No, Fox. That's not how headlines work. 

We've gotten to a point in the state of our nation where rhetoric like this flies all over a major news corporation. Where bald-faced racism gets slapped up on on the official website of one of the biggest sources of information people have. Yes, it's Fox, and so yes, most people reading their website are already going to be of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with calling the president's private birthday a "hip-hop BBQ". They're not going to look at the header image of four of the party's black guests and think anything is slanted or amiss. They're just going to sigh vaguely at the president's indolence and go back to patting themselves on the back for being super not racist. 

I read the headline in the smarmy, condescending voice of Glenn Beck. I envisioned him continuing, "look! Obama went and hung out with other black people instead of fixing everything about this country. What a waste. Let's impeach him." Am I supposed to take a different message away from the combination headline and photo strip? Am I supposed to read this as a neutral report on the president's birthday celebration? 

Six thousand people "like" this article on Facebook. Six thousand people signed themselves up to agree "officially" with the sentiment. Six thousand people probably still don't consider themselves racists. 

If I were to see this sort of thing from any major news company, it'd be Fox. But they generally keep themselves well enough under control to avoid filling their headlines with derogatory, stereotypical language. Sometimes the hate boils so hot it leaks out anyway. The pressure of the debt crisis must have broken one writer's cool. I'm just perplexed as to the assumption that it's the president's duty to create jobs at every minute despite a blockade from the right against spending. How exactly is he going to make jobs? Where are they going to come from? What resources have you left him to fix anything? Where is my mind?

Despite the fact that it's the Republican party who has wrangled the system into a deadlock, Fox would still love us to believe that it's the president's fault. Because he is, of course, a lazy ne'er-do-well who would rather party with his "hip-hop" pals than fix the entire country's problems single-handedly. 

The man turned 50. Let him blow off a little stress. Let DJ Cassidy play some Motown for Nancy Pelosi and  Hilary Clinton and Rahm Emmanuel. Because at the end of the day, Obama is going to have to go back to trying to steer this sinking ship and its mad, mutinous crew. Forget job creation--he has to figure out a way to get our government to make collective decisions again. Because apparently it's forgotten that you cannot sit back and do nothing during a crisis in the name of staying true to your inane ideology. Sometimes you've got to break down walls and make sacrifices in the name of not sending this country to hell.

Or, if you're a Fox News reader, you could just sit back and wryly ponder why your no-good president hasn't fixed everything yet. That'll work too.