In his Washington Post opinion column, Jonathan Capehart argues that no matter what Princeton professor Cornel West and broadcaster Tavis Smiley have to say about Washington's inadequate response to poverty, it will be colored by their fulminations against President Obama for his perceived slights against them.

A seven-day, 14-city bus tour highlighting the plight of America's poor is a great idea. Income inequality is the greatest it has ever been. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. And the solutions to the economic insecurity facing all but the megarich seem out of reach. That anyone would take time to shine a light on poverty is commendable. That is, unless said tour is being led by Princeton University professor Cornel West and television host and author Tavis Smiley.

Pardon the pun, but a poverty bus tour guided by these two is a flawed vehicle for discussion. 

You’ll recall that in April 2010, Smiley criticized the president for lacking a definable "black agenda" and demanded that Obama "take the issues of black America more seriously." Then, in May of this year, West lashed out at the president calling him "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats." It was a slam as ugly as it was obnoxious made worse because it was animus based in pettiness. West remains peeved that he wasn’t invited to the inauguration. Smiley hasn't been the same since Obama didn’t show up at a forum during the 2008 presidential campaign, but sent his wife Michelle in his stead. Whatever Smiley and West have to say about poverty and Washington's inadequate response to it -- no matter how right, true or fair -- will forever be colored by their personal pique against the president.

Read Jonathan Capehart's entire column at the Washington Post.

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