Yep. Gotta be racism.

Eugene Robinson knows why the Dems are about to take a pretty severe drubbing.

Ready? Sitting down? Lean over now. The real reason is...

RACISM!!!

Weird, huh — that he thinks folks hate Obama because Obama's half-white?

I jest, of course. Obama long ago threw his white mother under the bus for the more expedient route of embracing his father's skin-color as if that were the only component in his makeup.

Now, looking at Mr. Peterson's Robinson's picture, I think he's old enough to remember the '80s and '90s. There was a president back then who stirred up a whole lot more visceral animus. Name of Clinton.

Skin-color? Pasty-white.

I'll be very candid. I have prayed many times for Bill Clinton's salvation, and I have prayed for Barack Obama's salvation. But for Clinton I felt great revulsion. He repelled me as a man, an American, a Christian. He claimed to be all three, but only enshrined the worst parody-elements of each, all wrapped in a smug, smirking, smarmy bad-boy arrogance that was pretty hard to take. He was getting away with murder, he knew it, and he'd wink at you to show you how much smarter than you he was.

But that isn't why I opposed him. I opposed him for his policies, his foreign-policy cluelessness, his big-government liberalism, his embrace of abortion, his perjury, his abuse of office and of the public trust. He could have been a humble, lovable, morally-pure Christian, and I'd still have opposed him roundly.

And Obama? In perfect candor, I have virtually no feelings about him, personally, whatever. He's a cold fish, a cypher. His arrogance is irksome, particularly when coupled with such wild incompetence. But he doesn't have that curled-lip, smirky smarmy smugness that Clinton had.

Why do I oppose him? As I've spelled out at length, because he is ideologically radically liberal. His idea of America is far-removed from the brilliant concept of the fathers. In fact, he honestly doesn't even seem to have a clue as to what that concept even is. For every problem, his sole instinct is to reach for a big-government solution; and if he has to take my freedoms and my money, wellsir, that's a sacrifice he's willing to make.

Skin-color has absolutely nothing to do with it. As I've said, I'm glad that a (half-)black man was elected. I'm just sorry it was this (half-)black man.

I know I'm far from alone in my thoughts on this. Why is it so difficult for Mr. Robinson to grasp? How would it look different if folks did oppose Obama for purely ideological reasons? When they see an unqualified, arrogant wannabe tyrant trampling across their country, their rights, their dreams, their liberties — do you think they wouldn't be alarmed and adamantly opposed if the feckless trampler had a lighter epidermis?

I don't think so. In fact, I'm certain of it.

Remember Clinton.

UPDATE: brother Mark La Roi, in reminding us that Clinton was dubbed "the first black president," reminds me of a story I meant to tell in the post. So I'll append!

I preached a sermon once (long story) that included an arguably critical comment about then-president Clinton. (It fit; it was on the line, but it fit.) A visitor was deeply offended, I later learned. Why? Because I was picking on minorities.

Like Clinton.