It's Wrong To Hype Race, But ...

TNC enters the discussion over the visceral nature of some Obama opponents:

If we concede, as most reasonable people do, that racism is a factor--not the factor but a factor--in resistance to Obama, then in fact, what we've seen this year is, by the very nature of an Obama presidency, unprecedented. Put simply, we've seen the crazy-tax, of which race is a portion, before. But we've never seen the crazy-tax intensified by race. We have not seen it accompanied by watermelon jokes, by Congressmen referring to him as boy, by clucking heads claiming that the president "has exposed himself as someone with a deep-seated hated of white people." We've never seen the whitey tape, before... Don't let the grinding familiarity of Obama blind you to the profound times we live in, and the work that's still left to do.

I agree. There are deeper forces at issue here than just healthcare. And all of them make me want Obama to succeed.