The State Media did its lickspittle best to support him, as newsreaders speculated with open anticipation on the possibility of a summer of "LA riots" nationwide and in some cases even called for them. If you watched MSNBC, C-SPAN, CNN, the big three networks, or even Fox, it would be impossible to imagine that cities weren't poised to erupt in flames.
Cities aren't erupting in flames. Here in Los Angeles, a few morons took time off from a Trayvon prayer meeting to trash a nearby WalMart. A flash mob ran through Hollywood committing candalism and petty crimes. A few more managed to wander out into traffic and block a freeway for a short time. Just today, the 'big' 'justice for Trayvon' rally drew scarcely a hundred people. There was trouble in Oakland, but there's always trouble in Oakland; you can't expect better from a city whose Mayor marched with the Occupy mob trashing it.
There have been similar incidents in other cities, but riots? In an LA, Detroit kind of way? No. Nothing. There have been scattered assaults by blacks on random whites across the country, but the resort to violence and contempt for life have been so thoroughly imprinted in the culture of young black males in America that there isn't even any evidence it's made a statistical blip yet.
So if Obama's support for Trayvon was supposed to galvanize some sort of popular movement, it hasn't paid off, except to reinvigorate a lot of conservative activists and politicians... and turn off a lot of Democrats.
That graphic up top there? I stood out on a street corner displaying that on a signboard in Studio City yesterday evening, to all comers, regardless of race, creed, or gender. Out of all the passersby and all the traffic, I got exactly one finger. No insults, no rage... but a lot of nods and honks and even a few smiles. And we've had screams, things thrown, physical assaults at that corner in years past. That's all gone now.
It may be that Obama's gameplaying mojo is wearing out. It may be that people, even Democrats who mean well, are getting bored with his posturing. He's gone to that well too many times. You won't get that from Chris Matthews or Bob Schieffer or David Gregory, let along Touré or Piers Morgan, but I get the feeling people are just tired of him and starting to disregard anything he says. Sensible people already know to disregard the nonsensical economic numbers coming out of DC (or, more locally, Sacramento). But I think they're also getting fed up with being hectored about fairness and decency by a man and an Administration that uniformly, from Mexican drug-dealers to the Muslim Brotherhood to a teenage thug trying to beat a good man to death, always, always, always sides with the unfair and the indecent.
As to how unfair and indecent the Administration and State Media's behavior was this time, Bill Whittle says it all here...
