Tea Party Schmea Party

I saw a comment crawling along the bottom of Wolf Blitzer's show last night, something to the effect that the infamous tea parties were nothing but an opportunity for disgruntled white folks to show their true faces in public, apparently without any fear of reprimand or retaliation. I agree. Some of the signs I saw and the words I heard made me sick to my stomach; they had nothing to do with tea. Actually, I've seen hints of the return of this ugly phenom, loosely disguised as humor, for many weeks already. If this whole "protest" was about taxes and tea, I'm curious to know where all these disgruntled folks were during the last eight years . . . or, let's be real . . . the last 30 years.

To those of you who think the election of Barack Obama solved all the racial problems in this country, I have two words: Puh-Lease. Am I surprised that people are still boo-hooing about an election that Obama won by 38% in the electoral college? Nope. And, even though Obama did his damnedest to diffuse the race issue early on, even denouncing his long-time pastor and friend, the sickening racial attitudes that have long been a part of our national psyche are again raising their ugly heads, up front and in public. Nothing's been resolved. And, let him make one single misstep. His phony liberal white support will turn on him in a New York minute. This is, after all, Amerika, where everything is racial, even when you're the POTUS.

So, in the time-honored tradition of Old Man "All Politics is Local" Daley, I will get on with the job at hand in Cape Coral -- electing a new mayor and three new council members . . . and, yes, we have a hell of a good shot at it.