THE ISSUE: Criticizing the president

OUR OPINION: Wilson may not agree with him but is not afraid of having black president

This is exactly what President Barack Obama does not want: A debate about whether criticism of him and his administration is based on racism. But it’s exactly what he is getting.

In the wake of South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst during Obama’s health care speech before Congress, the debate has turned to whether Wilson’s action was based in racism.

Obama knew when he became president that he would be criticized and attacked. It goes with the turf. He has steadfastly refused to discuss criticism in terms of racism, knowing full well that he must be “the president” and not “the black president.”

Despite accepting Wilson’s apology for the remark, Obama is not getting help in high places for his desire to move on with a civil debate.

In a nationally syndicated column titled “‘You lie’ — boy,” Maureen Dowd of The New York Times injects racism big time into the debate. She states that she heard the unspoken word “boy” in Wilson’s comments, connecting the congressman with decades of racial division in the South and paranoia about black leadership.

She makes her case by citing Wilson’s support for display of the Confederate flag, his membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans and his initial statement that claims about the late Sen. Strom Thurmond having a black daughter were a “smear.” She writes, “Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.”

From there, Dowd reaches the conclusion that opposition to Obama in the South is based on two centuries of fear that blacks and/or the federal government will take over the old Confederacy. She says those inside the Obama administration should not be unwilling to accept that he is viewed as “a black man whose legitimacy is constantly being challenged by a loco fringe.”

Then comes former President Jimmy Carter, whose battles during the civil rights era in Georgia are famous. He has deep-seated opinions of Southern racism based on his experiences and knows well that racism still exists here — as it does around the country for different reasons and in different forms. But for the former president to outright say that Wilson’s comment was based on racism is too much of a leap. “There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president,” Carter said at a town hall meeting in Atlanta.

That may be, but we do not see Wilson’s action as testament to such sentiment. And we do see raising the specter of racism in the debate about health care as taking the country places it should not be going.

We in the media are accused of blanket support of Obama and everything he does and says. We’re accused of ignoring corruption allegations against liberal organizations such as ACORN and events such as the tea parties protesting actions of the federal government. Some criticism may be based in racism but we hear voices genuinely concerned about the course of the nation under Democratic leadership more than those with any direct dislike of Obama.

Joe Wilson has spent a lifetime building the Republican Party in South Carolina. He has seen much and been part of much. No doubt he has been exposed to racism in the form of those urging him to take a harder line and others accusing him of white supremacy. Such is the history of politics in the region.

BUT, we do not concur with Carter, a columnist or others who conclude that racism is at the root of his criticism of health care reform.

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