Head-Scratchingly Racist

That's the only conclusion I can come up with from Byron York's idiotic implication that Obama's positive poll numbers are inflated by African-Americans like myself, thus rendering them somehow meaningless.

On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

Wait, what?

Excuse me? It sounds like you just said that the political views of African-Americans should not be included in the overall political analysis of an African-American President because those views are not representative of "America" somehow.

Now, I can understand the logic of African-Americans representing about 12% of the US population not being fully representative. But Byron here seems to be suggesting that we should in fact be penalizing the President's approval numbers, if not politically ignoring African-Americans' views of Obama altogether to arrive at some sort of "valid" approval figure.

But why are we breaking this down by race anyway? What exactly does the exercise accomplish other than trying to sweep the political relevance of African-Americans under the rug? Why write an entire article based on this?

In the final count, 62 percent of whites approve of the job Obama is doing as president. Among blacks, the number is 96 percent. Together, the two groups give Obama an overall job approval rating of 68 percent.

So, what are you saying again? That Obama's "real" approval rating should be counted as 62%? That African-American approval of Obama should be 62%? What, exactly?

I'm honestly confused, because not only is my first reaction "What a racist asshole" but on the deeper analysis, it only makes Byron York seem like even more of a racist asshole. Somebody explain to me why he's not. I'd really like to know...and I'd like to know even more what this is doing in a Washington newspaper...even if it is the Examiner.

I mean does this mean it's okay to say that Obama's negative five billion approval rating among racist assholes is lowering what his "real" approval rating should be?

Has somebody told Pat Buchanan this yet?