Un-American.

I wish this president would learn how to be an American.  These were the now much quoted words of Mitt Romney’s Cuban born attack dog John Sununu.  He, the former governor went on, has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn't be surprised… he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next…in Indonesia,…and…as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure. The president, who doesn’t understand how America works, flew out to Colorado on Sunday to participate in an especially American ritual: comforting families of civilian gun violence victims.  What appears to be truly American is that there are more weapons — hand guns and assault rifles — in the possession of individuals here than in any developed democracy.  And also very American it would seem is that we have the highest incarceration rate in the world, a disproportionate number of prisoners being African Americans.  If that’s how America works, I frankly don’t understand it either.

But John Sununu’s verbal attack bespeaks something far more disturbing.  While opponents have vilified virtually all of our presidents, no other chief executive has been called un-American.  So it’s hard not to conclude that what we’re hearing from Mr. Sununu and his ilk is good old-fashioned code.  And it’s a code familiar to any person of color or with a foreign sounding accent.  I had hoped that we were through with that stuff once President Obama won his majority victory in 2008, but I was wrong.   Sununu has apologized of course, but his words hang our there never to disappear from the eyes and ears of the receptive in cyberspace.

John Sununu, who you will remember was known for his sharp tongue while serving as Papa Bush’s chief of staff, is simply continuing a tradition of disrespect that started early into the Obama presidency.   It was then that, in a virtually unprecedented breach of public etiquette, the  words you lie (referenced in previous posts) were shouted out by South Carolina’s Joe Wilson during a presidential joint session address.  After all, for people like Wilson (and assumably Sununu) that outsider didn’t belong there in the first place.  In the same meanspirted way, Racist Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently boasted that he has launched yet another spurious Birther investigation into the president’s definitely fraudulent birth certificate.  And this guy may well win reelection.

Meanwhile Mr. Romney remains above the fray.  He has kept his friend John Sununu on the job as a primary surrogate; being satisfied that the former governor admitted to unfortunate language.  He can afford to do so because nobody doubts that he, unlike the president, is a real American.  How do I know that?  Because, as is the way with other super rich real Americans, he successfully avoids taxes with offshore accounts and the like.  As the presumptive nominee declared in January, I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more.  I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.   Oh, that’s precisely what I was thinking.  This man really understands how America works, at least how it works for the 1% of which he is a proud part.  Isn’t he the kind of president your want?

Let’s have a cheer for such real Americans, the kind that contemporary Republicans and their Tea Party constituents so admire.  If that were possible Abe Lincoln would be turning in his grave.  Even George W. Bush wants no part in the convention that will nominate this real American.  Thought, I’d never say it, but Amen W.