Even rabid Obama supporter Spike Lee has to admit that some small contingency of those unhappy with the president's performance are just, well, unhappy, and not totally racist. Baby steps! He even confessed to some doubt about Obama's prospects this fall:
"This thing is not a lock," the filmmaker told GQ in a recent interview. "It is not a lock that President Obama is getting a second term and people have to really rekindle the enthusiasm that we had the first time."
Lee, who hosted a fundraiser for the president in January, said that he "just had a meeting with somebody high up in the Obama campaign" to discuss the race.
"I can't say to all the people that are unhappy with him that they're racist people," Lee said of Obama's critics. "People ain't got jobs, people are hurting. So I don't care what color you are, if people are out of work, it's tough. And then when you're the first African American president, that's not helping either."
While it's unclear what the color of Obama's skin has to do with his failure to rescue the economy -- most would instead point to the policies he's pursued -- Lee has never really occupied the same realm as reality when it comes to Obama. I won't even deign to imagine what he'd be saying about a Republican president in this same position. However, it's nice to see that he's finally easing up on crying "racism."
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(Not about you, though. You're still racist.)
Predictably, Lee still believes in Obama's magical rhetorical powers, and looks forward to watching Obama and Romney go "butt to butt" in debate this fall. Oh yes. That's a direct quote:
"Once we get to the debates my man is going to tear him up!" he said. "It's going to be obvious who should lead this country for the next four years once they go head to head, toe to toe, elbow to elbow, butt to butt. And I don't think Mr. Romney can hang with him."
Lord help us if we're relying on debates, rather than records, to decide this election again. To paraphrase the t-shirt, We elected a fantastic orator and all we got was this crummy economy.
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