@POTUS draws negative (even racist!) comments. Surprised?

Walt has never done Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other anti-social media. (I call them that because it seems most of the people posting on FB etc are so busy posting that they have no time to socialize with anyone in person. See Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert D. Putnam (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). But I digress...)

When I heard, earlier this week, that the Prez -- Barack Hussein Obama hisself -- had his very own Twitter account, @POTUS, I was sorely tempted to sign up. A White House aide said @POTUS would "serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him."

Since Mr. 0 never returns my phone calls, I figured I could send him a message on Twitter. Not that he'd read it personally, of course, but it would make me feel better for having sent it. Seems like hundreds of thousands of other people had the same idea. The New York Times reports today that it took only a few minutes for Mr. Obama’s account to attract "racist, hate-filled posts and replies". Gee! Whoda thunk it?!

Posts addressed him (the Times continues) with racial slurs, called him a monkey and one had an image of the President’s neck in a noose. The posts reflected the racial hostility toward the country’s first black President that has long been expressed in stark terms on the Internet, where conspiracy theories thrive and prejudices find ready outlets. But the racist tweets are different because now that Mr. Obama has his own Twitter account, the slurs are addressed directly to him, for all to see.

Within minutes of Mr. Obama’s first, cheerful tweet -- "Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really!" -- Twitter users lashed out in sometimes profanity-laced replies that included exhortations for the President to kill himself and worse. One person posted a doctored image of Mr. Obama’s iconic campaign poster, instead showing the President with his head in a noose, his eyes closed and his neck appearing broken as if he had been lynched.
Instead of the word “HOPE” in capital letters as it appeared on the campaign poster, the doctored image had the word “ROPE.”

Another Twitter user responded to the president with just two words: “Black monkey,” a comparison that was not uncommon in the posts addressed to Mr. Obama. “Get back in your cage monkey,” another person wrote.

What Walt (and the Times) finds surprising is that anyone finds this surprising. The liberals claims that the election of Mr. 0 proves that American society is now "post-racial". The Prez hisself says so. Political correctness may restrain politicians, the meeja and just others who don't want to be called racists from saying what they really think, but when you open a Twitter account that gives people a forum for freedom of speech, look out! Let's see how long @POTUS lasts.