Are you an African American hating racist? How about an anti-Semitic terrorist lover?

I fear some people believe that anyone who criticizes President Obama is a racist and others feel that if you find fault with Israel’s action against Hamas you must be an anti-Semite terrorist sympathizer.

While I’m sure there are racists out there who hate the President just because he’s black and anti-Semites who don’t even want to recognize Israel as a country, I think most of the debate on those issues has nothing to do with race, color, or religion.

If you believe in small government and paying down the debt now (even though you may not have felt that way while Bush was president - I plan to tackle double standard in next week’s blog) you have legitimate reason to speak out against Obama’s stimulus package. For people concerned about the large number of Palestinian civilians who have been killed compared to the much smaller number of Israelis in this latest conflict, objecting to Israel’s actions is not unreasonable.

I wonder if some people play the race card because they’re unable or unwilling to have an intelligent discussion on the issue.

What do you think?

I returned from my brief vacation to find an email from our Program Director telling us that we must now blog at least once a week. My day is Wednesday and this is my blog:  

During my four days off - I – played tennis on icy courts at Whatcom Falls Park - had a Christmas work party in the middle of January - ate Jello shots at the Moose Lodge - took my seven year old daughter to the Bellingham M.L.K. Celebration - smoked cigars, drank scotch and had lunch at The Copper Hog with two Iraq War Veterans - and watched President Elect Obama become President Obama with about 1200 people at the Mount Baker Theater.  

It was a good vacation.

I’ll be off on Monday and Tuesday - call Dillon Honcoop or Mike Curtiss is with news related issues.

For the first time since I moved here almost seven years ago, I’m going to attend Bellingham’s annual MLK event as a spectator, not a reporter. I plan to bring my seven year old daughter with me. The Monday celebration is being held in the City’s Muni Court Building instead of City Hall, where it’s been in the past. It’s also being broadcast live on BTV channel 10.

I need to blog more often. I look at Sam Taylor’s blog on bellinghamherald.com and I get really jealous. I think he’s like the king of all Bellingham bloggers. He has all sorts of cool tidbits. Unfortunately we can’t all be Sam Taylors, but I don’t think he needs to point out that one of my colleagues hasn’t blogged since December here. It makes him sound a little cocky.

At any rate, I want to tell you about a few changes in the Extended News at Noon program I anchor. We now have five minutes of news, sports, weather, and business, the Dave Ross Program, the first two segments of The Glen Beck Show, and about five more minutes of news and weather. That’s followed by another hour and 20 minutes of Glen Beck.