We don't have a debt crisis, we have a "hate crisis" or something

Now let me get to the hatred part. Let’s admit it: A lot of Republicans just plain hate President Barack Obama’s guts. You can’t blame racism for all of it. Former President Bill Clinton was hated, too. As Mike McCurry, Clinton’s press secretary, told me in 1997, the year before the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, “One-third of the American people have a deep, visceral dislike for this president.”

And economic times were good under Clinton: Debt was changed to surplus and millions of jobs were created. Note, I don’t say that Clinton created those jobs. The truth is, presidents have far less to do with job creation than we think. (And gas prices, too.) But because presidents claim to create jobs when times are good, it is tough for presidents to escape blame for job loss when times are bad.

And while nobody calls him “Slick Barack” like they called Clinton “Slick Willie,” there is the feeling among Obama haters that he is too smooth, too intellectual and, to some, just too darn uppity. Like when in April 2008, he said of small-town voters, “It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”