With such high unemployment numbers in the black community, this was inevitable -- especially given Obama's stated reluctance to target African Americans for specific help -- even though unemployment is hitting them twice as hard:

New cracks have begun to show in President Obama’s support amongst African Americans, who have been his strongest supporters. Five months ago, 83 percent of African Americans held “strongly favorable” views of Obama, but in a new Washington Post-ABC news poll that number has dropped to 58 percent. That drop is similar to slipping support for Obama among all groups.

“There is a certain amount of racial loyalty and party loyalty, but eventually that was going to have to weaken,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, who studies African Americans. “It’s understandable given the economy.”

African Americans have historically correlated approval ratings of the president to the unemployment rate, she said. The slip in the strongly favorable rating continues the decline Obama has seen among all groups, but black voters have been his staunchest supporters. Overall, they still hold a generally favorable view of the president with 86 percent saying they view him at least somewhat favorably.

Gillespie’s view that the decline is tied to the disproportionately high jobless rate faced by African Americans correlates with the drop in their view of Obama’s handling of the economy. In July, only 54 percent of blacks said they thought Obama’s policies were making the economy better compared with 77 percent the previous year.

Similarly, the White House has been sharply criticized in recent months by black political leaders, who argue that he has not done enough to help blacks. The unemployment rate for African Americans hit 16 percent this summer, the highest rate since 1984, and the members of the Congressional Black Caucus launched a jobs tour focused on the problem.

This week the caucus is holding its annual legislative caucus in Washington, and the focus of a series of morning panels Wednesday was the lack of progress on jobs. Rep. Maxine Waters, who has been pushing Obama and publicly chided an administration official during the jobs tour to say the word “black” and directly address the needs of the community, said she would “continue to push the president and the Congress to adopt targeted policies to address the need.”

Waters, who heads the CBC’s jobs initiative, said she saw the frustration that is registering in the president’s polls at the jobs fairs she attended. “I saw the kind of hopelessness that is setting in. People were not only discouraged, they came to try to get a job, but they didn’t really believe that something substantive was going to happen,” she said.

Clyde McQueen, who is African American and runs a job placement firm in Kansas City, agreed. “The masses of young people and the first-time voter and entry-level workers are being so adversely impacted through downsizing at all levels,” said McQueen, who is attending the CBC meetings this week. “They are looking at the head of the government. When you are at the top, you take the blame.”

And yet, MSNBC talking head and Nation writer Melissa Harris-Perry seems to think Obama's dropping poll numbers are based on a more insidious form of racism:

President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now. I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation. His record is, at the very least, comparable to that of President Clinton, who was enthusiastically re-elected. The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.

Once again, a member of the media/academic Village misses the obvious: We didn't have all these people struggling to find work during the Clinton administration. In fact, unemployment was at 4.7 percent - not like the double-digit, long-term unemployment we have now. Not this sense of hopelessness.

It's still the economy. Racism didn't magically disappear, but the economy still matters more than anything else.

I want you to hear Baratunde Thurston's heartfelt message to Donald Trump and the media who enabled him. Be forewarned, it's NSFW in places. While it will likely have no effect on those who most need to hear the message, it had a profound impact on me, and I think it will have one on you, too.

In his intro he writes this:

I then thought of this fetid, smug, hate-filled, wealthy white man taking credit for the release and yet still not being satisfied. It does not matter how long we’ve been in these United States. We will never be American.

I was especially moved by his direct message to Donald Trump, a man who "was given everything" and lives the life he does with the freedom to do what he did because he was given everything.

I don't want to hear about The Apprentice. I don't want to hear about your new cologne. I don't want to hear about the new tower you're building in whatever f--king town.

That cologne smells of racism. That tower is built on the blood of disrespected slaves and freedom fighters. And that show is merely a showcase for the dishonor you have brought on anyone who would call themselves an American.

Adam Serwer writes:

Aside from being one of the most idiotic moments in American political history, this marks a level of personal humiliation no previous president has ever been asked to endure. Other presidents have been the target of crazy conspiracy theories, sure, but few have been as self-evidently absurd as birtherism. None has been so clearly rooted in anxieties about the president’s racial identity, because no previous American president has been black.

B-Serious:

He has been called everything but a child of God and, in two short years, has been portrayed as anything but what he truly is . . .

A man, worthy of the respect and dignity of his own words and reputation.

Instead, people have sought to attack the very foundation of his existence . . . his birth. And the sad part in all of this? It’s become par for the course. Not because President Obama has never answered his critics. Not because the President has never released information. Not because the President has allowed others to shape the debate.

It’s because there never should have been a “debate” in the first place. It was never a real story to begin with.

Oliver Willis:

This is hilariously sad. It’s dumb that Obama had to go to extraordinary lengths to release his long-form birth certificate, but hilarious because it now shows that the leading presidential candidate of the Republican party has gotten to his position on what is an even now more thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory.

David Remnick (The New Yorker):

Let’s be even plainer: to do what Trump has done (and he is only the latest and loudest and most spectacularly hirsute) is a conscious form of race-baiting, of fear-mongering. And if that makes Donald Trump proud, then what does that say for him? Perhaps now he will go away, satisfied that this passage has sufficiently restored his fame quotient and television ratings. The shame is that there are still many more around who, in the name of truth-telling, are prepared to pump the atmosphere full of poison.

After watching Baratunde's video and reading some of these comments, do you think these people really give a damn about Jake Tapper's self-aggrandizing equivocation or Orly Taitz' coked-up Soviet-style BS or Eric Cantor's Orwellian flip-flop?

I'm sure the president understood that it wouldn't satisfy the True Believers. But he smelled a swiftboating and decided to deal with it head-on. Corporate media have been put on notice now. They can make these wingnuts irrelevant or continue to flog the narrative.

I suggest we begin to hold them accountable for flogging the narrative in a way that will cost them. Viewers, readers, advertisers, whatever it takes.

Vox Verax: The masquerade is revived, G-Dub is inspired, war is peace, and Dick Cheney is not a liar.

House of the Rising Sons: We're heartily sick of the GOP's "Dem's don't have a plan" mantra.

Greg Palast: African-American voters scrubbed by secret GOP hit list

Early Warning: An aide is fired for uttering the truth, an enemy "document" is unveiled in a PR stunt, basic data is deemed classified and will no longer be released. Now Baghdad's acting like a real government

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: About 1/3 of Coulter's book is devoted to criticizing "Darwinism", and she got all of her information about it from the major ID advocates. Ann's fixin' t'be a scientist!

alicublog: The White House, two houses of Congress, most Governorships and a healthy chunk of the zeitgeist in their control, and still they bitch and moan that they are misunderstood. What a bunch of babies.
Oh, and speaking of The First Amendment...and finally, the blogging bard, Mad Kane sent us this...

Associated Press is reporting that JEB BUSH was told of serious flaws in the "felon voter list" that sought to prevent a list of mostly African-Americans from voting but avoided purging republican-leaning latino voters. Despite this knowledge, Bush himself pushed to purge them anyway. It isn't just Glenda Hood anymore. It goes up to the Governor.

Now, of course, Bush's press person calls this story "irrelevant" since the list isn't being used, thanks to pressure from legal watchdog groups, and yes, the media.

It's irrelevant that the Governor tried to keep African-Americans from voting in Florida? I can't imagine why this doesn't merit a criminal investigation. Perhaps some of those cops Jeb has going out intimidating older African-American voters might want to look into it.

GOP scheme to supress the black
vote is back, nastier than ever

Errol Louis NY Daily News

In nine urban communities throughout the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Missouri, poisonous ads have popped up on black radio shows from a group calling itself People of Color United. The ads feature purely personal, racialized attacks on Democrat John Kerry - in fact, none of them mentions President Bush or asks listeners to vote for him.

Here's a sample:

"Our community doesn't need another wishy-washy, rich white politician, and boy, does Kerry come across as rich, white and wishy-washy."

Another ad says: "His wife [Mozambique-born Teresa Heinz Kerry] says she's an African-American. While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants, qualifies."

Rodney Capel, New York director of the Kerry campaign, predicts the tactic won't work. "We have no doubt these Republican- financed attacks ads are absolutely designed to suppress voter turnout," he says. "We believe African-Americans will tune them out and instead tune into the positive message of the Kerry-Edwards campaign."

Full article