Mr. President: It's not about race. We don't like your policies

  So U.S. News runs an interview, the title of which is a very objective "Obama says race key component in Tea Party Protests,"  so entirely sympathetic that they helpfully plant in the middle of it a compilation of tea party cartoons and words like "he sadly conceded."   

  This is journalism.

But Obama, in his most candid moments, acknowledged that race was still a problem. In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent "Tea Party" movement that was then surging across the country. [SNIP]

[See a gallery of Tea Party editorial cartoons.]

A guest suggested that when Tea Party activists said they wanted to "take back" their country, their real motivation was to stir up anger and anxiety at having a black president, and Obama didn't dispute the idea. He agreed that there was a "subterranean agenda" in the anti-Obama movement—a racially biased one—that was unfortunate. But he sadly conceded that there was little he could do about it.

  The problem is that the tea party movement ISN'T about race and no matter how many black people run as Republicans, conservatives and appear to protest with tea partiers, liberals will still try to use race as a divisive issue. The disagreement's about policies, and to hide behind the sad, tired meme that it's all about race is dishonest and very worn.
  Maybe that excuse worked in the beginning because it was all so new and so exhilarating that the country elected an African American president.
  Not any more.
  Read the Daily Caller about Sheila Jackson Lee's behavior behind the scenes with staff, a truly revelatory article. She is much more than temperamental:

“I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen,” Jackson Lee once said, and apparently she wasn’t kidding. Her employees describe waiting for their boss for hours on end, sometimes late into the night, while she attends events or even sits in her office watching TV.

  This behavior is abominable; declaring it so has nothing to do with race. She happens to be black and her behavior happens to be rude and absurd.
  Observing that does not make the observer a racist. According to Jackson Lee, however, it does. She enjoys the "perks" of being able to accuse people of being racist if she's wrong or in an awkward spot. From the same Caller article, different page:

Jackson Lee has always been quick to assign racism as a motive of her political opponents and others. In 1997, for example, The Hill reported that the newly-elected congresswoman asked NASA officials whether the Mars Pathfinder photographed the American flag astronaut Neil Armstrong had planted on the surface of Mars. When it was pointed out that the flag in question was on the moon, not Mars, Jackson Lee cited bigotry. “You thought you could have fun with a black woman member of the Science Committee,” her then chief of staff wrote in a letter to the editor.

  Can't we get past this issue? Can't we drop the idea that anyone who disagrees with someone whose skin color isn't the same as theirs is a racist? 
  These politicians need to grow up and the people who report on them and observe them need to not be afraid to criticize someone if they disagree with their policies.
  It's only fair. 
  But then, that would be ceding a political advantage, wouldn't it.