With Obama plummeting in the polls, his agenda in danger and the center abandoning him, the Left has come up with an explanation:  It’s all because of racism!

Jimmy Carter cites protesters calling Obama a Nazi as an example of racial politics.  Of course, Obama isn’t the first President to be called such, nor will he be the last.

Didn’t we know this was all coming?  The racism charge has been kept in the back pocket of the Left just in case Obama turned out to be a complete failure.  Well, now that they have played that card, can there be any doubt that this is an indication that the Left is increasingly desperate and worried about his prospects?

…are out.

Clearly, the new strategy on the Left is to equate opposition to Obama to racism.  Do you think it is a coincidence that there is suddenly a flurry of opinion pieces on Birthers and racists and how it relates to Obama’s policies?

First, we had the Yglesias piece, which I discussed below.  Then Bill Maher weighed in.  Now, there is this column by Harold Meyerson which hits upon the same irrelevant points–Birthers, racists, etc.  It includes gems like this to explain the sudden lack of support for Obama’s wonderful health care reforms:

When future historians look back at this passage in our nation’s history, I suspect they’ll conclude that this Obama-isn’t-American nuttiness refracted the insecurities and, in some cases, the hatred that a portion of conservative white America felt about having a black president and about the transformation of what many thought of as their white nation into a genuinely multiracial republic. But whatever the reasons, a mobilized minority is making a very plausible play to thwart a demobilized majority.

Right.  It’s the GOP’s fault.  The Democrats can’t even bring a vote on health care to the House floor and it’s the fault of the Senate GOP and their filibuster, which, uh, they are one vote short to implement anyway.  So, when that fails, just say they are all racist nuts who think Obama isn’t an American.  How desperate are they getting? And what is the origin of all this?

Well, the Democratic National Committee for starters.  Here’s part of a recent statement by their communications director:

Republicans and their allied groups – desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill – are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.

However, much like we saw at the McCain-Palin rallies last year where crowds were baited with cries of ’socialist,’ ‘communist,’ and where the birthers movement was born – these mobs of extremists are not interested in having a thoughtful discussion about the issues – but like some Republican leaders have said – they are interested in ‘breaking’ the President and destroying his Presidency.

Well, let’s get back to reality.  The fact is that most Americans–not a noisy minority–are in some sort of opposition to Obama’s plans.  From Gallup:

• Although the majority of Americans believe the U.S. healthcare system has major problems, less than 20% perceive that the U.S. healthcare system is in a state of crisis. This has not shifted significantly in 15 years.
• More Americans now mention healthcare as the nation’s most important problem than was the case a few months ago. It is unlikely that the quality of healthcare deteriorated in four months, but rather that its salience has increased for the average American with the increased focus on the topic from politicians and the news media. This follows the pattern seen in 1993 and 1994; concern about healthcare shot up as the problem was being addressed in Washington, D.C., but dropped thereafter. The current percentage of Americans naming healthcare as the country’s biggest problem is significantly lower than in 1994.
• At this point, almost 7 out of 10 Americans say economic-related issues are the nation’s top problem; 16% say healthcare is the top problem.
• One in 10 Americans say healthcare is the most important financial problem facing their family.

2. Americans are not convinced that healthcare reform will benefit them personally. This is, in part, because most Americans are satisfied with their current medical care and access to healthcare. Seniors in particular are not convinced that healthcare reform will benefit them.

• Most Americans do not see a direct personal benefit for themselves if healthcare legislation is passed.
• Eighty-four percent of Americans are insured and most say they are satisfied with their insurance and healthcare.
• Americans are more likely to be convinced that new healthcare legislation will have a negative effect personally rather than a positive one, although a substantial minority falls in the middle, saying it will have no effect on them either way.
• Most Americans rate the quality of healthcare they receive and their healthcare coverage as excellent or good. These views have been stable in recent years.
• While younger adults (those 18 to 49) are as likely to believe reform could help them as say it could hurt them, older Americans, particularly those 65 years and older, are far less likely to perceive that their medical care or access to healthcare would improve under new healthcare legislation.

3. Americans agree that healthcare costs are a major problem for the country. Americans do not, however, believe that healthcare reform would lessen costs — neither for the system as a whole nor for individuals.

• An overwhelming 79% of Americans say that they are dissatisfied with the total cost of healthcare in this country.
• Forty-five percent say that healthcare costs would increase overall with a new healthcare reform law, compared to 30% who say they would decrease.
• Personally, 34% say their healthcare costs would increase under a new law; 18% say they would be reduced.

4. The push for healthcare reform is occurring in an environment characterized by high levels of concern about fiscal responsibility, government spending, and the growing federal deficit. Americans are being asked to approve major new healthcare expenditures at a time when they are not yet convinced that the last massive outlay of government money — the stimulus — has made an impact.

• Americans are worried about their country’s budget deficit.
• President Obama gets his lowest marks on handling the federal deficit.
• Those who disapprove of Obama’s job performance are most likely to say it is because of the high levels of spending introduced in his administration.
• A Pew Research poll released this week shows that those who are worried about new healthcare legislation are most likely to say it is because it involves too much spending and would increase the deficit.
• Less than a third of Americans perceive that the stimulus plan has made the U.S. economy better, although about half hold out hope that it will eventually.
• Americans, on balance, perceive that the stimulus plan has, thus far, had no effect or made their own financial situation worse (64% and 22%, respectively). Looking ahead, Americans are just as likely to say the stimulus’ long-term effect will make their situation worse as make it better.

5. Americans have relatively little confidence in Congress and thus, by inference, little confidence that Congress can effectively and efficiently reform the country’s massive healthcare system.

• Two-thirds of Americans say members of Congress do not have a good understanding of the issues involved in healthcare reform.
• Just 17% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress, near the bottom of a list of institutions Gallup measures each year.

6. Americans continue to have more confidence in President Obama on healthcare issues than in either the Democrats or Republicans in Congress. Obama’s political capital, however, is waning. This leads to a circularity in which Obama’s hard push for healthcare reform may hurt his approval ratings, and his falling approval ratings may hurt his credibility on healthcare reform. One inevitable byproduct of Obama’s strong push on reform is the politicalization of healthcare. Most Democrats support it, Republicans oppose it, and independents are in the middle.

• President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen from an average of 66% in early May to 56% for the week of July 20-26.
• Given a list of sources for recommendations for healthcare guidance, Americans say they are more confident in Obama than in either Democratic or Republican leaders in Congress — although doctors, researchers, and hospitals are rated higher than Obama.
• Twenty-two percent of Republicans want a new healthcare law passed this year, compared to 63% of Democrats.

7. Americans have mixed or ambivalent views of the role government should have in healthcare. They favor some government involvement, but not a government-run healthcare system.

• Less than half of Americans favor replacing the current system with a government-run healthcare system.
• Americans responding to questions asked by various polling organizations in recent weeks indicate that they do favor a public option plan (run by the government) that would compete with private plans.
• Americans believe that it is the government’s role to help see that all Americans have access to healthcare, although this sentiment was waning as of November 2008.

8. On a case-by-case basis, Americans favor many specific proposals that have been put forth as ways of reforming healthcare.

• Polls from several polling organizations released this week show that Americans favor a public option government plan to compete with employer plans, requiring insurance companies to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions, tax credits to help some people pay for health insurance, and expansion of government plans to cover low-income Americans.
• Americans also appear to agree with a number of different ways of paying for healthcare reform, including taxes on the rich and requiring employers to pay a fee if they don’t provide health insurance.

9. Despite positive views of many specific reform proposals, Americans appear ambivalent at this juncture on the overall merits of passing a broad healthcare plan.

• In mid-July a majority of Americans favored passing a major healthcare reform bill (described without reference to who is supporting it).
• By later in July, several organizations’ surveys show a plurality of Americans opposed to passage of plans variously labeled as Obama’s plan, the plan proposed by President Obama and the Congressional Democrats, healthcare proposals being discussed in Congress, or healthcare reform legislation being considered right now.
• Other recent poll questions, which describe the plan in great detail, continue to show plurality of majority support.
• A plurality, but not a majority, of Americans say that a new healthcare plan would improve the overall level of medical care and improve access to healthcare in the U.S.

10. All in all, while the majority of Americans ultimately favor passage of healthcare reform, many are willing to wait until next year to see it happen.

This is the facts.  The marching orders are there to convince Americans otherwise.  It won’t work.

I think it’s worthwhile to highlight liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias’ rather extraordinary column today called ‘Here Come the Racists‘ as a great example of how the Left operates these days.  Call it a ‘teachable moment’.  

I hope that wasn’t too condescending.  If so, I’m only repeating one of the President’s favorite phrases.

Let’s start with how Yglesias distorts what happened last week with the Gates Affair. 

How else to explain the firestorm of controversy set off by the president of the United States offering the banal observation that there is “a long history” of “African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately,” and that a police department that arrests a man inside his own home and winds up dropping the charges has acted “stupidly”? But as soon as the president spoke, the right wing pounced, smelling blood.

This might work as a rhetorical question if it actually bore some relation to what actually happened.  Indeed, there was zero controversey over his ‘banal’ statement about disproportionate treatment of blacks and latinos.  The real controversey was over him saying that police acted ’stupidly’ while at the same time admitting he didn’t have all the facts about the case.  The buzz was over the President of the United States inserting himself into a local matter during a press conference on health care.  This was why there was a firestorm, not because Obama said anything about how minorities are treated.

And since when are the Cambridge Police the right wing?  All of them–regardless of race or political affiliation–supported Officer Crowley.

But the reason for Yglesias’ distortion quickly becomes apparent in the next graph:

Since the campaign ended, we’ve been seeing the extreme racial paranoia that has characterized the American right for decades.

Got that?  Making a fuss over the President of the United States blurting out a snap judgement when he admits he didn’t have the facts is a sign of rising racial paranoia by the right wing. 

Well, he might be right that there is extreme racial paranoia out there, except it seems to be coming primarily from people like Yglesias.  How else to explain the title of his column (Here Come the Racists!).  Does that sound appropriate for a column claiming to decry paranoia?  Yglesias clearly insinuates that the Grand Wizard himself, Britt Hume, is one of these racists for having the nerve to point out those occasions when non-whites make racially insensitive statements. 

What’s Yglesias’ motivation here? Is he merely adhering to the old left-wing saw that minorities, by dint of their lack of political power, can’t be racist and therefore to accuse them of racism is itself a racist act?  But if the President doesn’t have power, who does?  Is it wrong to hold him accountable for the content of his statements?  Should we have just laughed off Sonia Sotomayor’s racially-tinged words?

After glossing over that whole issue, Yglesias then goes on to hit all the Lefty talking points of late:  something about Michael Savage (is he even on the radio?), the Birthers (naturally) and, in order to appear serious and high minded, he also voices a faux concern for the future of the GOP for associating with such bigots. 

For good measure, he throws in a poll that says that 23 percent of the public is uncertain whether Obama was born in the U.S. (clearly because they are all racists).   Of course, he rather approvingly assumes that this group is all right wing, too, except that at least one-fourth are either independents or Democrats. 

Let’s not forget that 61 percent of Democrats are uncertain over whether Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand or not, so when it comes to kooky conspiracy-theorist types, neither party is clean.

But Yglesias won’t let all that stuff get in the way of his column’s ultimate goal:  To bludgeon people he disagrees with politically with the ‘racist’ label. 

Much more fun to do that than talk about how Obama’s health care plan might create more racists–er, Republicans–in 2010.