In Need of Surrogates
Touching again on my post below about Rep. King posting a socialist picture of the president on the House Floor.
I have a master's degree in American history, but I'm by no means the end-all when it comes to speeches on the House Floor. The question is, has there ever been another speech where a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives actually hung a socialist indoctrinated photo of the President of the United States? Maybe there has. Maybe during the Cold War it was a regular thing for Members to stand up and portray the president as a socialist commie. Maybe McCarthy did it. I have no idea. I just think it's a pretty low point, much lower than Wilson heckling the president, that we have now entered in our national discourse. Just to be certain that Rep. King's portrait of President Obama was designed to portray him as a socialist, here is the original.
I think it's fine for National Review
to do whatever is they want to. There's certainly nothing wrong with
their cover story. For a Member of Congress to actually take that
picture and post it on the House Floor is another thing altogether.
Obama is a war president. He inherited two on-going wars from his
predecessor. He is now in the process of ordering more and more troops
into battle. Anyone who dared depict George Bush as a socialist while
he led our Great Armies into battle would have been spayed or neutered.
The GOP would have been the first to jump all over something like this
had it happened to one of their own. Where are the Obama surrogates at
in defending the president?
I can write all day long about the disgusting behavior of the Republican Party. They have moved so far into fringe territory that their idea of honest debate is saying the president wants to kill old people. That's crazy territory not seen in a long time in America. But the true failure here is the Democratic Party. The true point of where it all went wrong was the weakness of the Democratic Party to hold together a caucus and defend their presidents. And I stress the plurality of "presidents."
The GOP has long been on a path of conspiracy theorists and right wing extremism. It didn't start this year. All thr
oughout
the 90s Republicans did the same exact things they are doing now. Did
we all forget that Republican Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana actually held
a 10-day hearing on whether or not President Clinton's Christmas cards
were being mailed to people with moral values? Not only that, as
bizarre as it may be, Burton-- an incumbent Congressman-- actually "fired a bullet
into a 'head-like object' -- reportedly a melon -- in his backyard to
test the absurd notion that former White House counsel Vince Foster was
murdered," by First Lady Hillary Clinton. This is not a whackjob nut on
the street. Burton was a ranking Republican. He actually took to the
House Floor the conspiracy theory the First Lady murdered someone.
Incredible and sad if it wasn't so true.
The 90s were a crazy time and the GOP was sure to add just the right mix of insanity to the decade. Not only were the Clinton's murderers, a claim proudly displayed by Republican Christian Conservative and Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell that he sold copies of a documentary about it. A preacher with a huge conservative following led a crusade against the president built entirely on lies. Sound familiar?
There is no shortage of Republican conspiracy theories. They govern with them. They run their campaigns on them. They build their movement by spreading the lies. Now today with a black president running the country their fantasy world has spun out of control thinking their extremely moral value party is no longer in charge, and worse yet, lost it to a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Their tactics have been known for quite some time. They did the very same things to Clinton; it was 8 solid years of one conspiracy theory after another. Nothing has changed. But it needs to. The only way to change it is to make them own their behavior. Why is no one defending President Obama from these lunatics? There is no other way other than to make them own it. Allowing this to continue is really a Democratic failure of the worst kind.
I have a master's degree in American history, but I'm by no means the end-all when it comes to speeches on the House Floor. The question is, has there ever been another speech where a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives actually hung a socialist indoctrinated photo of the President of the United States? Maybe there has. Maybe during the Cold War it was a regular thing for Members to stand up and portray the president as a socialist commie. Maybe McCarthy did it. I have no idea. I just think it's a pretty low point, much lower than Wilson heckling the president, that we have now entered in our national discourse. Just to be certain that Rep. King's portrait of President Obama was designed to portray him as a socialist, here is the original.
I think it's fine for National Review
to do whatever is they want to. There's certainly nothing wrong with
their cover story. For a Member of Congress to actually take that
picture and post it on the House Floor is another thing altogether.
Obama is a war president. He inherited two on-going wars from his
predecessor. He is now in the process of ordering more and more troops
into battle. Anyone who dared depict George Bush as a socialist while
he led our Great Armies into battle would have been spayed or neutered.
The GOP would have been the first to jump all over something like this
had it happened to one of their own. Where are the Obama surrogates at
in defending the president?I can write all day long about the disgusting behavior of the Republican Party. They have moved so far into fringe territory that their idea of honest debate is saying the president wants to kill old people. That's crazy territory not seen in a long time in America. But the true failure here is the Democratic Party. The true point of where it all went wrong was the weakness of the Democratic Party to hold together a caucus and defend their presidents. And I stress the plurality of "presidents."
The GOP has long been on a path of conspiracy theorists and right wing extremism. It didn't start this year. All thr
oughout
the 90s Republicans did the same exact things they are doing now. Did
we all forget that Republican Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana actually held
a 10-day hearing on whether or not President Clinton's Christmas cards
were being mailed to people with moral values? Not only that, as
bizarre as it may be, Burton-- an incumbent Congressman-- actually "fired a bullet
into a 'head-like object' -- reportedly a melon -- in his backyard to
test the absurd notion that former White House counsel Vince Foster was
murdered," by First Lady Hillary Clinton. This is not a whackjob nut on
the street. Burton was a ranking Republican. He actually took to the
House Floor the conspiracy theory the First Lady murdered someone.
Incredible and sad if it wasn't so true.The 90s were a crazy time and the GOP was sure to add just the right mix of insanity to the decade. Not only were the Clinton's murderers, a claim proudly displayed by Republican Christian Conservative and Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell that he sold copies of a documentary about it. A preacher with a huge conservative following led a crusade against the president built entirely on lies. Sound familiar?
There is no shortage of Republican conspiracy theories. They govern with them. They run their campaigns on them. They build their movement by spreading the lies. Now today with a black president running the country their fantasy world has spun out of control thinking their extremely moral value party is no longer in charge, and worse yet, lost it to a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Their tactics have been known for quite some time. They did the very same things to Clinton; it was 8 solid years of one conspiracy theory after another. Nothing has changed. But it needs to. The only way to change it is to make them own their behavior. Why is no one defending President Obama from these lunatics? There is no other way other than to make them own it. Allowing this to continue is really a Democratic failure of the worst kind.
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This country has never owned its failures and crimes. We skirted reparations and full civil rights for our slaves, we ignored a Supreme court ruling that ratified the Cherokee Nation, there is no agreement that McCarthyism was wrong, or that Vietnam was a huge mistake and moral failure.
In contrast, I was recently in Berlin. That country is still publicly and and without stint atoning for its crimes. Bus stops tell the story of Nazism and the Holocaust. SS and Gestapo Headquarters are a museum called "Topography of Terror". The Wall is memorialized appropriately, with Checkpoint Charlie still a tourist stop. The tourists were mostly German, not Americans. And East Berlin is thriving and glamorous.
In Germany speech such as we hear from GOP and its fringe friends gets you thrown in jail. Extolling Nazism, or hateful speech regarding Jews, is simply illegal. And, of course, they have lower-cost universal health coverage.
Maybe we need to get our ass kicked, and our cities flattened. A bit of humility might be healthy.
September 29, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think we need to throw people in jail for spouting right wing lies. Making them own up to their behavior will do more than locking them up will. They are so crazy and so deranged that if we outlaw them, they will make themselves martyrs for sure.
Call them out on their lies. Make them own it. We can do it without much effort at all. We just have to do it.
September 29, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is simply another example of the Republican being willing to say or do anything to bully, cajole, and otherwise blackmail the nation into doing their bidding. They seek power. Period. They believe they are the only legitimate political party and they seek constantly to deligitimze the Democrats as they have done now since 1932. This didn't start with Obama. The difference between now and years ago when Democratic liberals dominated the political stage is that the Democrats used to fight back. They used to discredit the Republicans as the corrupt, bootlicking, handmaidens of the rich and powerful that they are. But Democrats are uncomfortable doing that much anymore because so many of them are engaged in exactly the same behavior. So instead of hitting back, the Democrats demure and respond with wimpy objections about decorum, etc...
The specific sort of behavior you point to does represent a new low and signals how very desperate and weak the Republicans have become. The failure of Democrats to completely change the political dynamics of the nation and shun the Republican extremists while implementing the long overdue promises of the Democratic Party (things like Medicare for All, jobs for all, etc...) is what should concern us most of all. If, at this moment of historic weakness for the Republicans, when the corporate and business leadership of the nation could not be more discredited, Democrats are incapable of making the dramatic progress the nation needs, then we need to rethink the very idea of continuing to support a system that no longer allows for any representation of the interests of the common people of the land.
September 29, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely!! There is a hollow space where Democrats should be fighting back defending the president. Instead we have nothing. There needs to be a more concerted effort at defeating the Republican Caveman mentality. Winning elections won't prevent Republicans from being crazy. We have to make them own it.
September 29, 2009 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
It isn't just a matter of defending the President though. It is a matter of defending the ideas Democrats believe in. Unfortunately for us all, Obama is one of those wimpy, pro-corporate Democrats who doesn't attack Republicans (because he shares many of their beliefs and weaknesses such as being beholden to corporate interests)and who stubbornly refuses to make them "own it."
September 29, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink