Progressives to taste the racism Smear?

Progressive 2008 Obama voters find themselves finds himself in an interesting predicament.  With liberal progressives and even those within the black community unsatisfied with the his agenda there is a curious shot being fired in the progressive publication, The Nation.  Melissa Harris Perry writes in this weeks online issue that a more pernicious racism could very well be afoot.  In spite of President Obama's efforts to minimize the issue of raise, at least in his public voice, the table is now being set to guilt those unsatisfied with his work as a progressive and possibly set up a primary challenge for him prior to the 2012 general election. 
Harris-Perry points out the obvious that voters were willing to bring him into office in 2004 as a senator in Illinois (against a black republican opponent no less) and then again 2008.  To her credit she admits that the most "naked, egregious and aggressive form" of racism is no longer a factor.  She comes to this conclusion by pointing out the less obvious (which I take at her word as I've not researched it myself) by comparing the "roll-off" vote in prior elections.  "Roll off" is the number of voters who vote in a primary election but then fail to vote in current year municipal, state or local elections.  The same can be compared to off year elections.  For example, those who voted in the Kerry-Bush race in 2008 but refused to vote in the Illinois senate race which was comprised of Obama and another black candidate Alan Keyes.  If the number votes cast were significantly lower for the senate race then one could deduce that racism was still alive and well.  The "roll off" was statistically insignificant.  This allowed Harris Perry to conclude the worst form of racism is no factor.

But don't celebrate yet.  According to Harris Perry we still need to look out for what she has termed "liberal electoral racism".  This is defined as "...the willingness to abandon a black candidate when he is just as competent as his white predecessors.  She goes on to compare the legislative "successes" of President Obama and President Clinton concluding of course that Obama has seen as much success as did President Clinton.  Concluding that both Clinton and Obama are centrist Presidents.  Of course she concludes the only difference between the two:  one is white and the other is black.  Therefore any push for the base to abdicate him, or heaven forbid, push for a primary challenger will indicate a form of racism that still exists.  An interesting theory I disagree with on many levels but I will leave the reader to decide.

What I find equally interesting is the comments section.  "I love you Melissa but bunk!"  or "...don't you listen to the reasons liberals give for being very unhappy with President Obama? To blame it on racism is, frankly, insulting...".  On and on it goes.  I don't know if a primary challenge is in the cards or not, but it offers some small satisfaction to see those that would accuse me of racism for not voting for this President (much less agreeing with His policies) beginning to get back a bit of their own medicine.  Is it possible they will learn from this and cease and desist?    

Democrats smeared Martin Luther King?

By Frances Rice - Executive Director of NBRA

As we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the month of his birth, let us also pause to remember the indignities he endured, who caused his suffering – the Democrats – and how. Character assassination. That's the tactic used by Democrats in the 1960's to discredit Dr. King, a Republican who was fighting the Democrats and trying to stop them from denying civil rights to blacks.

The relentless disparagement of Dr. King by Democrats led to his being physically assaulted and ultimately to his tragic death. In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King's leaving Memphis, Tennessee after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
Prior to his death, Democrats bombed Dr. King's home several times. The scurrilous efforts by the Democrats to harm Dr. King included spreading rumors that he was a Communist and accusing him of being a womanizer and a plagiarist.

An egregious act against Dr. King occurred on October 10, 1963. With the approval of Democrat President John F. Kennedy, Democrat Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy – President Kennedy's brother – authorized the wiretapping of Dr. King's telephone by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Wiretaps were placed by the FBI on the telephones in Dr. King's home and office. The FBI also bugged Dr. King's hotel rooms when he traveled around the country.
The trigger for this unsavory wiretapping was apparently Dr. Kings' criticism of the Kennedy Administration, according to the author David Garrow in his book, Bearing the Cross. The justification given by the Kennedy Administration publicly was that two of Dr. King's associates, including David Levinson, had ended their association with the Communist Party in order to work undercover and influence Dr. King. However, after years of continuous and extensive wiretapping, the FBI found no direct links of Dr. King to the Communist Party.

The unrelenting efforts by Democrats to tarnish Dr. King's reputation continued for years after his death. To his credit, Republican President Ronald Reagan ignored the Democrats' smear campaign and made Dr. King's birthday a holiday. Under President George W. Bush, a memorial to Dr. King is being built in Washington, DC.

Today, while professing to revere Dr. King, Democrats are still trying to sully his image by making remarks that diminish his civil rights achievements and continuing to claim that Dr. King embraced Communism – a system that is secularist and socialist.

In reality, Dr. King was a Christian who held deeply religious beliefs and was guided by his faith and his Republican Party principles in his struggle to gain equality for blacks. He did not embrace the type of socialist, secularist agenda that is promoted by the Democratic Party today, which includes fostering dependency on welfare that breaks up families, supporting same-sex marriage and banning God from the public square.

An understanding of who the real Dr. King was can be gained from a glimpse of Dr. King as a young man who participated in an oratorical contest when he was 14 years old. The title of his speech was "The Negro and the Constitution" which had the following sentences: "We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance…We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flout the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule…."

If Dr. King were still alive, he would be slandered by Democrats in the same way that they smeared him in the 1960's and demean all black Republicans today.