- Jul 28, 2006
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This is only an op-ed and not really a consequential one at that. But it does a great job of illustrating the incredible amount of hypocrisy we are seeing from the left when it comes to how people speak about the President or our government.
Just about everything the left claims we should not being saying about Obama had already been said by the left about Bush.
Enjoy.
Just about everything the left claims we should not being saying about Obama had already been said by the left about Bush.
Enjoy.
It was sometime early this year that Americans finally learned the rules of proper political discourse another dividend from the Obama administration. We can all be grateful for our new bipartisan protocols, which will go something like the following.
It will be considered childish to caricature a stressed president for mangling his words, whether nucular or corpseman. If, from time to time, the commander-in-chief flubs up and says something stupid like Bushs Is our children learning? or Obamas Cinco de Quatro, we have learned to accept that such slips are hardly reflective of a lack of knowledge. The old gotcha game is puerile and, thankfully, is now a thing of the past.
Nor should we ever refer to any elected administration as a regime that unfortunate habit of the likes of Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews, and various talk-radio hosts. Thank God, we in 2010 all recognize the pernicious effects of such near-treasonous rhetoric.
At last there is a return to civility. If we were confused in recent years as to whether hate was a permissible word in public discourse as in the outburst of Democratic national chairman Howard Dean, I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, or the infamous essay by The New Republics Jonathan Chait that began, I hate President George W. Bush we now accept that such extreme language in the public arena is not merely uncivil, but is an incitement to real violence. The use of the word hate at last has become hate speech.
With Rep. Joe Wilsons improper outburst to President Obama You lie! we also have at last come to appreciate that those in Congress have a special responsibility not to use incendiary language to defame our government officials. Thats why we now lament Rep. Pete Starks slur of George W. Bush from the House floor as a liar the same Rep. Pete Stark who said of our troops that they had gone to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the presidents amusement.
But since 2009 Americans have finally learned that our soldiers are sacrosanct and must not be smeared as in Sen. Richard Durbins characterization of American military personnel as synonymous with Nazis, Stalinists, or Pol Pots murderers; as in the late Sen. Edward Kennedys comparison of American troops to Saddams lethal jailers; as in Sen. John Kerrys smear of our soldiers as acting in terrorist fashion. Evocation of Nazi or Brownshirt imagery particularly coarsens the public discourse; it demonizes opponents rather than engage them in real debate. So we can all concur now that Sen. John Glenn, Sen. Robert Byrd, and former vice president Al Gore spoke quite improperly when they compared their presidents governance to that of the Third Reich.
Our military officers deserve special consideration. No senator should ever again accuse a wartime theater commander of telling an untruth (suspicion of disbelief). Major newspapers should not extend discounts to pressure groups that defame our officers with cheap slurs such as General Betray Us. All that is dangerous rhetoric. Indeed, it risks undermining our noble bipartisan efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
We now know that environmental terrorists of the sort that spike trees, torch forestry equipment, blow up people with letter bombs, or wage anti-globalization urban violence are engaging in the same sort of behavior as are the unhinged militias. Therefore we must all be careful, left and right, in criticizing our government lest either another Ted Kaczynski becomes too inflamed by Al Gores accusatory furor about environmental desecration, or a Michigan militia member goes over the top after hearing a talk-radio rant about Barack Obama.
Ever since Dwight Eisenhower hit the back nine, critics have snickered at golf-playing presidents as if their polo shirts, shades, and splashy caps were revelations of aristocratic disdain for the rest of us, or as if they were engaging in a sort of loafing amid world crises. Not now. We have come to realize that presidents should play golf in fact, lots of it both for needed relaxation and as a reminder that it is no longer a sport of the elite.
With the appropriate criticism of former vice president Dick Cheneys public attacks on the Obama anti-terrorist protocols, we have established that vice presidents emeriti, by virtue of the dignity of their positions, should not engage in partisan hits on subsequent administrations. Cheneys slights remind us why there was once media outrage when former vice president Al Gore said of President Bush, He lied to us, He betrayed this country, He played on our fears or when he dismissed Bushs Internet supporters with the slur of digital Brownshirts.
We have always been worried about presidential braggadocio. Just as we came to realize that George Bushs bring em on and dead or alive were unnecessarily polarizing, so too talk of bringing a gun to a knife fight, or predictions that a supporter would tear up a talk-show host, or remarks about fat cat bankers are unnecessary presidential provocations.
In other words, with the presidency of Barack Obama, the nation has collectively established at last the proper parameters of political rhetoric and conduct. What was the norm in the past is now recognized as coarse, if not dangerous and so wont be repeated in our future.