The highest ranking African American congressman in the House, Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn, says Obama's problems stem from racism:

"You know, I'm 70 years old," he said. "And I can tell you; people don't like to deal with it, but the fact of the matter is, the president's problems are in large measure because of the color of his skin."

Clyburn noted that he himself got hate mail, racist phone calls and offensive faxes on a regular basis. Asked how that relates to the president, Clyburn retorted: "We have the same skin color; that's how it relates to him."

Clyburn described a recent racist image of Obama that received widespread news coverage.

"When he sees his face being put on a chimpanzee's body; do you think he didn't see that?" Clyburn said. "And I suspect they send the same faxes to his office they send to mine."

Marilyn Davenport, a member of the Orange County Republican Central Committee in California, forwarded an email to friends last month that displayed a photograph of a chimpanzee with Obama's face superimposed on its head.

In response to the immediate uproar, Davenport apologized but rebuffed demands from the California NAACP that she resign her GOP post.

Clyburn suggested that the "birther" movement of Americans who say Obama wasn't born in the United States is fueled by racism.

Obviously, Clyburn is right. Who could possibly complain about 9% unemployment, non-existent economic growth, creeping inflation, a loss of power and prestige abroad, and a thuggish, expanding, suffocating increase in the power of the federal government except racists like you and me?

You go, Congressman. Speak truth to power! And while you're at it, put a sock in it and face up to the fact that your man is an abject failure as a president and that you don't have to be a racist to see that he is an incompetent boob.