Letters: Morgan Freeman vs. Herman Cain

MORGAN FREEMAN recently said the tea party is simply a movement about getting the black man out of office, and shows the ugly side of America. In contrast, Freeman said that the tear-filled celebrations of Sen. Barack Obama's victory on election night in 2008 showed the best side of America. By this logic, electing a black man makes America good and rejecting a black man makes America bad. This logic is consistent with the left's myopic fixation on race and identity.

Martin Luther King Jr. said a man should be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. Freeman's argument rejects this premise. Since the left sees only race and identity, that must be what the tea party sees as well. It's not the high unemployment, the record number of Americans in poverty, the staggering deficit or the S&P downgrade - it's Obama's skin color. In the leftist identity paradigm, Obama as an individual is irrelevant. Any African-American president will show America's best side.

Tea party favorite Herman Cain, who upset Rick Perry to win the Florida Republican straw poll, is black! How can the "tea party is racist" crowd explain that? Easily, like any member of a constituency, the left believes it owns politically who dares to move to the right, Cain will be branded a traitor against his fellow blacks, a dupe being used by the racist tea party to protect it from charges of racism. It would never occur to them that Cain's experience as a successful business leader may elevate him above a sitting president whose greatest talents seem to be blaming others and making speeches about himself.

In the unlikely event that Cain can win the GOP nomination and go on to defeat Obama, will Freeman point to the victory as evidence of the good in America? No, Cain will be President "Sellout" who gave victory to the tea party racists who were so racist that they deviously elected a black candidate just to cloak their racism.

Michael Trudeau

Philadelphia