A 12-year-old Georgia boy's video question's Obama's patriotism
CJ Pearson, age 12, agrees with Rudy Giuliani. He says President Obama doesn't love America and his video is winning plaudits from some conservatives.
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础听聽made by a middle school student in Grovetown, Ga., picks up former New York City mayor聽Rudy Giuliani鈥檚 claim that President Barack Obama doesn鈥檛 love America 鈥� and it's going viral.
CJ Pearson, age 12, is the executive director of聽, a darling of conservative media,聽and listed as a "public figure" on his聽听辫补驳别.
In his three-minute video, CJ lauds Mr. Giuliani and then launches into a verbal attack on the president鈥檚 patriotism claiming Mr. Obama has a 鈥渄ownright hatred鈥� for America.
"I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America," Giuliani聽聽according to published reports. "He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country."
These remarks have brought a certain amount of trepidation from some conservatives.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Rand Paul, (R) of Kentucky, Sen. Marco Rubio, (R) of Florida and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry all were quick to parse the accusation separating the president鈥檚 political decisions from any reflection on his patriotism.
None of the above mentioned were keen to fall in line behind Giuliani to kick the red, white, and blue hornet鈥檚 nest quite as hard as the former mayor and, as it turns out, a 12-year-old boy from Georgia.
Pearson echoed the former New York City Mayor鈥檚 sentiment in his video and went one better saying, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to be politically correct. I don鈥檛 care about being politically correct at this point,鈥� Pearson says. 鈥淧resident Obama, you don鈥檛 love America.鈥�
聽鈥淚f you really did love America, you would call ISIS what it really is 鈥� an assault on 海角大神ity, an assault on America, and a down-right hate for the American values our country holds 鈥� freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and every single thing out country stands for,鈥� the boy adds. 鈥淗ere鈥檚 what you need to聽realize [that]聽here in America 鈥� we don鈥檛 back down to terrorists. We fight them on their own battle ground and we annihilate them to the very end. Here in America, we don鈥檛 allow the government to take away what we work for.鈥�
According to his biographical information on Facebook, 鈥溌爄s a 12-year-old middle school student committed to fighting for conservative principles and engaging young people in the political process.鈥�
鈥淐J Pearson has considered himself a conservative since the mere age of 8, supporting John McCain in his 2008 Presidential Campaign. Since then, CJ has worked on many conservative campaigns in the state of Georgia including Rick Allen, Nathan Deal, David Perdue, Richard Woods, and a host of others,鈥� the bio reads. 鈥淐J also founded the organization, Young Georgians in Government, because he strongly believes that all young people, regardless of political affiliation, must become involved in the political process to ensure a prosperous future here in America.鈥�
Some conservatives have hailed this video as a truth as seen through the eyes of a child.
"This 12 year old has more political smarts and honesty than the uninformed voters that re-elected Obama to a second term. What's the old saying, out of the mouth of babes," says .
Others are seeing it with a more jaundiced eye.
鈥淜ids are used a lot in the Tea Party world like Westboro Baptist Church where you see kids at events, with blogs, and making coached speeches with a lot of passion,"聽says聽聽senior fellow at the聽Southern Poverty Law Center聽and one of the country鈥檚 leading experts on extremists, in a phone interview.
A case in point, Potok says is Derek Black, son of Dan Black, who was the leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan group Stormfront.听鈥淭he boy was groomed from a very young age to speak, have his own radio show and write for the cause very articulately,鈥� he says.
Potok recalls how Derek Black went off to a liberal college in Florida and eventually came to the SPLC to聽.听
While , he says that they support him being politically active.听
Potok adds that the video by CJ is unlikely to be an accurate reflection of how most young African-American children in Georgia 鈥� or the nation 鈥� see Obama.
In a recent poll, the聽聽organization reports, 鈥淚t's also worth noting that we find very little change in the support given to Obama among his strongest demographic subgroup: black Americans. Blacks' approval of Obama has averaged 40 points higher than the national average throughout the Obama administration so far, and for聽Oct. 1-26, black job approval has been 44 points higher than the national average (85% among blacks, 41% among everyone). In fact, if anything, the trend is for relatively higher support among blacks, with a gap of 42 to 44 percentage points for August through October.鈥�
Gallup adds the cautionary note that, 鈥溾�his doesn't rule out the possibility that there are changes in the gender gap, or the race gap, in the support of various Senate candidates in specific state races -- although with the relatively small sample sizes involved in most single-state polls, one must be very cautious in developing firm conclusions about subgroup trends.鈥�