LIBERAL VERSION Birenbaum on Obama Obama's Burden Why do Republicans hate Barack Obama with such intensity that they consistently say that they want their country back? What has Mr. Obama done to their framework for understanding American politics? Surely it is that, as a man of color, Barack Obama is the first of his kind to serve in the office of President. John Kennedy was the first (and still the only) Catholic to hold that office but the Republican Party members kept their dislike of Kennedy to themselves. Other right wing groups, such as the John Birch Society, were never reluctant to abuse Kennedy but they did so because they believed he was insufficiently anti-Communist rather than because he was a Catholic. With Obama, the contempt is widely overt and there is a widespread theme that the President is a crypto Socialist and Muslim. And aside from sharp differences in political culture between the anti-Obama and the pro-Obama forces, there is a socially construc