R-E-S-P-E-C-T

It will come as no surprise to any of you that today Politico has a hit piece on President Obama titled The Incredible Shrinking Obama. It capitalizes on the drop of support for the President in recent polling (of course, not mentioning that Republicans saw even bigger declines).

But one section of the article stood out to me.

Obama has also made history, but not in a good way: He has presided over the first-ever downgrade of the country’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s, and he was the first president to see his request for a joint session of Congress rebuffed.

Then there was his performance during the recent battle over the deficit. House Speaker John Boehner pulled out of negotiations for one terrifying week, preferring to transact business with Senate Democrats and, ultimately, Vice President Joe Biden. At one point, the speaker wouldn’t even return Obama’s call.

I'm surprised they didn't include the fact that a couple of the particularly lunatic members of Congress are not even going to attend the speech tomorrow night.

My question to the authors would be to ask them when it started to make sense to blame those on the receiving end for disrespectful behavior. Were the protesters in Alabama responsible for Bull Connor's decision to bring out the water hoses? Was Jackie Robinson responsible for the invectives hurled at him or the fact that people spit on him in public?

See the pattern here?

I grew up with people who would have answered "yes" to those questions. But some of us have learned a few things since then about what it means to afford respect to other human beings...much less the President of the United States.

As the reader at TPM noted, there are at least some people who notice what's going on here.

African-Americans are especially sensitive to the unprecedented disrespect that white Republicans have afforded to the first black President. Every time it happens, it ripples across black radio, black newspapers, black websites, and in conversations in black communities. It helps cement the ties that Obama has with the black community, and helps overcome whatever doubts and disappoints some may have. It reminds people who have experienced overt racism in their own lives that the President is experiencing the same kind of dehumanizing disrespect. It will help drive strong African-American turnout and overwhelming numbers for Obama next year.

Political pundits may gossip about the rift between Boehner and Obama, but millions of black Americans see something much more sinister when this happens.

I suspect that those authors at Politico - along with all the poutragers on the left who've joined the chorus of blaming the President for this kind of disrespect - will wind up on the same side of history as those in my family/community who made the wrong call many years ago.

Like those who maintained their dignity in much worse situations, President Obama has shown nothing but maturity and respect in the face of these kinds of slights. I'm getting sick and tired of people in the media and on the left who choose not to call it like it is and have the President's back on this one - regardless of whether you agree with him or not. Its about basic respect.