Even though Mr. Obama hit the deck on the run, with a long list of things he promised the American public and appeared to really want to accomplish during those important first four years, and he had the Democratic Party’s control of both the House and Senate to help him do it . . . Washington went into a strange stall mode. Everybody argued about everything. Bills lingered forever in committee. When it came time to vote, the Republican minority in the Senate threatened to filibuster and the Democrats cowered.

By 2008, the American public was so disgusted by the inactivity in Washington that we saw the birth of the radical right-wing Tea Party. The political advertising was filled with so many daggers that voters got confused. They went to the polls that year with the obvious objective of “throwing the bums out.” What they did, however, was stack the Republican deck against Mr. Obama. Since then, he has been unable to get anything done without using executive order.

Washington has been in obvious gridlock. Not only this, but the U.S. Supreme Court has stacked the deck even farther to the right with its Citizens United decision that declared corporations to be free to contribute money to political candidates. Thus the infamous Super Pacs were born.

And while they have been in control, the Republicans have further gleaned more power through the complex redistricting of voting districts following the 2010 census.

All through the current 2012 presidential campaign there has been a growing racial undercurrent that is growing louder and louder with each passing day. It began with the Tea Party accusations that Mr. Obama was not a natural born citizen and that he was a Moslem. This sparked a whole movement now known as the Birthers. What they were saying was that they did not wish to recognize this man as our President because he is a Negro.

Remember also during the 2008 campaign that there was a brouhaha over the content of some old sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and formerly Obama’s pastor that were politically controversial. Obama publically denounced the statements.

Then there was a phony story about a tape recording of Michelle Obama that allegedly defamed white people. It turned out to be a fabrication. But it was designed to use reverse racism to slam the sitting president.

Now the racial slurs are flying even more freely as candidates and national “leaders” step in the spotlight in yet another presidential election campaign. It is more and more obvious that the ugly racism we experienced in the early part of the Twentieth Century has not gone away. After the Civil Rights Act was written into law the rhetoric quieted down, but it never went away.

The way police responded to the shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin by a Sanford, Florida neighborhood watch volunteer is just the latest example of the growing issue of the existing racism in the south. But the Martin killing has sparked a national furor that the Occupy Movement has taken on. President Obama has called for an investigation. The Sanford police chief has temporarily stepped down. And all hell has broken loose.

Arizona’s controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County, recently announced that members of a volunteer “cold-case posse” had conducted an investigation into President Obama and found that the president’s birth certificate proved that he was not born as an American citizen and therefore his position as President should be invalidated.

If you remember, Donald Trump, who once considered tossing his hat into the ring as a GOP candidate for president, also said he was investigating the Obama birth certificate issue.

Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, which has been one of the United States since 1959.

The Montana Great Falls Tribune revealed last month that the state’s chief federal judge Richard Cebull admitted sending an email comparing African-Americans to dogs and implying that President Obama’s mother had sex with animals. Cebull, who sent the email to six different parties, denied that he was racist. He said he was just “anti-Obama.”

The Fox television and radio talking heads are among the worst of the offenders. Among the loudest extremist voices, Rush Limbaugh, offered such radio statements as a song titled “Barack The Magic Negro,” and he said “I had a dream that I was a slave building a sphinx in a desert that looked like Obama.” After the Gates incident Limbaugh accused Mr. Obama of being “a black president trying to destroy a white policeman.” And in speaking about the efforts by food-safety advocates to record all of the unhealthy foods, Limbaugh quipped that they would hve to wait until Obama leaves office before they ban Oreo cookies.

Another Fox foul-mouth, Glenn Beck, recently said on his show that “This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture.”

Lou Dobbs, yet another loony talking head, suggested on hit show that “Obama could be an illegal immigrant.”

Then there was the controversial e-mailed picture of Obama’s face superimposed on the body of a witch-doctor. Other cartoons have portrayed Mr. Obama as a shoeshine man, an Islamic terrorist and a chimp. Another photoshopped image placed the president’s face on a product called Obama Waffles as it would appear on Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben product labels.

The American black community is mad about all this. A lot of other Americans are sharing in the anger connected to what is going on. And if we really believe  in the Constitutional promise that “all men are created equal,” we all should be sharing in the anger of what these rascals are doing.

It appears that racism is not only alive, but it is busy destroying America. This country is not supposed to be a land divided by racial tribes. We have always been taught in school that we are the world’s “melting pot” where people of all races and creeds can be treated with equality. Obviously a lot of Americans skipped school on the day this was taught. That or they shut their ears because they refused to believe that the black and brown skinned, the red skinned, yellow skinned and Moslem people aren’t quite as good as the white folk.