Questioning the Legitimacy of the Presidency

President Obama gave an interview with Matt Lauer some days ago. He categorized the Tea Party as consisting at its core of some people who doubt the legitimacy of his presidency. I've been thinking the exact same thing for a while, and I am hearing the president iterate my exact thoughts.

Now, why is that? When Bush was elected, the circumstances were such that he didn't win the popular vote, but wont the electoral vote. We saw signs carried by people that said, "not my president." That is how I felt. But the way the election laws work, you have to win the electoral votes in order to become the president. That is how it has always worked. The legitimacy of Bush's presidency was no doubt. He was the president, and I quietly bid my time and voted for a Democrat.

There is no question whatsoever about how Obama became the president. He won an overwhelming majority of the votes. He won the popular vote, he won the electoral vote. The legitimacy of his presidency is beyond doubt.

However, there are those who question his presidency, not based on the law of the land, but based on Obama as a person. They question the very eligibility of the president to be the president in the first place. Is Obama an America citizen or not? All the documentation has shown that he is. Because Obama is so unlike other presidents (read: not white), they shout that they want to take the country back. Back to what? To the white rule?

These are people who cannot accept the fact that there is a biracial president in the White House. They seek to weaken his presidency by raising, not the constitutionality of the presidency, but rather the very qualification that allowed Obama to run for presidency in the first place. In their minds, citizenship equals race. How distorted is this mind?

Republicans are stoking this thinking. As David Frum says via WonkRoom, "Republicans care about politics, Democrats care about government." If Democrats cared about politics more than government, health care reform would have never passed.

I like Democrats. Now they are politicians with guts. Republicans, not so much.