneasy about continuing discrimination, and many Hispanics are disillusioned over the failure of the Obama Administration on immigration. If we are going to have a national dialogue on race we’ll have to learn to listen to all sides.

GOP’s Invitation to Breibart Shows they are Lying About Race

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele has repeatedly snapped back at the charge and the notion that the GOP is racist, harbors racist elements, and plays the race card. Steele on occasion has loudly said that the RNC must embrace diversity, and be a big tent that includes minorities. Every time he opens his mouth to say these things he’s called a liar. Those that call Steele a liar rattle off the litany of racist gaffes, slurs, and acts by GOP officials, politicians, and assorted GOP connected tea party leaders and activists to prove their point.

Now they have one more thing they can add to the litany. That’s RNC Steele’s invite to rightwing smear machine engineman, Andrew Breitbart to appear at the RNC’s three day confab in Los Angeles, August 12 to 14. It’s billed as a rev up the troops, fundraiser, and called “Election Countdown.” Brietbart’s name is not buried among the GOP assorted luminaries scheduled to participate at the event. His name not only headlines the event, he and Steele will host the first night welcoming reception. His name even appears ahead of Steele’s on the opening night reception announcement.

So why is that? Is it Breitbart’s name, fame, money, the controversy and curiosity he invariably arouses, the media attention he draws, his staunch GOP troublemaking credentials, and the fact that might be good for a few more bucks in the till that compels Steele and the RNC to make him the star of their show. It’s all of the above. And this makes Breitbart an even more disgusting choice to headline a major event, by a major party, that claims it’s poised to make major gains in the midterm elections, and chatters incessantly about even taking back the House. GOP Senators and House members and mainstream party officials have put up a hard front that even with its pile of no’s to the Obama administration’s initiatives and legislation it has still managed to maintain some degree of respectability among a wide body of conservative, and moderate GOP voters. It has even grabbed votes and support from centrist independents that question or oppose Obama and the Democrats’ health care, stimulus, and tax proposals. Plopping Breitbart at the top of a major GOP event blows the party’s façade of respectability to smithereens.

Even before Breitbart’s vile hatchet job on Shirley Sherrod, he had managed to parlay a name and turn his mini-on line empire, biggovernment.com, into the bible of muckraking and old fashioned dirty tricks cheerleading and agitation against Democrats, liberal and progressive activists and minorities. Despite full exposure of the Sherrod tape as a fraud and fabrication, Breitbart still kept the lying, doctored tape on his website. This is much more than the usual standard, garden variety GOP shouts and rants at Obama and Democrats on legitimate policy issues.
Breitbart is a direct throwback to the Nixon, dirty tricks operatives and escapades of the early 1970s who brought shame and disgrace on the White House and the GOP. The party spent the next decade trying to rid itself of the stigma of being a party that condones dirt digging, rumor mongering, and even lawlessness as long as the target smeared was a Democrat.

That’s a history that Steele and the RNC will embrace and revel in if Breitbart headlines their show. Steele can prove that’s not the case by rescinding the invitation. Will he?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

NAACP Still Hasn’t Atoned for Sherrod Blunder

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

NAACP president Ben Jealous caught holy hell from black bloggers for his astoundingly embarrassing rush to judgment applauding the curb toss of Shirley Sherrod. Jealous, of course, quickly reversed gear and admitted that he and the organization had been snookered by the rightwing attack hack Andrew Breitbart and Fox News.

But that begs the larger question, really two questions. Why was the NAACP snookered? And even after it realized it was conned, has it done enough to atone for its colossal blunder? The answers to both questions aren’t pretty. The group clearly had the tea party on its mind when it made the quick call on Sherrod. It did not want to be yelled at by tea party activists and the rightwing smear machine as hypocrites, for double dealing the race card, and for being soft on alleged black racism.

The NAACP’s knee jerk overreaction and appeasement had everything to do with timing, as it turned out bad timing. It came on the heels of the blowback that the NAACP got for its convention resolution a week earlier blasting racist elements in the tea party. Breitbart made no bones about why he trotted out the lying tape when he did. He said that he wanted to hit back at the NAACP. The NAACP could have easily ignored it, or taken a few moments to check it out, and found it to be the fraud that the world now knows it be. It didn’t and for that it took the deserved heat. The NAACP, though, has done too much, and is till to valued an organization to be endlessly beat up on for its act. Just don’t let it happen again. But the second question is still crucial and that’s has it really made up for its flub to the person hurt the most by its rash action, and that’s Sherrod.

The answer is no. Start with the retraction. The statement it issued was weak, tepid and non-committal. It did not call for an apology. It did not issue a ringing call to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to immediately and fully reinstate her to her position. It did not criticize Vilsack for making his bonehead decision to fire her. It did not promise to do an internal review and soul search within the organization to find out why it rushed to hail Sherrod’s firing and to insure that hasty decisions won’t be made again. It did not pound the tea party and the right wing attack machine. It covered itself by again repeating the patently unnecessary mea culpa that the NAACP has zero tolerance for discrimination. This is exactly the reason the organization gave for praising the swift kick to the curb of Sherrod. Unlike Vilsack and President Obama, it did not formally apologize to Sherrod for its act. It referred to the Sherrod debacle as the worn cliché teachable moment, but gave no hint that it learned the lesson, and that is to hit back and hit back hard against the right, and not just with a paper resolution. Finally, the NAACP has not even demanded that Breitbart remove the offending video (it’s still on his site) calling Sherrod a racist. The NAACP, Instead, has clamped a wall of silence on the sorry episode preferring to simply move on.

Unfortuately, Sherrod can’t. The NAACP hasn’t done much to see that she can.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

The Hutchinson Political Report: Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on S...

The Hutchinson Political Report: Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on S...: "Earl Ofari Hutchinson Capitol Hill reporters relentless peppered White House press secretary Robert Gibbs with questions of why the White..."

The Hutchinson Political Report: Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on S...

The Hutchinson Political Report: Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on S...: "Earl Ofari Hutchinson Capitol Hill reporters relentless peppered White House press secretary Robert Gibbs with questions of why the White..."

Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on Sherrod

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Capitol Hill reporters relentless peppered White House press secretary Robert Gibbs with questions of why the White House rushed to judgment and demanded the resignation of Shirley Sherrod. A clearly flustered Gibbs could only say and repeat that the White House made its horrible decisions on faulty information. Gibbs promised a review to get to the bottom of why and how it happened. The surface reason the White House dumped Sherrod was made on faulty information, a doctored video, and simple ignorance of the true facts. It wouldn’t have taken much of an investigation to find the truth. That wasn’t done. Former Civil Rights Commission Chairperson Mary Frances Berry and others claim that Obama is scared stiff of being ripped by Fox News, Limbaugh, Beck and the conservative smear machine. That’s just as spurious. If Obama sneezes, they’d attack him for polluting the Ozone, so there’s no real fear of them. The decision to can Sherrod had everything to do with politics, and the tight cornered racial parameter of his presidency.

This was set the very first day of his presidential campaign. In his candidate declaration speech in Springfield, Illinois in February 2007, he made only the barest mention of race. The focus was on change, change for everyone. He had little choice. The institution of the presidency, and what it takes to get it, demands that racial typecasting be scrapped. Obama would have had no hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, let alone the presidency, if there had been any hint that he embraced the race-tinged politics of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. His campaign would have been marginalized and compartmentalized as merely the politics of racial symbolism. The month after he got in the White House he mildly chided Attorney General Eric Holder for calling Americans cowards for not candidly talking about race.

The term for that is racial overcompensation. He must react, hard and swift, to any appearance of anyone connected with his administration that says or does anything that can be construed as racial favoritism. The doctored Sherrod speech was a near textbook fit of the requirement to punish any real, imagined, or put up racial transgression with firing, reprimand, and a quick distancing from the offending party.
Obama got a bitter taste of the misery that race can cause a president him when in an unscripted moment he spoke his mind and blasted a Cambridge cop for cuffing and manhandling Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates. The loud squeals that he was a bigot, racist and anti police for siding with Gates bounced off the Oval Office walls. A chagrined Obama back pedaled fast and asked all for forgiveness. There would no White House repeat of the Gates fiasco.
Obama has clung tightly to the centrist blueprint Bill Clinton laid out for a Democratic presidential candidate to win elections, and to govern after he won. The blueprint requires that the Democratic presidential candidate tout a strong defense, the war against terrorism, a vague plan for winding down the Iraq War, tepid proposals to control greenhouse emissions, mild tax reform for the middle class, a cautious plan for affordable health care, pro business solutions to joblessness, and make only the most genteel reproach of Wall Street.

The Clinton blueprint also requires a Democratic president to formulate a moderate agenda on civil rights, poverty, failing inner city public schools, the HIV-AIDS crisis, and the racially skewed criminal justice system in written policy statements. And then say little about them or low key their approach to them in the White House. Obama’s silence, extreme low key approach to these policy issues, occasional reminder that he’s the American president, not black president irked the Congressional Black Caucus and at times other civil rights groups.

Obama well knows that the GOP lost an election, but it still packs a punch. It and its tea party shock troops can disrupt, obstruct, and create chaos for his administration, his political agenda, and him personally. And it does it not only because that's the warfare that Republicans wage against Democrats anyway, but because the GOP has masterfully reignited its populist base against Obama. The base is rock solid conservative, lower income white male loyalists, with a heavy mix of hard line Christian fundamentalists. Despite the GOP's and tea party activists wail that racism has nothing to do with the white fury at Obama, the bitter truth is that many white voters do not and will not accept a black president.

If Obama talked candidly about race and tried to spark a dialogue on race as some clamor for him to do it would turn his administration into a referendum on race. This would turn the GOP and tea party counterinsurgency into a red hot fire.
Obama's rush to judgment on Sherrod had nothing to do with fear and only tangentially with a terrible misread of the information about her purported racial statement. It had everything to do with the price of White House governance. The price is a politically constricted, race neutral presidency.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

The Hutchinson Political Report: President Obama Do the Right Thing, Order the Rein...

The Hutchinson Political Report: President Obama Do the Right Thing, Order the Rein...: "Earl Ofari Hutchinson Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is dithering, waffling, and foot-dragging on what should be a no-brainer. And tha..."

President Obama Do the Right Thing, Order the Reinstatement of Shirley Sherrod

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is dithering, waffling, and foot-dragging on what should be a no-brainer. And that’s the immediate reinstatement of Shirley Sherrod to her post as Agriculture Department’s director of rural development in Georgia. He wronged Sherrod, a dedicated public servant, by grossly overreacting to the phony, doctored, and politically self-serving rightwing connived hit tape of a speech that Sherrod gave to a local NAACP banquet back in March that purported to show her admitting to trashing a white farmer and then refusing to help him. Despite irrefutable proof that this was a lie, a blatant effort to hit back at the NAACP and civil rights leaders for putting the heat on tea party racism, and a grotesque sully of the name and reputation of a hard-working, efficient, and loyal government program administrator, the best Vilsack could say is that he’ll conduct a review to ensure that services are provided in a fair and equitable manner.

This is the worst kind of cowardice and bureaucratic cover your backside gibberish, and Vilsack knows it. If he had conducted the review in a fair and equitable manner before panicking and trying to appease the rightwing attack machine, Sherrod would still be on the job, and the issue would have quickly blown over.
In fact, even if Sherrod did what she was alleged to have done, there’s still a little thing called due process which requires an investigation, diligent fact-finding, and corroboration, a careful weighing of the factual evidence, and then giving the accused a chance to present their case before making a decision about their fate. None of that happened. Sherrod was summarily kicked to the curb, her name drug through the media and public mud, and a sterling reputation as an official who did her job, and won consistent high praise from the legions of farmers of all races that she has aided during her years with the agency tainted.

Now that we know Vilsack doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude too quickly and publicly person up and right a colossal wrong, President Obama should. He should order Vilsack to do the right thing and apologize to Sherrod and immediately reinstate her. This would do two things. It would remove the taint that the Obama administration nervously listened to the din from the conservative echo chamber about bogus black racism and made Sherrod the sacrificial lamb. Sherrod contended that she got calls from the White House demanding her resignation. The second thing it would send the message that the White House will not be bullied, intimidated, badgered, and ultimately hit the panic and appeasement button every time the bogus shout is made that the administration is tilting toward minorities.
The Sherrod debacle was more than just a put up job by the right. It was a textbook lesson of how organized, agenda driven, rightwing ideologues, will stop at absolutely nothing to shame, embarrass, and vilify the Obama administration using the one tried and true tactic it knows will inflame, and that’s race baiting. They’ve honed that ploy to a fine art over the past four decades, and the Sherrod flap shows it still works magnificently.

Sherrod had the double misfortune. Not only was she targeted by conservatives for ouster. She was used by them as a pawn to hit back at the NAACP and civil rights organizations that have rightly put much heat to the GOP and tea party activists for their very real racism and perpetual race card play.

President Obama can undo the damage that they’ve done, and the cowardice of Vilsack in the face of their assault on Sherrod. He can order her reinstatement, with full apology for the wrong and hurt she’s suffered.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Tom Vilsack Should Apologize to and Immediately Reinstate Shirley Sherrod

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack can make history of sort by doing what politicians and government officials routinely duck, dodge, or flatly refuse to do. He can admit that he was wrong, no conned, is the better word, and apologize and immediately reinstate Shirley Sherrod to her post as Agriculture Department’s director of rural development in Georgia.

In summarily accepting her resignation, (Sherrod says she was pressured to resign),Vilsack did the absolutely indefensible and unpardonable regarding a dedicated public servant, and that’s exactly what Sherrod is and has been for nearly three decades. He bought the phony, doctored, and politically self-serving hit tape of a speech that Sherrod gave to a local NAACP banquet back in March that purported to show her admitting to trashing a white farmer and then refusing to help him. The facts are now known. Sherrod was not employed at the Agriculture Department when the purported racial transgression happened. She went above and beyond the call of duty to help the farmer save his farm, and he corroborated that. She used the anecdote as a teachable moment to show that she had overcome her personal prejudices, and as an object lesson for others to do the same. Best or worst of all, the hit tape was trotted around by a well-known rightwing baiter, and blown up by on Fox News, and gleefully chatted up on the usual suspect rightwing attack blogs, websites, and the pack of talking head shock jocks.

This alone should have made anyone, let alone a top government official suspicious. And even if Sherrod did what she was alleged to have done, there’s still a little thing called due process which requires an investigation, diligent fact-finding, and corroboration, a careful weighing of the factual evidence, and then giving the accused a chance to present their case before making a decision about their fate. None of that happened. Sherrod was summarily kicked to the curb, her name drug through the media and public mud, and a sterling reputation as an official who did her job, and won consistent high praise from the legions of farmers of all races that she has aided during her years with the agency tainted.

The Sherrod debacle should be more than a teachable moment for a government official and a wronged employee. It is yet another object lesson of how organized, agenda driven, rightwing ideologues can bully, badger, intimidate and ultimately frighten government officials into violating all precepts of fairness, due process, and just good common sense, and rush to racial judgment about a black official.

Sherrod had a double misfortune. Not only was she targeted by conservatives for ouster. She was used by them as a pawn to hit back at the NAACP and civil rights organizations that have rightly put much heat to the GOP and tea party activists for their very real racism and perpetual race card play.

An apology and the immediate reinstatement of Sherrod won’t totally undo the damage that’s been done, but it will show that a public official can do the right thing by a wronged public servant. That in itself will mean something, certainly it will mean something to Shirley Sherrod.

Jesse Jackson Fouls Out on Lebron and Race

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Jesse Jackson should be slapped with a sixth foul and a fast ejection from the Lebron James game. Jackson should get the much deserved boot for shoving race into an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with race. Jackson likened Cleveland Cavs owner Dan Gilbert’s much publicized open letter tirade against James for jumping ship in Cleveland to treating James as a “runaway slave.” Jackson’s race card sound bite would have gotten a splashy news note if he had stopped there. But Jackson couldn’t let it go at that. He demanded that the league chastise Gilbert for his James outburst. That’s hyperbole and neither Gilbert, the NBA, nor James bothered to dignify the inanity with a response.

Jackson didn’t bother to explain how a slave, let alone a runaway slave, can orchestrate their own media self-coronation. Or, how a slave can have the entire sports media genuflect in front of him, shove the BP spill, financial reform bill, and looming immigration reform debate, and the Oscar Grant shooting case verdict off the front page for a day. Nor did he say, how a slave can get a president, a slew of senators, and congresspersons, and Florida’s governor to gush on about the importance of James’s announcement. And certainly, no slave can turn an entire city (Miami) gaga over his decision to head their way, and stir excitement that he will create jobs, boost tourism, and business revenues to the tune of tens of millions dollars for an entire region.

The Jackson race play with James was more than a desperate grab to snatch a moment of media limelight. That could easily be flicked aside and forgotten. But Jackson is still regarded in some circles as the bellwether for black opinion. That’s not a good thing since much of the media is still profoundly conditioned to believe that all blacks think, act and sway to the same racial beat. They freely use the words and deeds of the chosen black leader as the standard for African-American behavior. When the beleaguered chosen one makes a real or contrived misstep, he or she becomes the whipping boy among many whites, and blacks are blamed for being rash, foolhardy, irresponsible and prone to shuffle the race card on every social ill that befalls them.

Jackson’s twist of the James flight from Cleveland into an issue of black victimization fits that bill. The issue in the James wildly inflated media overkill saga is the media’s insatiable thirst to make athletes and entertainers demi-gods, turn millions of fans and even the disinterested into celebrity peeping toms, and then cash in on the ratings surge (and of course increased advertising revenue) from the hype.

James understands how the media hype game is played, and simply elevated himself to a pedestal higher than the other athlete demi-gods with his self- celebratory ESPN special. To Jackson, these are all mere trifles. What counted was that he got a chance to pop off on the one and only issue that was guaranteed to get a dab of media ink, namely James and race. He deserves the bench for that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

The New GOP Con--Obama the Reverse Racist

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

In quick succession J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney, strongly implied in his testimony to the Civil Rights Commission that the word came down from on White House high to the Justice Department to dump a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia. Adams just as strongly implied that the White House put the word out to play hard ball on discrimination cases when the victims are minorities, and soft peddle the same type cases when the victims are white. The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch quickly announced a lawsuit against the DOJ to hand over documents on the case. Not to be outdone, Rush Limbaugh gassed that Obama hates America (meaning whites) and that he’s deliberately torpedoing the economy to “payback” the nation for 230 years of racial sins against blacks.

Any other time, and with any other president, this would be treated exactly for what it is, sheer lunacy. But this not any other time, and the president is Obama. The suspicion that always lurks close to the surface is that an African-American once in a position of power will turn the tables and “payback” whites for the decades of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, racial violence, abuse, degradation and exclusion. The two decade assault on affirmative action firmly implanted the widespread belief that unfit and unqualified minorities and especially blacks were hell bent to shove whites aside and grab all the plum positions. It was reverse discrimination and racism. It was a short step from this to the notion that racism is virtually dead in America, except for the racism of blacks. This set the stage to tag Obama the reverse racist.
The shouts, taunts, spitting, catcalls, Obama joker posters, Confederate and Texas Lone Star flag waved by tea party activists was not just a naked, spasmodic race baiting by unreconstructed bigots. Many passionately believe that Obama is determined to give the company store away to minorities, especially blacks. Every chance he gets he’ll dump more money, devise more programs, and propose favorable legislation that favor blacks and minorities at the expense of whites. An Obama White House will bend, twist, and mangle laws to aid and abet black advancement. No matter how much Obama talks about being president of all the people, downplays race, and has an impeccable record on broad race neutral legislation, he’s still a reverse bigot.
The knock of Obama as a racist is much more than mindless dribble it serves a canny political purpose. The starting point is the 2008 campaign. The GOP could not have been competitive during campaign 2008 without the bail out from white male voters. Blue collar white voters have shrunk from more than half of the nation's voters to less than forty percent. The assumption based solely on this slide and the increased minority population numbers and regional demographic changes is that the GOP's white vote strategy is doomed to fail. This ignores three political facts. Elections are usually won by candidates with a solid and impassioned core of bloc voters. White males, particularly older white males, vote consistently and faithfully. They vote in a far greater percentage than Hispanics and blacks.

GOP leaders have long known that blue collar white male voters can be easily aroused to vote and shout loudly on the emotional wedge issues; abortion, family values, anti-gay marriage and tax cuts. They whipped up their hysteria and borderline racism against health care reform. This was glaringly apparent in the ferocity and bile spouted by the shock troops the GOP leaders in consort with the tea party activists brought out to harangue, harass and bully Democrat legislators on the eve of the final health care vote. These are the very voters that GOP presidents and aspiring presidents, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and W. Bush, and McCain and legions of GOP governors, senators and congresspersons banked for victory and to seize and maintain regional and national political dominance.
The GOP's win with the white vote failed in 2008 only because of the rage and disgust of legions of white voters at Bush's horribly failed and flawed domestic and war policies. This was more a personal and visceral reaction to the bumbles of Bush than a radical and permanent sea change in overall white voter sentiment about Obama, the Democrats, and the GOP. Even if the GOP is, as is widely seen, an insular party of Deep South and narrow Heartland, rural and, non-college educated blue-collar whites this is not a voting demographic to mock, ridicule or be sneered at, let alone dismiss, because the numbers are still huge.
Adams, Limbaugh, the tea party activists, and GOP leaders have crudely but effectively programmed millions to think of and see Obama as their worst racial nightmare. To them, he’s a black man who has real power and will lord it over whites. It’s the worst kind of con, but for the Obama loathers selling the con is all that matters.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

President Obama Should Say Yes to the NAACP Convention

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

An Obama will again address the NAACP’s annual convention starting July 9 in Kansas City. It just won’t be President Obama. First Lady Michelle Obama will give a talk, and it’s not really billed as a key note talk, more an informal workshop type discussion on her signature issue, the campaign against childhood obesity. She’s not listed in the confab’s 10 page schedule of speakers, panels and workshops.
There are two thoughts about the president’s no show at the convention. One he’s adhering to his avowed, cautious, goal of doing and saying nothing that belies his race neutral stance as the president of all the people. An appearance or a message to the convention wouldn’t violate that. He appeared last year and there was no issue. And every Democratic and GOP president including Reagan and W. Bush has either spoke to the convention or delivered a message to the convention since there’s been an NAACP convention. With the exception of Bush, and only because he boycotted the convention for the first six years of his White House tenure, presidential addresses raise no eyebrows. The other thought is that Obama fears that an appearance before a racial advocacy group like the NAACP will give more ammunition to the Obama loathers, Palin and tea party activists. This is even less plausible. A no-show at the NAACP convention won’t do anything to stop their non-stop pound of his agenda and him. And he almost certainly knows that.

Obama did not give an official reason why he’s skipping the convention. But one can fill in the surface blank. His plate groans with Afghanistan funding and logistic problems, putting the finishing touches on the financial reform bill, the BP spill, and the looming fight over energy reform bill, stalled jobless funding bills, and the never ending press of requests to promote Democratic candidates. These are all plausible reasons for skipping the convention. But there are problems with his no show. He’ll be in Kansas City the day before the start of the convention to attend a fundraiser for Democratic Senate hopeful Robin Carnahan; so isn’t a schedule tweak possible? If not, a video message from Obama to the convention is certainly more than doable. An appearance or a message from him is the politically expedient, the practical and just simply the right thing to do.

The black vote has been the Democrats' trump card in every election for the past half century, win or lose. If black voters had not turned the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries into a virtual holy crusade for Obama, and if Obama had not openly in the South Carolina primary and subtly in primaries thereafter stoked the black vote, he could easily have been just another failed Democratic presidential candidate. The Through its voter education, vote awareness, and get out the vote campaigns, the NAACP played a colossal role in galvanizing and boosting the numbers of black voters, nearly all votes for Obama.

This is not old history. The 2010 mid-term elections are fast approaching. Political analysts, pundits, and even Democratic consultants are near unanimous that the Democrats will lose seats in Congress to Republicans. The only real question is how bad the political hemorrhaging will be. A solid and united GOP, and droves of independents who are disillusioned, disgusted and even hostile toward Obama, should make the black vote loom even bigger in Obama's calculus. There's little margin of error with this vote. He needs a reasonable facsimile of the November 2008 black vote outpour to save as many Democratic seats as possible, and serve as a partial shield against the withering non-stop assault from the GOP leaders, tea party activists, Palin, and Limbaugh on his agenda and his person.

It’s the right thing to do. For the past half century, the NAACP has fought tough battles in the courts and the streets for voting rights, affirmative action, school integration and an end to housing and job discrimination. The group still accurately captures the mood of fear and hostility the majority of blacks feel toward the Republicans, and the chronic Obama bashers. Whether Obama appears, sends a message, or simply comes and quickly departs Kansas City the day before the convention, the NAACP will still exhort, implore, and cajole blacks to vote, which again means votes for Democrats. The aim is to insure maximum support for Obama’s agenda and to do damage control against GOP attacks.

Obama needs the NAACP and the NAACP needs Obama. He’s still their best hope to hold the line against the GOP assault on job, education and health care spending and programs, as well as the fight for immigration reform, and the always crucial Supreme Court appointments. These are bread and butter issues and concerns for Obama and the NAACP. President Obama should say yes to the NAACP convention.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Palin’s Play of the Obama as Hitler Card Was Inevitable

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The only surprise when Sarah Palin tweeted out her message to followers likening President Obama to Hitler was that it took so long for her to make the comparison. Her tea party pals, and a rogues list of GOP and rightwing hacks, bigots, loudmouths, and spin artists took giddy delight in making the Obama to Hitler comparison even before he put a foot in the Oval Office. Fox News’s Tom Sullivan was the first in the door with the Obama as Hitler lunacy in February 2008 when he played a side by side recording of Hitler and Obama’s speeches.

Clear Channel’s Bill Cunningham, foul mouth gab queen Ann Coulter, her male counterpart, Mike Savage, Limbaugh, Cal Thomas, and, of course, Glenn Beck quickly took up the Obama as Hitler chant. With that, the Obama as Hitler line was firmly set. The only thing missing was a mob setting to do an imitation torch light parade complete with banner, signs and posters with Obama depicted as Hitler. The mob parades were tea party rallies where Obama as Hitler agitprop paraphernalia was on full display.

Now there’s Palin. In a bit of crude craft, she slyly compared Obama to Hitler by exhorting her twitter followers to read a recent column by right wing pseudo egg head writer Thomas Sowell. He pilloried Obama for arm twisting BP to set up the $20 billion escrow fund. The fund is to help repair and compensate the victims of its Gulf ruin. To Sowell Obama took another giant step toward seizing dictatorial power. There’s absolutely nothing new about this crackpot charge. It’s been an absolute smash favorite of fringe GOP congresspersons, tea party acolytes, Fox News and the menagerie of rightside talk show gabbers for two years. The Obama as Hitler idiocy is more than just the ancient and stock GOP tactic of smearing, slandering, name calling, character assassinating, and baiting liberal, and moderate Democrats. The tactic is used to prick primitive passions, and it allows the GOP to duck and dodge making a coherent case for its untenable and more often than not foolish positions on issues. No, the Hitler smear is coldly calculated, and strategically trotted out when Obama introduces a major piece of legislation, new policy initiative, or in his pre White House days, when his groundbreaking autobiography rocket launched him as a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Hitler card is played even more furiously when it appears that Obama is near victory on legislation or an initiative.

The health care, and financial reform bills, and the BP escrow fund are textbook examples of that. Each of these initiatives had wide popular support, and GOP opposition to them appeared even more shrill, isolated, and vapid.
The Obama to Hitler card is also played opposite the Obama as Bolshevik analogy. This imprints the image of a power mad Obama out to turn government into an instrument of state control of industry and by extension to squash personal freedoms and liberties. The Hitler comparison imprints the image of a diabolical Obama out to snatch full dictatorial control of government.

Palin grabbed at Sowell’s hit piece to jump on the Hitler bandwagon. She didn’t have to explain how or why Obama’s urge of BP to set up the Gulf damage fund was Hitler like. But she didn’t have to explain the absurd. She knows that legions already have mindlessly swallowed the Hitler image of Obama. Expect more Obama as Hitler digs the next time the White House stands poised to score another victory.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

One Year Later Michael Jackson Still Provokes Controversy

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Pop king Michael Jackson has been dead exactly one year. But the controversy that surrounded his life didn’t end with his death. On the eve of the first anniversary of his death June 25, Latoya Jackson loudly declared that her brother was murdered. Why, because he had grown to rich, powerful, and posed a threat. Sister Latoya didn’t say who or whom the unknown he posed the threat too. But then she didn’t have to. The charge that Jackson was the victim of foul play has been bandied about by Jackson family members, legions of fans, and hotly discussed and debated on blogs and websites since that fateful day a year ago.

The murder conspiracy theories are just the tip of the iceberg of the Jackson controversy. On the eve of the first anniversary of his death, news reports were filled with rampant speculation and guesswork about Jackson’s financial woes, squabbles between his attorneys and former attorneys over who represents who and what in divvying up Jackson’s estate, and reports of more finger-pointing by Joe Jackson about Jackson’s death. This is no surprise. Jackson made news even when he didn’t do anything to make news during his life.

Jackson's infamous child molestation trial in 2005 for a time was the centerpiece of much of the chatter back and forth about Jackson’s actions. The acquittal didn’t end that. Debate still rages over whether Jackson was an innocent victim of greedy, media hungry parents, or of his own actions. Then there was Jackson's on again, off again, quirky, ambivalent relationship with African-Americans and his seemingly confused racial identity. For many blacks, Jackson was little more than a Casper-the-ghost-looking bleached skin, nose job, eye shade, straight hair and gyrating hips ambiguous black man who had made a ton of money and had been lauded, fawned over, and adored by whites. This was more than reason for some blacks to view him with a jaundiced eye.

Jackson for the most part stayed about the controversy. He always seemed to want much more, and that was to be thought of as much more than an entertainer, a musician, and certainly not a polarizing figure. Jackson was much more. A year later it’s worth remembering what exactly that was. The first inkling that Jackson was more than just a pampered, oddball recluse came after the burn accident he suffered while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Jackson quietly forked over the $1.5 million the Burn Center at Brothman Hospital in Southern California that he got in the accident settlement. He drew accolades in 1985 when he and Lionel Ritchie wrote "We Are the World" and performed the music as part of an all-star cast of singers and celebrities to raise money for African charities. But that was pretty much what was known about the other Jackson.

Few knew then, and many still don’t, about Jackson's charitable giving and the list of the peace and social justice related activities he was involved with. The list numbered more than fifty known charities and organizations that he gave to during the 1990s, both individually and through his expansively named Heal the World Foundation. The foundation was mired in a messy organizational and tax wrangle that briefly made headlines in 2002. Yet, there was virtually no press mention when Jackson jumpstarted the Foundation again in 2008 with a fresh wad of cash.
In the months and years after his 2005 child molestation trial acquittal debate raged over whether he was a washed up, health challenged, damaged goods, and financially strapped one time pop star who desperately wanted to snatch back a glimmer of his past glory. Or, whether he still had some of the trademark Jackson flare and talent left. Even that debate, though, seemed to pass Jackson by since he knew that his every word and act was still instant news, and that there were still hordes of fans who would heap dreamy eyed adulation on him.

The quest to seal a legacy as more than just the Pop King told much about Jackson's desire that the small but unseen and much neglected part of his life, that is his charitable work be known and remembered. That he be remembered as more than just a black man who made his living grabbing his crotch before millions. Or a man who's other claim to notoriety was that he delighted in surrounding himself with packs of children.
A year later Jackson’s reported financial troubles, the murder-conspiracy allegations, the looming manslaughter trail of Dr. Conrad Murray, and the occasional faint whispers about his alleged questionable child relations, still badly cloud the Jackson legacy. There’s still the other Jackson, though. ; The Jackson who unselfishly gave his money, time and name for humanitarian causes. A year after his death this is undoubtedly the Jackson that he wanted the world to know and remember. It’s the Jackson that we should remember too.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Can President Obama Really Break Our Oil Addiction?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Two surreal things happened within the span of two days. In his televised address, President Obama again sternly warned that the nation must break its dependency on oil. He again called on Congress to pass an energy bill that would vastly expand our hunt for and use of alternative and renewable energy sources. The next day he sternly tongue lashed BP executives about the monumental damage of their spill, and demanded they cough up billions to pay the damage costs. They agreed. The tough talk generally about breaking America’s oil addiction publicly played well, and BP paying the damage freight played even better. But while the president made his umpteenth pitch to break the oil addiction, a slew of Gulf Coast congresspersons and senators loudly called for Obama to lift the moratorium on off shore drilling. There’s some evidence that the president may listen to their plea.
Before the BP spill Obama had approved an expansion in off shore drilling. After the BP spill, he quickly reversed gears. However, he also left the door for a resumption of drilling when he indicated that he would wait and see what his oil spill commission came up with about the spill.
The love-public loathe relation that politicians have with big oil has been the all too familiar pattern. The very moment that House committee leaders very publicly saber rattled BP’s hapless CEO Tony Hayward, GOP Senate leaders very quietly moved to kill off any effort to dump the farcically low $75 million liability cap on damages big oil would have to shell out, for well, a Gulf spill. The Orwellian reason for not tampering with the cap is that it would push all but the biggest oil giants out of the business of oil exploration and drilling since smaller companies would be too scared to drill if they knew they would have to pony up tens of millions for a mishap. Big or little, the drill, baby drill crowd had to be protected at all cost.
The operative word is always cost. The much touted alternative energy sources, wind, solar, hydrogen and ethanol are too expensive, too time consuming, and often not cost effective. Even if congress was willing to do what it publicly claims it wants to do and push hard to develop these alternative sources, it won’t pay what it will cost. The climate and energy legislation pushed by Obama as it now stands increases funding for R&D and demonstration of alternative sources by a paltry $2 to $4 billion. That’s a fraction of the $25 to $30 billion per year experts agree it takes to achieve the technological breakthroughs needed to make clean energy cheap and scalable. Congress has further tilted the playing field against all out production and use of all alternative energy sources by taxing it. There is no tax on foreign oil imports.



It still comes back to supply and demand. In 2008 the United States consumed 23 percent of the world’s petroleum nearly 60 percent of this was imported. But the country holds less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. About 40 percent of the imports came from Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, and that figure continues to climb. The naked fact is that the US is running out of oil. The amount of oil in proven U.S. reserves, reserves that the United States is fairly certain it can extract oil from in the future, plunged nearly 20 billion barrels the last thirty years. This means even if the country drilled and produced all the oil reserves it had they’d be depleted in four years.
Oil is still by any standard relatively cheap. As painful as it is to swallow, for the forseeable future, anyway, sustainable. The country consumes over 7 billion barrels of oil per year. Federal estimates are that the nation's outer continental shelf could hold more than 80 billion barrels of crude. That includes more than 10 billion barrels off California alone. If the US did not get another drop of oil from the world’s land suppliers, and relied solely on the supply it got from California off shore drilling it would fill the country’s energy need for twelve years. The near 100 billion of oil deposits is just in or near US coastal waters. A 2008 International Energy Agency report estimates that reachable conventional oil located in water more than a quarter-mile deep world-wide is between 160 and 300 billion barrels, with more than two-thirds of that in Brazil, Angola, Nigeria and, of course, the United States.

The BP spill ratcheted up the much needed war of words from President Obama and congress about the peril of America’s incessant oil addiction, and the urgency of breaking it. Words are one thing, but the terrifying reality is that to break the oil addiction, as with any other addiction, it takes a strong will and the means to do it. So far neither one is there.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

South Carolina Democratic US Senate Candidate Alvin Greene’s Interview on the Hutchinson Report

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Alvin Greene discusses his shocking win in the South Carolina Democratic primary. Greene discusses the impact of his win on state and national politics, his campaign plans, his relations with the Democratic Party, charges that he’s a GOP plant, and calls for him to drop out of the race because of felony obscenity charges. Greene discussed these issues in an exclusive interview with Earl Ofari Hutchinson Host of The Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles on Saturday, June 12.

“Greene’s controversial campaign and primary win has stirred national attention and sent shock waves through the Democratic Party,” says Hutchinson Report Host Earl Ofari Hutchinson, “The interview was the first full length interview Greene has conducted since his shocking win in South Carolina.”

Interview with South Carolina Democratic US Senatorial Candidate Alvin Greene
THR: A number of critics are convinced that you are a GOP plant, a put up job.
AG: I’m a Democrat, and I always have been a Democrat.
THR: South Carolina Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn has called for a federal investigation.
AG: I have no comment on that. My campaign is about jobs, better education for children and justice.
THR: Tell us, who is Alvin Greene? What should people know about you?
AG: I’m 32. I was born in Florence, South Carolina, and grew up in Manning, South Carolina. I graduated from the University of South Carolina. I’m an Air Force and an army veteran. I did a year tour of duty in Korea. I have been out of the service nine months.
THR: Why did you decide to run?
AG: To make a difference. I saw the US declining and I decided to save my money to run.
THR: Let’s discuss your campaign platform. You emphasize reforming the criminal justice system.
AG: The punishment must fit the crime. We spend much more of our taxpayer dollars on inmates than students. We must get our priorities together in South Carolina and across the country.
THR: You also emphasize lower gas prices.
AG: We need an energy bill that emphasizes alternative forms of energy such as solar. We must explore all our resources.
THR: South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler has cited the obscenity charges pending against you and called for you to withdraw.
AG: The election was certified on Friday, June 11, so that’s old business. I’m in the race all the way.
THR: Have you reached out to the state Democrats for support?
AG: I’m seeking state and national support that I need and am entitled to. I’m the party’s nominee.
THR: Has there been any word from president Obama about your victory?
AG: None that I know of.
THR: Your GOP rival Senator Jim DeMint is a strong, vigorous critic of the president. How are you going to battle him?
AG: I’m working on getting a September date for a 1 hour live, national network debate. But my focus is on the issues.
THR: Do you now have a campaign committee, and solicited endorsements from the media and elected officials?
AG: I’m organizing my campaign for the general election and trying to find support.
THR: Have the state’s Democratic African-American elected officials offered support?
AG: I’ve had some offers from small organizations, but no official endorsements yet.
THR: Have you gotten support from younger voters and college students?
AG; Yes, I get a lot of calls from across the country, and the world. They me how much they are inspired by my campaign. And they want to do anything they can to help.
THR: Do you feel that you made a statement to the political establishment this election with your victory?
AG: Yes. All I heard was how are you going to do it? You don’t have $100 million. I’m hearing that now about the general election. In the end, it’s not about the money in the bank. It’s the votes that count and the issues. My goal is getting South Carolina and the nation moving forward.