It’s About Time
Well, it looks like the New York Times editorial staff has finally recognized what we’ve known ince 2009 — the Republican attacks against this president are unprecedented, ugly, and based on a personal animosity. And they are getting worse. They are loud, angry, and destructive to this country.
… the tone of the current attacks is disturbing. So is their evident intent — to undermine not just Mr. Obama’s policies, but his very legitimacy as president.
At the end, they round it up and head it out —
If this insurrection is driven by something other than a blend of ideological extremism and personal animosity, it is not clear what that might be. But it is ugly, it deepens mistrust of government and it harms the office of the president, not just Mr. Obama.
It is ugly. It is unAmerican. It is shameful.
It’s not that nobody should say anything bad about a President… I enjoyed the heck out of the parodies of Bush 43 (didn’t like 41 much either). And we sang songs about Nixon back in the day. BUT…
1Maybe I should be an NYT consultant. I could have told them this years ago. Paper of record? Whose record?
2I thought newspapers were up to date. Guess not, if this birdcage liner just now got around to understanding this.
3GOP: Attacking the Office of the Presidency and Harming America Since 20 January 2008.
4Like to hear wingnuts accuse the Times of lying about this.
5EPO, I can just imagine Mitch McConnell getting all righteous and spitting and never making sense in response to this. But then that is his usual MO. I think I smell something of the demise of The Turtle on this one.
6The sec’y of Homeland Security was on “60 Minutes” last week saying that the number and intensity of physical threats against this president are unprecedented by a large margin, i.e., the rwnj’s can say otherwise but it is quantifiable, and we know how much neoliberals and neoconservatives love quantification.
7The NYT full editorial is pointing out, if you thought the attacks of the goopers on Obama were bad before, they are now getting even worse, and it is basically racist, and it drives them nuts. Pull up today’s NYT and read it all.
8They should be embarrassed.
9Not only is this President a Democrat (which alone is an impeachable offense in the minds of Republicans) – but he also has excessive melanin in his epidermis.
If Hillary wins in 2016, I expect that she’ll match or beat President Obama’s record. The Republicans have been running on hate and fear of the Other ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. (Which took away their former favorite hate/fear object.) They’re not going to stop until this tactic fails to win elections – and people are so frightened right now that I doubt this will occur.
Meanwhile, the Republicans take the occasional break from demonizing their opponents by whining about how their opponents are “polarizing figures.” Talk about folks who shoot their parents and then ask people to take pity upon them because they’re now orphans… Republicans heard this cliche and thought it a great business model.
10The “…something other..” which underlies this animosity is racism pure and simple. The hard core Repugs have finally been given the right to attack a black man out in the open by pretending it’s only political. Horse radish! Their hatred oozes out with every condescending criticism and gives the rest of the nut jobs permission to jump on the bandwagon of hate. And the billionaires who fund this hate-mongering are responsible for absolutely paralyzing our country.
11Ugly? Yes! UnAmerican? Yes! Shameful? Undoubtedly, but they know no shame. Racist also comes to mind: The most ugly, unAmerican and shameful reason of all.
12Hey, y’all. Add “monarchy” to the rwnj’s characteristics. They really believe that they as a class are the only ones fit to rule, er, govern . . . well, bleep, rule cuz thats what it really is.
13Just remember: “Cui Bono” is the slogan this election cycle. That means “Who benefits”, or who’s money is going to be winning this one.
14If we want HRC elected we have to continue to battle this big money and be fierce about it.
It was documented in 2008
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Obama%20Derangement%20Syndrome
And NYT just noticed?
15Anyone else notice that the NYT did not identify the President as “President Barack Obama” or “President Obama”? Which is most of us learned at birth.
16Sammy, in their defense, the New York Times has a hundred year history of referring to everybody as Mr. or Mrs. (They recently added Ms.). http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Manual_of_Style_and_Usage
No disrespect is meant.
17I can hardly wait until the GOP start saying that Hillary Clinton is a secret Muslim. Or muslin, which is as close to accurate as some of them get.
18well, duh!
19It’s not the political criticism that I mind. Everyone criticizes the POTUS, esp when they are not of the same party. I personally said a critical word or two about Bush 43. But there is the line. Nothing about them personally. The most irritating was and are the birthers. Ted Cruz and every GOP candidate from now own will get that from me to my circle of idiot friends and relatives who still bring it up. Then race. The GOP looked and sounded like a memorable scene from Blazing Saddles. But Blazing Saddles was fiction. November 2008 until now has not been fiction. Family. Pundits, press, opponents leave the kids out of the criticism. To not do so is idiotic.
20I was going to say to the NYT “well duh, where have you been folks”, but as usual your fans have said it better and faster. This has been unrelenting. Mr. Obama has been such a classy guy to just ignore the dopes. Hard to do when the rain never stops.
21I hope this is just one of those typical situations where the people losing just get louder and louder, while saying less and less. Finally they stop.
It is a lot like the religious right, which has reduced much of its anti-gay rhetoric to spiels about wedding cakes.
22I think what angers me more than anything is the myth of equivalency. It gets so nasty so quickly that even intelligent people like my wife just utter, “well both sides are doing it, so the heck with both of them.” The problem is two-fold. First, while some people may have gone too far in Bush 43’s case, those people were not duly elected representatives or respected pundits. They were the fringe and their actions were largely ignored or repudiated. The sheer amount of flack from the right is overwhelming in comparison. Volume (in amount and noise level) has to count for something. Add in the legitimacy of elected officials participating and leading the noise and you see a distinction with a difference.
23AMEN to everyone.
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