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But while most politicians -- on both sides of the aisle -- were quick to condemn the rally and its participants, one individual for some 48 hours was far too measured and calculating in his response. And it took public outcry and a White House in crisis mode for President Donald Trump to course correct.

And we are right to sharply criticize both presidents for failing to stare hate squarely in the face and call it exactly what it is.

"This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back, we're going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump, and that's what we believed in, that's why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he's going to take our country back and that's what we gotta do."

To borrow and remake an ill-fated 2012 campaign debate quote from Obama: Mr. Duke, the 1950s called, and they want their pathetically racist ideologies back.

Trump's initial response on Saturday, in which he acknowledged there were "many sides," left many of us feeling unsatisfied. We wanted him to act presidential. We wanted him to clearly enunciate the threat and condemn it in the strongest and most unequivocal language. And he let us down.

But there is also a hypocrisy in the coverage of this event and the President's subsequent responses, one that mirrors the Obama presidency and is worth exploring in greater detail.

Those of us who've spent a career identifying the evil among us and are committed to keeping America safe shake our heads at the political pretzel-twisting politicians subject themselves to. If it meets the definition of terrorism, call it that. Once the perpetrators have been identified through exhaustive investigation, describe them in easily discernible terms.

And, when I served as the special assistant to the assistant-director-in-charge of the FBI's New York office in Manhattan in 2015, I sat in on innumerable secure video teleconferences with the bureau's 56 division heads and FBI headquarters. Watching briefings in which senior FBI officials had to comply with Holder's DOJ mandate not to use "radical Islamists" to describe cases focused on radical Islamists often resulted in a wry and resigned smile from the briefer saddled with this ridiculous restriction. Holder insisted we refrain from "calling it what it is," and instead mandated that these cases be described in more nebulous and ambiguous terms: "combating violent extremism" matters.

While we're all outraged over Trump's indelicate dance to avoid calling the white racists, bigots and anti-Semites who have attached themselves like a barnacle to the GOP's ship hull what they are, let's be careful not to isolate the few, in order to smear the whole --- a lesson we were repeatedly lectured about during the Obama era.

The world just isn't as black and white as the bigoted protesters in Charlottesville would lead us to believe.

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Trump is repeating Obama's mistake - CNN

The Clean Water Act is an important piece of legislation. When enacted in the 1970s, it solved a real water quality and pollution problem throughout the nation. Moreover, as its early enforcement unfolded, Congress and even the EPA were careful to include important provisions to protect the economy. Americas farmers, in particular, were assured that normal farming practices would be protected from federal micromanaging; amendments clarified that plowing to produce crops is not regulated by the Act, and other normal farming practices do not require permits.

Lawmakers understood that wed have a hard time feeding our nation if farmers had to go through the Clean Water Act permitting process, which is long and expensive, simply for the right to grow food.

But those protections are under unprecedented assault, through a groundbreaking federal prosecution launched during the Obama Administration that has somehow continued under the Trump Administration.

The target is my familys business, Duarte Nursery, Inc., and the 500 jobs of our employees. Career prosecutors at the Justice Department and entrenched bureaucrats at the Army Corps of Engineers are seeking devastating fines, all because we planted wheat in a field we own in Northern California.

Theyre going after us because we didnt get a permit to plow, even though the Clean Water Act says no permit is needed and indeed no permit has ever been required or issued to a wheat farmer ever before; and we didnt avoid some small wet spots in our field, even though theyre similar to many others commonly farmed through by farmers all over the US (and those seasonal wetlands are still present on our property, as they were before our plowing).

From the beginning, the government put forward allegations that were grossly incorrect. A Corps of Engineers field agent accused us of deep ripping, three feet deep, permanently destroying more than 20 acres of wetlands. If true, this would have required a permit in many cases. But not only was this not true, the Corps agent avoided opportunities to find out what actually happened, and then destroyed documents in his file to prevent their disclosure to me and the public.

The governments own expert report admits that the plowing averaged four to seven inches, which does not require a permit. Undaunted, a government team of 12 experts and others had the run of the property for two weeks. They dug up 20 vernal pool wetlands, two-to-three feet deep, with a diesel excavator. At the end of their investigation, the government faced a failed theory of prosecutionthere was no deep ripping and the wetlands were all still present, even in a five year drought. But the prosecution team persisted, now with senseless metaphors: they argued that five inch plow furrows were really small mountain ranges and the plowing like a tornado. Sadly, a federal judge agreed with the government, holding us liable because our plowing moved soil back and forth and from side to side.

Now, the court is poised to hear the governments arguments to impose astonishing financial penalties. The proposed $2.8 million fine, coupled with a requirement that my business and myself personally fund over $30 million to a private wetland mitigation bank, is ruinous. It will destroy an important California family business and many jobs. It will also give the federal government unlimited power to extract wealth from family farms and rural communities nationwide.

Over the years, members of both parties in Congressin particular, but not limited to, representatives from rural areashave worked hard to sustain the farming safeguards in the law. It is widely recognized that the attack on my family business threatens those safeguards. House Judiciary Chairman Goodlatte and House Agricultural Committee Chair Conaway recently sent a strong letter to Attorney General Sessions asking him several important questions specific to this case. Iowa Senators Joni Ernst and Charles Grassley have spoken against this abusive prosecution. As stated by attorney Tony Francois of Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing my business without charge against the Corps., my case should alarm every farmer in America, and every family that values having food on their table. If the farming protection in the Clean Water Act is going to be plowed under, we may not have a lot of domestically grown food to eat.

President Trump recognized early in his campaign that the Obama Administrations illegal expansion of Clean Water Act jurisdiction, through an open-ended WOTUS rule, would be a threat to rural America. President Trumps move to repeal the Obama WOTUS rule was very important. Now we need the same attention to this prosecution against me, my family business, and, by extension, Americas farmers from coast to coast.

John Duarte is president of family owned Duarte Nursery, Inc., headquartered near Modesto.

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Obama Is Gone, But Not His Administration's Crusade To Crush A Farmer - The Daily Caller

Barack Obama delivered an empowering video message to attendees of Chance the Rapper's surprise concert Saturday night, a free gig the rapper planned after serving as grand marshal of the city's annual Bud Billiken Parade.

"I wanted to just have the chance to say to all of you that the Bud Billiken parade stands for so much of what our community is about," Obama said in the prerecorded speech, which was shown on the Auditorium Theatre'sscreens.

"We want to make sure our kids are safe, we want to make sure that they are ready to go back to school. We want to make sure that we are nurturing and protecting and encouraging and loving the next generation of leaders all throughout the city of Chicago. So Chance, I'm grateful for everything that you've done on behalf of the young people back home."

Obama added, "I am hopeful that everybody who is at the concert today, everybody who is getting involved, everybody who's been part of the parade, that all of you are in the mindset that you could do anything that you want to as long as you put your mind to it."

Chance the Rapper previously appeared onstage with Obama at the then-president's annual National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony in Washington, D.C. in December 2016.

Earlier in the day, Chance the Rapper's SocialWorks charity distributed 30,000 backpacks filled with school supplies to Chicago children.

The #BBBash concert, which Chance the Rapper handed out free tickets to while on the parade route, also promised "special guests," with the rapper delivering surprise appearances by Future and Jeremih.

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See Barack Obama's Empowering Video Message at Chance the Rapper Concert - RollingStone.com

Christopher LaMothe in Mineville, N.Y., says he hates Nazis and white supremacists, but he thinks Black Lives Matter is just as bad. Brian Mann/North Country Public Radio hide caption

Christopher LaMothe in Mineville, N.Y., says he hates Nazis and white supremacists, but he thinks Black Lives Matter is just as bad.

One of the things we've learned over the past year is that events like the violence in Charlottesville, Va., are often viewed very differently in different places. Places like rural white communities that make up President Donald Trump's most loyal base. One such place is Mineville, N.Y., a tiny rust-belt town in the Adirondack Mountains north of Albany, where on Sunday afternoon we found Christopher LaMothe sitting on a bench.

In these small towns, events like what happened in Charlottesville are also portrayed differently in the conservative media. When Trump first responded to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, he blamed the rioting and bloodshed on "many sides," failing to name the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who organized the march. It sparked a huge backlash even from many Republicans.

But the president's words sat just fine with LaMothe. "I think when he called for the unity of the country, that should have been what was pounded on," LaMothe says in between taking a drag on his cigarette. By pounded on, LaMothe means respected. He loves Trump and says the president never gets a fair shake from the media.

He says he hates the idea of neo-Nazis and recalls when growing up, he had friends who were black. But now he thinks the white guys he saw on his TV marching in Charlottesville have some reasonable arguments.

"This is a different white supremacy movement than before, because I don't think whites are saying, 'well we're better.' They're saying why can't we be treated all as equal?"

LaMothe thinks affirmative action programs should be scrapped. He also thinks neo-Nazis who sparked mayhem in Charlottesville are no worse than a lot of activist groups on the left. "I didn't hear anything from Barack Obama about Black Lives Matter and that was another hate group," he says.

In fact, Black Lives Matter has no history of violence or racial bigotry comparable to America's far-right militias, neo-Nazis or Klan groups. But that's not how this plays even in fairly mainstream conservative media, where liberal groups are often portrayed a radical or dangerous.

"I think the president nailed it, condemned in the strongest possible terms hatred and bigotry on all sides," Pete Hegseth, co-host of Fox and Friends said during a broadcast Sunday. He echoed the narrative that white nationalist groups have legitimate concerns and compared them with groups on the left.

"Antifa also ought to be called out, just like the violent aspects of Black Lives Matter ought to be called out," he said.

Antifa means "anti-fascist." It's a kind of catch-all name for far-left students and anarchists who often stage counterprotests in cities where far-right conservatives march or stage rallies. And their approach is confrontational. In Charlottesville, Antifa protesters chanted that people should "punch a Nazi in the mouth."

The left-wing movement is tiny, but it's become a major fixation for the far-right. Over the weekend, a reporter from the media site Breitbart, which has close ties to the White House, urged Virginia Gov. Terry McCauliffe to criticize Antifa protesters, as well as neo-Nazis.

"Governor, will you condemn Antifa as well?" he asked repeatedly.

McCauliffe didn't reply.

People who speak for the Antifa movement acknowledge they sometimes carry clubs and sticks. They have clashed in recent months with police. But James Anderson who runs an anarchist website rejects comparisons between the militant left and white supremacists, pointing out that their goals and aims are far different.

"I mean the idea that we should organize against the Klan or stop the Klan or stand up to the Klan, most people would be like, 'yeah, obviously,' " Anderson says. "The Klan is bad, it kills people, it lynches them."

But for many rural white conservatives, it's not that clear. Cultural and political lines that once seemed sharply drawn to a lot of Americans just aren't any more. In their media and in their worldview, groups like Black Lives Matter seem just as radical as the Klan.

When asked if it wouldn't be better if President Trump had just condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville using blunt language, LaMothe shakes his head impatiently.

"He's in a no win situation," LaMothe says. What he did do and no one's giving him credit for that he called for unity. I never saw Obama call for unity."

In fact, Barack Obama did call for national unity numerous times during his presidency, especially during times of racial conflict and violence. That message was often downplayed or ignored in much of the conservative media that shapes opinion in rural America.

NPR's Maquita Peters produced this story for the Web.

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Trump Supporter: 'He Called For Unity, I Never Saw Obama Call For Unity' - NPR

On November 15, 2015, as the world grappled with the horrors of a multipronged ISIS attack in Paris, Donald Trump, who was then an improbable but officially declared candidate for the presidency, tweeted, When will President Obama issue the words RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM? He cant say it, and unless he will, the problem will not be solved!

I raise the subject of this tweet, and the sentiment that motivated it, in light of President Trumps remarkable reaction to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, this weekend. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides, he said. Trump, when presented with the chance to denounce, in plain, direct language, individuals who could fairly be described as white supremacist terrorists, or with some other equivalent formulation, instead resorted to euphemism and moral equivalence.

Trumps position on the matter of President Obamas anti-terrorism rhetoric did not place him outside the Republican mainstream. Obamas critics argued throughout his presidency that his unwillingness to embrace the incantatory rhetoric of civilizational strugglehis reluctance to cast such groups as al-Qaeda and ISIS as vanguards of an all-encompassing ideological and theological challenge to the Westmeant that, at the very least, he misunderstood the nature of the threat, or, more malignantly, that he understood the nature of the threat but was, through omission, declaring a kind of neutrality in the conflict between the United States and its principal adversary.

It is true that Obama calibrated his rhetoric on the subject of terrorism to a degree even his closest advisers sometimes found frustrating. They hoped that, on occasion, he would at least acknowledge the legitimacy of Americans fears about Islamist terrorism before proceeding to explain those fears away. But Obama had a plausible rationale for avoiding the sort of language his eventual successor demanded that he deploy. He believed that any sort of rhetorical overreaction to the threat of Islamist terrorism by an American president would create panic, and would also spark a xenophobic response that would do damage to Americas image, and to Americans Muslims themselves.

He also took a view opposite to that of Donald Trump: Bringing Islam itself to the forefront of the conversation about terrorism would create a backlash in the Muslim world that would do real harm to the armed anti-terrorism campaigns he was then leading. Obama, over the eight years he served as president, ordered the killings of more Muslim terrorists, in more Muslim countries, than any of his predecessors. On this subject, he spoke so softly he could barely be heard, but he carried a lethal stick. His goal was to eradicate Muslim terrorists without alienating the great mass of Muslims unsympathetic to the theology and tactics of those terrorists.

I spoke with Obama on a number of occasions about the dilemmas he faced in his fight against Islamist terror. I was one of those who thought he was rhetorically wanting, but I also came to understand that he labored under no illusions about the nature of the threat, and of the problem afflicting Islamic civilization. There is a need, he told me once, for Islam as a whole to challenge the radicals, to challenge that interpretation of Islam, to isolate it, and to undergo a vigorous discussion within their community about how Islam works as part of a peaceful, modern society. Refracting this conflict through the prism of a clash of civilizations of the sort imagined by the late political scientist Samuel Huntington would do no one any good. I do not persuade peaceful, tolerant Muslims to engage in that debate if Im not sensitive to their concern that they are being tagged with a broad brush, Obama said.

Muslim radicals do seek the sort of civilizational clash that Obama tried to avoid, but reality has delivered them something else: A clash within their civilization, between fundamentalists and modernizers, between a small but murderous minority and a much larger number of Muslims who seek to co-exist with other cultures and religious groups. It is up to the worldwide community of Muslims, Obama believed, to shape the Muslim future. It was not the job of the president of the United States to insert himself unnecessarily into this debate, by using rhetoric that would be polarizing and dangerous.

Trump, in his remarks on Saturday, refused to align himself against the so-called alt-right protest movement. His decision to maintain a neutral stance on the activities of the racist and anti-Semitic right has opened him to charges of hypocrisy; Trump is now refusing to speak plainly about the nature of a particular terrorist threat, a sin he continually ascribed to his predecessor.

But the issue here is substantially larger than mere hypocrisy. Obama carefully measured his rhetoric in the war against Islamist terrorism because he hoped to avoid inserting the U.S. into the middle of an internecine struggle consuming another civilization. But the struggle in Charlottesville is a struggle within our own civilization, within Trumps own civilization. It is precisely at moments like this that an American president should speak up directly on behalf of the American creed, on behalf of Americans who reject tribalism and seek pluralism, on behalf of the idea that blood-and-soil nationalism is antithetical to the American idea itself. Trumps refusal to call out radical white terrorism for what it is, at precisely the moment America needs its leadership to take a unified stand against hatred, marks what might be the lowest moment of his presidency to date.

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Why Won't Trump Call Out Radical White Terrorism? - The Atlantic