Question: What does a busload of fraternity knuckleheads collectively singing songs and 47 U.S. senators conspiring to write a letter to Iran have in common?

Answer: Everything. Both of these asinine, sophomoric stunts were triggered by deep-seeded USDA Grade A racism.

We’ve heard it was about “national security” and “the Constitution” and the very sanctity of our way of life. Nonsense. Behind the bluster and the carefully crafted damage-control script is racism. Prejudice — along with indigenous, inbred bullyism and domestic violence — constitutes a far greater threat to our country than Iran (or ISIS) — ever will.

There are those in Washington, and indeed throughout America, who just never quite accepted the fact that we elected (and re-elected) a black man as president. A intelligent, decent, (unbelievably) tolerant and genuinely good man. It’s an old saw that he inherited the previous administration’s multiple messes, but he’s done and admirable job turning things around, in my view.

Recently, surgeons in Los Angeles transplanted a heart “the size of a strawberry” into a 3-week-old recipient. Many forms of cancer nowadays are challenges more than death sentences. We land contraptions on Mars. And of course, Apple has finally created a $15,000 watch to remind you when it’s time to do everything necessary to sustain a happy and healthy life. Kind of a “wrist-wife,” if you will.

Given all that, I often wonder why and lament how — in a country so adept and focused on these and other medical and technological miracles — we still find it imperative to enmesh and mire ourselves in ancient Middle East tribal/religious squabbles while simultaneously diminishing and devaluating ourselves over the color of a person’s skin. Even if that person is the president of the United States.

Buddy Doyle

Gardiner