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A child to Obama: 'Why do people hate you?'

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

OBAMAKIDD Back in the 1950s and 1960s, a talk show host named Art Linkletter had a segment called, Kids Say The Darndest Things. They still do.

A New Orleans fourth-grader, identified as Tyren Scott, couldn't have been more blunt today when he asked President Obama a question touching on the incivility of modern politics. "Why do people hate you?," he asked the president, adding that folks are "supposed to love you. And God is love."

Obama's answer is worth quoting at length.

Well, now, first of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me ...

But you know, what is true is if you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody's just getting mad all the time ... I think that you've got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what's called politics, where, you know, once one party wins, then the other party kind of feels like it needs to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes. And so you shouldn't take it too seriously.

And then, sometimes, as I said before, people ... (are) worried about their own lives. A lot of people are losing their jobs right now. A lot of people are losing their health care or they've lost their homes to foreclosure, and they're feeling frustrated. And when you're president of the United States ... you've got to deal with all of that ... You get some of the credit when things go good. And when things are going tough, then, you know, you're going to get some of the blame, and that's part of the job.


(Posted by David Jackson; photo by Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images)

Obama, live from New Orleans