Grier: Not everyone against Obama is a racist

During last year's election, comedian David Alan Grier had a lot to say about the possibility of America electing its first African-American president. Grier has written about the historic election in a new book called, “Barack Like Me.”

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/10/07/david.alan.grier.art.jpg caption="Comedian David Alan Grier is the author of "Barack Like Me.""]

He joined John Roberts and Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Wednesday to talk about President Obama’s first nine months in office. Below is an edited transcript of the interview.

Kiran Chetry: There were a lot of questions whether Barack Obama would actually win and whether or not there would be voting irregularities. Here we are nine months out. What do you think?

David Alan Grier: Well first of all, it seems like it was five years ago. I mean, you know, nine months ago mostly what I talk about in the book is that period leading up to his election and I was addicted to the election coverage. I watched it day and night. Everybody did. It was so exciting.

"Is this country ready? What happens if we do elect a black president? What happens if we don't? What happens if we don't know?" All this possibility was there. And that's really what I talk about in the book. In a humorous way leading up to his election and the inauguration, going to the inauguration and my experience there, which was my political Woodstock, as I call it.

John Roberts: He came in with such high approval ratings and they started dropping down throughout the summer. They just recently, in this latest Associated Press poll, started coming back up to 56%. What do you make of the drop and now what appears to be a rebound?

Grier: You know what? I don't pay a lot of attention to that, like a long term stock investment. Because we all know the challenges that he inherited are monumental. And to expect him to solve, cure all those things in nine months is impossible. So I continue to support him, but I kind of am waiting to look in the long run.

Chetry: It's funny, a lot of people said at the beginning that the media and especially the entertainment industry were rooting for Barack Obama to win. Now they are the ones front and center poking fun at him. Do you think there is a danger that people are criticizing him about not doing too much and whether or not that makes him less popular?

Grier: No, because I think every president in the history of this country has been poked fun of. That's what we do as social critics. The president is always made fun of. And I think it's just taken people a while to get a beat on Barack Obama. He's not that leader that's going to give you easy stuff like tripping down the stairs, vomiting in a foreign dignitary's lap. That kind of stuff. So you kind of have to find a more nuanced in to his Cabinet and where that humor is. It comes with the territory, of course.

Roberts: There's a lot of fun out there but there is also a lot of anger out there. And you probably heard what Jimmy Carter said that he thought that among the extreme elements that are criticizing President Obama he believes there is certainly more than an element of racism about it. We talked to Boyce Watkins, an African-American professor at Syracuse University, who thought it was emblematic of a greater problem of lingering racism in this country. What happened to this idea of the beginnings of a post-racial America when Barack Obama was elected?

Grier: Well this is the beginnings of a post-racial America, but that doesn't mean by his election every bigoted thought, every racist belief will be magically erased. This country made a huge step forward, but that dialogue continues. And it's a national dialogue and it’s a dialogue that we will go through together as a country. You know, not everyone who is against him is a racist. I don't believe that. There are some people there, you know, the person carrying the sign “Go back to Kenya,” perhaps he has a problem. But I don't know about everybody else.

Chetry: What about the president's own response? He has said no, I don't think that's the case. I don't think racism is a part of this. You think he's stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the addressing whether there are racial elements to criticisms of himself?

Grier: Here’s what I think. I think his answer on I think it was the David Letterman show when he was asked directly – what do you think about this, this racial element to the protests against you. He said, “You know, I was African-American, I was black when I ran for president,” which I thought was a perfect answer. He has bigger problems to deal with. He can't, in my opinion, sit there and respond to every little racial slight. There's a lot of bigger things to tackle. … There’s war, the economy, me – he's got to read my book. So he’s got a lot.