Former President Jimmy Carter voiced what a lot of President Barack Obama's supporters have been thinking recently: that an underlying factor in the passionate opposition in some quarters to Mr. Obama's policies has something to do with his race. They point to the diffuse anger of "tea party" protesters and others, who go beyond opposing particular policies and passionately decry a country they say they don't recognize anymore. President Carter said he believes that "an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man."
So what if it is? Does that mean it doesn't count? That naming it as racism makes it magically go away? For the last six months, liberals have been finding reasons to invalidate the criticism of the president - that it's all orchestrated by Fox News or is the product of racism. But even if that's true, does calling it out make it easier for the president to enact health care reform? No.
If there's a common thread to the passion displayed by the protesters of taxes, bailouts, health care reform, deficit spending and presidential speeches to schoolchildren, it's a desire to turn back the clock, maybe to the first term of President Ronald Reagan, if not President Dwight Eisenhower. There are plenty of reasons for people to feel uncomfortable about the direction of the country. We've just been through a tremendous financial crisis, we're fighting two wars, and the government took over General Motors. Unemployment is rising, the promise of leaving a better future to our children seems ever more elusive, and the simple, safe America we like to remember seems under threat from everything from al-Qaeda to online predators.
Oh, and the president is a different color from all his predecessors.
Does that last fact make some people profoundly uncomfortable? Probably. But is calling people racist going to fix that? No.
The official White House reaction has been to deflect the issue. Realistically, how could Mr. Obama do otherwise? To make race a central element of his presidency would turn Mr. Obama into the black president instead of the president.
Mr. Carter appears to have concluded that for a large segment of the population, that's inevitable. In the NBC Nightly News interview in which he first raised the subject, the former president said there is a "belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country."
It is hard to believe that, less than a year after a solid majority of the country elected Mr. Obama - not because of his color, not in spite of it, but regardless of it - that many would have concluded that his race was a disqualification. But even if Mr. Carter is right that racism is at the root of the unrest, the course Mr. Obama has chosen to deal with it is the wise one: not to talk about it but to do his job. The only thing that is going to ease the discomfort and anxiety many Americans feel about the future is for the president to lead us to a better one. That's going to take time, and to get there he needs to stay focused on his goals, not argue about whether his opponents are racists.
