In her NAACP speech, Sherrod spoke about her relative Bobby Hall being lynched by Claude Screws, a white sheriff in the 1940s. Lord argues that since the U.S. Supreme Court (comprised of all white men and at least one Ku Klux Klan member) never said Hall was lynched in its 1945 decision overturning Screws conviction that the lynching never happened and Sherrod had lied about it. This line of reasoning is preposterous; lynching was a common occurrence during this time and white judges often didn’t punish their white brethren for the crime.

But this isn’t the most offensive part of Lord’s writing. He also attacks Sherrod’s motives for telling the story and argues that she “concocted this story. . . to add glamour to a family story.”

Lord mockingly tries to suggest that the Democratic Party Sherrod aligns herself with today was responsible for the murder of her father and for her career at the Department of Agriculture. Lord reminds readers that Sherrod’s father was murdered in Baker County, Georgia in 1965 and that Sherrod said in her speech that “the murder of black people occurred periodically, and in every case the white men who murdered them were never punished.” Lord also reminds readers that then Senator Richard Russell of Georgia was a Democrat who repeatedly blocked civil rights legislation, and supported agricultural projects. He invites Sherrod to tour the Senate Russell Building and remember that it is named after a racist Democrat who was responsible for her father’s death.

Lord concludes that since Sherrod wanted to stay in Georgia and help black farmers that she is no different from the Dixiecrats who used to work there. Lord writes “Down scale a bit—a [black] bureaucrat is not the same as a [white] Senator or a Justice—but still finding herself on the same scale nonetheless.”

As America’s first black president, Obama was going to get dragged into discussions on race whether he liked it or not. But with pieces such as “Sherrod’s Story False” being written, I can see why he and the White House are loathe to engage in the discussion.

Paul explained to Maddow that he’s not “in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race.” If this is true then he shouldn’t oppose the part of the Civil Rights Act which bars businesses from discrimination on race. I’m sure some of Rand Paul’s best friends are black too but he sounds disturbingly like a racist to me and evidence supports that. Much is revealed about a man by the company he keeps. In December 2009, Paul’s spokesperson Christopher Hightower resigned after the blog Barefoot and Progressive revealed that for two years on his MySpace page he posted “Happy Nigger Day” next to a photo of Martin Luther King and a photo of a black man being lynched.

Candidates can raise any issue they wish in a campaign but it’s troubling that forty years after the Civil Rights Act was passed people still support ignorant candidates like Rand Paul and the GOP declines to comment on his racist remarks. Once again the GOP gets a bad name.

One in three American kids aged 2-19 is overweight or obese and these kids grow into overweight adults who cost the healthcare system over $100 billion in obesity related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. If the White House and First Lady are serious about reducing childhood obesity, they will stop passing the buck off of individual responsibility and put pressure on parents to take charge of feeding their children healthy food. A 2000 Harvard Medical School study found that boys and girls aged 9 to 14 who ate frequent meals with their families consumed more fruits and vegetables and less fried food. Another 2004 University of Minnesota survey published in The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine also found frequent family meals result in better nutritional intake, and a decreased risk for obesity and substance abuse.

When I was growing up as a child, my mom made us have something nutritious before rushing off to school and cooked a healthy meal every night and we ate dinner together as a family. Sure, like most kids once we got that first taste of McDonald’s we begged for more but my parents rarely allowed us to eat it. As a result, when I went off to college I craved fruits and vegetables and didn’t want to eat pizza every night.  It’s a no brainer, kids who learn good eating habits as children grow up into adults with good eating habits.

Interesting, this big White House report admits that 2006 marketing changes made by some large companies to advertise only healthy products to children yielded little to no change in childhood obesity rates. If Mrs. Obama is serious about her war on childhood obesity she should start with the basics and push lawmakers to bring back physical education class in the public school system. The White House also should encourage U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin to live a healthier lifestyle and lose some weight because her new video message on obesity isn’t credible.

Instead of placing taxes on sodas, Happy Meals, or Blow Pops and shaming companies “who aren’t doing enough,” as the FTC Chairman warned, Mrs. Obama and her White House brethren should be shaming parents who feed Dick and Jane too much junk.

Since that night, sordid details dribbled out about Tiger’s infidelity with more than a dozen women turning him from American hero into whoremonger du jour. Frankly, after the past three months of PR consultants bungling management of his personal problem, I don’t know if it’s possible for anyone to repair his image anytime soon. It was absolutely idiotic to advise him to host that Feb.19th news conference, where he looked like a robot reading his nonsensical and unconvincing apology from a teleprompter. I don’t know any communications expert or average person who thought that was a success. Tiger looked anything but sincere and his image suffered even more.

As I always advise my clients NEVER, EVER lie to the news media. Reporters will always ferret out the truth perhaps not immediately but eventually. Note: former president Bill Clinton’s Monica affair and famed Senator Edwards messy Rielle Hunter debacle, which has probably ended his political career.

Tiger’s infidelity ranks up there with Michael Vick’s pit bull fighting, it’s that gross. But Vick made some smart PR moves to begin repairing his dirty look: he did a 60 Minutes heartfelt apology interview last year and agreed to do some work with the Humane Society to further demonstrate his remorse and commitment to rehabilitating his behavior toward animals. (I still think the guy is a monster but his image is improving.)

So, how can Ari possibly help Tiger get some clean back into his soiled image? Apparently, Ari is plotting a communications splash around Tiger’s reported return to golf on March 25th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Fla. Prior to the tournament, I would schedule an exclusive taped interview with one of the following programs Bryant Gumbel’s Real Sports and have Gumbel do the interview, he’s tough but hugely credible; 60 Minutes with Katie Couric or Anderson Cooper or the always great Barbara Walters, who would probably make Tiger shed a tear or two and garner lots of sympathy from the public. If he can’t get on a Wheaties box, Barbara Walters is the next best thing!

Ideally this interview would air sometime before Tiger debuts at the March 25th tournament. I don’t know if I would advise Tiger to take any media questions before the tournament as it might rattle his nerves too much. I would allow him to do a short media availability after he is either knocked out of the tournament or wins it. But I would tightly script him on answers to media questions about his infidelity.

Instead of giving him a teleprompter or notes to read from, I think Ari should put him through some intensive media training prior to the tournament like what the McCain folks did to prep Sarah Palin for her debate with Biden. If a reporter asks him “how many women he slept with,” he doesn’t answer, “Lots!” All philandering aside, the response Tiger should have to that question is the one good line that came out of his terrible February press conference: it’s a private matter between him and his wife Elin that they’re working out and he won’t talk about it publicly. I just hope he can say it with some conviction and believability this time. If all else fails Ari could advise Tiger to enter the priesthood. That would be the best image makeover of the century.

First and foremost, the White House Social Secretary should be almost invisible, something akin to a Greek chorus, whose sole role is to make the stars — President and Mrs. Obama — shine brightly at state dinners and other White House events. As a supporting cast member, it would certainly be inappropriate for her to act as guest at any state dinner and promenade in front of the press, pausing for photos in a dress that gets more attention than the First Lady’s. Conceited and interested in self-promotion she must not be, as this is a recipe for disaster. The ultimate compliment to a White House social secretary is having guests and the media gush post-event at how wonderful it all was whilst never uttering a word about the social secretary, much less her name.

Making a list and checking it twice! That’s right the social secretary should be highly organized and consuming herself with every detail of a state dinner from guests lists and social security numbers to tasting soup and conferring with the florist to ensure the First Lady’s vision for the evening is executed flawlessly. It would probably be a good idea for her office and staff to have several meetings with the Secret Service prior to any state dinner to ensure all security aspects of the evening have been covered. She would also assign a member of her staff with the guest list to each entrance and man the receiving line herself.

How should the social secretary dress? As a woman who loves high fashion, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the White House social secretary dressing well but she should be mindful her choices don’t become the center of attention for the news media. This can be avoided by not posing for magazine articles in the First Lady’s garden, clad with Cartier diamonds and couture dresses costing thousands of dollars and by not wearing a diaphanous Comme des Garcons dress to the first state dinner.

Finally, even if you do more than 330 White House events in a year well, but acting like a diva, you’ll make a big mistake as Desiree Rogers did by allowing the Salahis to crash President Obama’s’ first state dinner and that’s all you and your other good events will be remembered for. (In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Magazine last year, Rogers said she didn’t want to “get caught in linen hell and flower hell, list hell.” I bet she wishes she had.)

If Ms. Smoot keeps her “humbled” attitude as she described in accepting the job as new White House social secretary and minds the napkins, lists and gates, I’m confident she’ll do a great job and go down in history as other social secretaries have before her — nameless but not forgotten.

This is of course despite the reality that last year, the Democrats had solid majorities in both the House and Senate. Now that Obama is not delivering on his promises he’s blaming everything on “the previous administration and the previous Congresses” and the $1.3 trillion debt he inherited. But neither President Bush nor congressional Republicans were in charge last year. Let’s review:

• President Obama got Congress to pass the $787 billion stimulus and promised it would create 3.5 million jobs and unemployment wouldn’t rise above 8%. Neither happened: unemployment surged to 10% and a mere 600,000 jobs may have been created.
• The president promised the Making Home Affordable program would help 4 million borrows avoid foreclosure. It has maybe helped 110,000 homeowners since February 2009.
• Banks received billions in bailout money.  In return, they have hoarded cash, reduced consumer lending and reward themselves by paying employees $145 billion in 2009, about 18% more than 2008.
• Obama promised to pass a $1 trillion healthcare reform bill. He had about 12 months and solid Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. It didn’t happen.

The president promised he would bring “change to Washington that people could believe in.” Didn’t happen; instead he brought an extreme liberal ideologue agenda to Washington.

Now that the president’s agenda is in tatters, and Democrats no longer have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate thanks to Scott Brown, the president wants to “work with Republicans” to get the country back on track. Until Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat, neither the president nor Democratic congressmen showed any interest in working with the Republicans on anything, specifically healthcare reform. As polls showed mounting disapproval from Americans for the healthcare reform bill, Democrats and the president became even more resolute in passing it.

But now, the Democrats’ solid majority has been cracked by Brown’s win, even Democrats are backing off their “we’re in charge and can do whatever we want” attitude. This probably has something to do with 58% of Americans believing the country was headed in the wrong direction (WSJ/NBC poll) and the upcoming 2010 midterm election. But since his SOTU speech, the president revealed he really doesn’t intend on working with Republicans and last week’s speech was “smoke and mirrors.” President Obama is digging in his heels more than ever. Since releasing his $3.8 trillion budget for 2011, he’s vowed to fight, fight, fight for the same broken, partisan spending agenda of last year. His budget will result in the nation’s debt rising to $8.5 trillion over the next 10 years. And once again Obama is offering up the same old porridge of $1 trillion in proposed taxes on so-called wealthy Americans, which was rejected last year.

Obama has been quoted saying: “What I will not welcome-what I reject- is the same old grandstanding when the cameras are on, and the same irresponsible budget policies when the cameras are off.” Sounds like Obama is talking about himself. But who knows what to believe coming out of the president’s mouth. What’s clear as many reporters have noted is that the Obama spell has been broken. Americans aren’t buying the magic anymore and may be viewing the president more and more as a one termer. Looks like the “tea partiers”‘ weren’t just a few right wing mobs after all (as many liberals and some conservatives suggested last summer) but represented the anger felt by most of the American people.

The president doesn’t believe polls that show support for his health plan dropped to a mere 35% and a Quinnipiac poll shows his approval rating (45%) equals his disapproval rating. But maybe he’ll start waking up as more GOP candidates are elected into office.

People are concerned about jobs, having money to pay bills, feed their families, and the economy. In Obama’s first year of office, the country hasn’t gotten better. The $787 billion stimulus, of which only a third has been spent, was supposed to create jobs and stop unemployment from topping 8%.  But it hasn’t created jobs and unemployment has reached 10%. The administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) which was supposed to help 4 million people keep their homes has only resulted in 900,000 borrowers receiving loan modifications and of those only about 80,000 are permanent.

And if you’re one of those borrowers, who has been responsible, paying your mortgage and looking to refinance, there is no solution for you, even though banks received hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money, much of which is being repaid. Then there’s that whopping deficit which is estimated to grow to $10 trillion by 2019, 6% of the gross domestic product.

No wonder Brown got elected with his anti-tax and spending campaign. Americans want lawmakers to address the country’s real problems and put the brakes on the Obama agenda going nowhere. Like McDonnell, Brown appealed to independents who feel Obama has swung radically to the left and aren’t happy about it. Brown’s win gives the Senate that 41st powerful vote which will enable Republicans to block legislation such as healthcare reform, engineered by the now 59 seat Democrat majority. Democrats now lack the 60 votes to stop a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

The Obama razzle, dazzle magic has lost its luster for many Americans. Even though he came to the rescue like a superhero to do a last minute campaign appearance with Corzine and Coakley, Obama couldn’t help either candidate regain their leads. Over and over again lately, in casual conversations, young and older people who voted for Obama tell me they are “very disappointed” in his performance.

Scott Brown’s election to the Senate is good news for Americans because it will help bring the country’s policies back towards the center where the majority of Americans are politically (37% depending on the poll). Brown is also a breath of fresh air to the GOP. Similar to McDonnell, Brown ran a campaign focused on the bread and butter issues of the day, jobs and the economy and steered clear of divisive social and religious issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. I say hip, hip, hooray for Brown and McDonnell, a new breed of GOP candidates: likeable, practical solutions, politics that can win.

But Reid’s praise for Obama’s skin tone and accent revealed his own background assumptions about the rest of black America: that most black Americans aren’t as educated, intelligent and well-spoken as then candidate Obama.

Reid needs to live in the present. Educated, intelligent, and well-spoken black Americans of every skin tone are everywhere – and have been for decades.  They didn’t run for president, but at least one, Colin Powell, very likely would have won if he had.

The Senate Majority leader’s comment that Obama’s light skin color was also an asset in his quest for president was equally disturbing. According to Reid, Americans would “embrace” a light-skinned black for president over a dark-skinned one. (Does he include himself?) This comment also insults many non-black Americans who weren’t consumed with the exact shade of Obama’s black skin color but rather enthralled by his platform. In hindsight, Reid’s remarks reveal he was blinded by Obama’s race and didn’t bother to see him as a candidate with ideas.

As RNC Chairman Michael Steele reminded us this weekend in his talk show appearances on the subject, if a Republican had said those things, he would have immediately been called on it. But not only Reid, but also Chris Dodd, Robert Byrd, and Joe Biden drop ethnic remarks with impunity.

Reid has apologized to the president and black Americans. But he cannot apologize for the assumptions that shape his outlook. It is disappointing and most of all insulting to blacks for Reid to view Obama as a novelty among the rest of us.

But the District already had a domestic partnership law, and a lot of Americans – including myself – thought that was a good compromise. We aren’t bigots. We fear that the breakdown of the American family has led to bad news for this country and this city.

According to a study by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2007, 72% of black women gave birth out of wedlock compared to 28% of white women. The study also found that of the 4.3 million births in the U.S., 40% or 1.7 million were illegitimate.

Sadly, many black boys born to unwed mothers end up in prison all because American culture has come to accept out of wedlock pregnancy as a societal norm. A woman told me when her son attended a private school in D.C. a decade ago, a student became pregnant. Several parents decided to give her a baby shower and invited her classmates. This woman politely told the parents her son would not be attending. She explained her decision drew ire from some parents but as she said “this wasn’t something to celebrate.”

Now is the time for Republicans to support, protect and defend the institution of marriage against erosion because it leads to a more stable society for everyone – and a more equal chance for all children.

23-year-old Javier Saavedra, interviewed in the story, lives in the basement of his girlfriend’s parents’ Maryland home with his two small children. He makes $12 an hour when he can get work, didn’t finish high school and has no health insurance for himself or his family. He and his family will likely become burdens to the taxpayers.

As David Frum notes in his most recent book, Comeback, Mexican immigrants receive about $55,000 more in benefits in their lifetime than they pay in taxes. Educating the children of illegal immigrants has also become a costly proposition. In 1982, a Supreme Court decision required local governments to educate immigrants equally with native-born Americans. This means that states must spend more money on resources to teach immigrants English and other basic skills alongside native-born Americans who already have mastered these skills. Frum writes:

In order to have our chickens plucked in America, rather than import them preplucked from Mexico or Brazil, the American nation has assumed a vast and protracted commitment to tens of millions of people-over and on top of the as-yet-unfulfilled debt owed to those who still carry the wounds of slavery and segregation.

About 34% of black children are living in poverty in the U.S. compared to 26% of children born to Hispanic immigrants. As of 2004, almost 70% of all black children are born to unmarried mothers and more than 11% of black males aged 25 to 34 were incarcerated in June 2006. Where’s the Democrats’ sense of obligation to poor, black, native-born Americans?

The first African slaves were shipped to the English colony of Virginia in 1607. Black American slaves built this country, but their descendants have had to wage their own fight and suffer death to gain basic civil rights to get a good education and be allowed to be patrons of restaurants, hotels and movies alongside whites. Today, the divide between prospering and poor blacks is growing. Poor blacks face an increasing rate of out of wedlock births, HIV/AIDS infection, imprisonment, and under-education. Don’t these concerns warrant the nation’s first attention? Won’t amnesty make them all worse, by expanding the population of the nation’s most hard-pressed poor?

Instead of throwing more money after bad and granting amnesty to illegals, as the Obama administration seems poised to do, the country needs to change course.  Let’s get serious about enforcement and shift the immigration debate from the unskilled to the highly-skilled workers which are of greater benefit and less costly to the U.S. in the long-term. Real immigration enforcement when applied can yield results.  Practical solutions to problems such as immigration are a formula more likely to yield winning results than “purity standards.”