Incredibly, Michael Ryan Denies Partisan attacks on the President

Re: "What partisan attacks?" from the February 25th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan, along with republicans and conservative pundits, has been making incessent partisan attacks on the president, yet in this column he asks "What partisan attacks?"

Does he read his own column?

He claims nobody is making personal attacks on the president, and even makes the laughable claim that republicans are taking it easy on Obama because he's the first black president.

Mr. Ryan, himself, has referred to the president as a cold fish (because of lack of emotion following the Texas shooting), arrogant, and stupid (because he mispoke and claimed there were 57 states). These are criticisms of Obama's personal traits, not his politics, so I think it's safe to say these were personal attacks as is his labeling of Obama as a radical leftist. Obama has cut taxes, increased troops in Afghanistan, and approved new nuclear power plants--hardly a far left agenda. Referring to him as a "radical leftist" is simply a mindless partisan attack.

Mr. Ryan is so stupid, he doesn't even realize his admission of racism. His suggestion that conservatives have been taking it easy on Obama because he's black (which is an outright falsehood) is an admission that they treated Obama differently because of his race.

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Star Parker lied her ass off again in her column "Time for a new generation."

She claimed "the black poverty rate, at twice the national average, has hardly budged since the late 1960's

I looked it up at www.census.gov. In 1965 the black poverty rate was 65%. In 1969 after Lyndon Johnson's great society program went into effect, it dropped to 39%. In 2001 (the latest year stats are available) it was 30%. That's a 9% point drop and it would probably be more, if not for the welfare reform of the 1990's. That's a lot more than the "hardly budged" she claims.

By comparison the national average poverty rate in 1969 was 13%. So in 1969, the black poverty rate was triple the national average. In 2006 the poverty rate was 16%. So today the black poverty rate is slightly less than twice the national average. Of course, there's still work to be done, but that's a huge improvement.