Tavis Smiley Seeks Relief from Crazed Obamites by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Tavis Smiley never wanted to pick a fight with Barack Obama. In point of fact, it is not in the media entrepreneur’s nature to pick fights with persons of power or popularity. But Obama’s zealots do not accept anything less than abject, unqualified loyalty to their leader, whom they treat more as a messiah than a Chicago politician with close ties to Wall Street. Smiley suddenly found himself branded as “a hater, sellout and traitor" for questioning Obama’s failure to appear on Smiley’s “State of the Black Union” event. Finally, as syndicated radio host Tom Joyner put it, Smiley ended his 12-year association with Joyner’s show because of “the hate he’s been getting” from Joyner’s audience. If they’ll run Tavis Smiley out of Black radio, these are fanatics, indeed.