Is criticism of Obama racist? Mondale: ‘Yeah’

Politico reports there was a long, thoughtful pause after Walter Mondale was asked Wednesday if he agreed with Jimmy Carter that some criticism of President Obama is race-based. “Yeah” was his answer, when it finally came.

Mondale elaborated:

I don’t like saying it. Having lived through those years, when civil rights was such a bitter issue, and when we argued those things for years … I know that some of that must still be around. …

I don’t want to pick a person, say, he’s a racist, but I do think the way they’re piling on Obama, the harshness, you kind of feel it. I think I see an edge in them that’s a little bit different and a little harsher than I’ve seen in other times.

Mondale made the comments at the Washington, D.C., premiere of a documentary about him called “Fritz” (trailer) by Minnesota filmmaker Melody Gilbert. The movie grew out of her filming Mondale talking to a class at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Gilbert tells The Hill. Mondale is “not braggy,” she says, and “never liked being on camera.” In Gilbert’s view, he is the patriarch of Minnesota’s version of the Kennedy family, but “low key.”