Life Out Here: Obama showed his mettle

On Saturday I was around a guy who repeatedly called our president the N-word.

That was the world we lived in Saturday.


On Sunday our world changed.

That same president, that same man called that nasty name so many times, authorized that our Navy SEALs go into a compound in Pakistan and capture or kill a devil responsible for taking the lives of thousands of innocent Americans. The mission was successful, the bad guy is dead and the world is a better place as a result.

For a while, if only for a few hours, our nation came together in triumph. We were joyful. It was beautiful, really.

President Barack Hussein Obama acted decisively, just as he did with the Somali pirates in ordering those outlaws killed. On both occasions Obama acted not as an alleged Muslim commander-in-chief, not as an alleged alien commander-in-chief, not as an alleged socialist commander-in-chief, not as an alleged pal-of-terrorists commander-in-chief, not as an African-American commander-in-chief, but as a strong commander-in-chief for all Americans.

Even Glenn Beck, who has called Obama everything from a racist to a communist to someone trying to destroy our country, conceded Monday that the president was a smooth and cool operator Saturday night at the White House correspondents’ dinner. Comedian Seth Myers joked about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts that night and Obama smiled but revealed nothing, all the while knowing the mission to get bin Laden had been postponed that day but would commence the next.

You can bet the nitpicking criticism of Obama will soon flow, just as it did soon after the pirates were Jolly Rogered, but the propaganda/disinformation propagators were caught off-guard on a Sunday night by the news and unable to mount much of a concerted defense in the hours after bin Laden was killed by our special forces.

Nothing this president does can go un-countered or un-criticized by his opponents, though. That would be un-American to the likes of Limbaugh and FOX News. Obama deserves our scorn and our wrath at every turn, these folks believe, and allowing him to count this as a victory would be counterproductive to the multifaceted agenda of the right.

Many deny that those who despise the president to such a depth do so because of racism, and I agree that for many, racism is a minor factor or no factor in their deep animus. But for others, it is the root if not the entire tree of their hate.

I dealt with such a person over the weekend. When he started with the N-word talk, I initially tried to counter it with measured political discourse. But civility does not work with such people, I should have remembered.

I have never been one to walk away from a donnybrook, verbal or otherwise, so I didn’t back down. I told this fellow that I was offended by such racist talk, that I have a beloved wife and son who are people of color.

When he had used that word previously in my presence I told him I had two African-American young men who spent days, weeks and even months living in our house in recent years and that many of my friends from education, basketball, refereeing and other areas of my life are black, so I just don’t countenance that word.

He didn’t back down Saturday, though, and neither did I. Not many years ago that would have meant me wading in with flying fists, but this time, the more mature me just told the racist, “Flunk you,” or something of the sort, and walked away, which wasn’t easy for someone with a brawler’s soul.

The next day Obama showed his mettle, again demonstrating he is a true leader in such times, working to protect us all from evil … and doing so even for those Americans who call him the vilest of names.

Bret Kofford teaches writing and

communication at San Diego State University-Imperial Valley campus.

He can be reached at

Kofford@roadrunner.com