How utterly toxic has our partisan and ideology dominated politics gotten? And how does the Tea Party dominated Republican House reflect this toxicity where it all comes down to being personal — a shift away from the days when all politics is local to all politics is personal? How does this quote symbolize the utter disrespect for the office of President? It’s this toxic and this much of a shift:
A top Senate Democrat said that a leading House Republican told President Obama that they could not ‘even stand to look at you’ during negotiations over the government shutdown.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a Facebook post that the alleged confrontation happened during a meeting between Republicans and the president.
“Many Republicans searching for something to say in defense of the disastrous shutdown strategy will say President Obama just doesn’t try hard enough to communicate with Republicans,” Durbin said. “But in a ‘negotiation’ meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: ‘I cannot even stand to look at you.'”
“What are the chances of an honest conversation with someone who has just said something so disrespectful?” the Illinois Democrat added.
An aide to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he had “no idea what [Durbin’s] talking about.”
And, of course, we knew we’d see a denial: why, how can anyone who follows House and Tea Party Republicans (who have questioned Obama’s birth certificate, over the years compared him to Nazis or Marxists, and even provided the country the spectacle of someone holding a Confederate flag in front of the White House) ever think that? It MUST have been quoted out of context…or Durbin is just a “librul” making it up.
Actually, it’s quite a credible quote. Firstly, Republicans have said many things about Dick Durbin over the years, but he is not considered someone who would invent a quote about a Republican and just throw it out there.
It’s a metaphor for how Washington DC works, brought to you by Newt Gingrich during the era of President Bill Clinton, then carefully built upon by conservative talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, the conservative entertainment media and the new media where the more you can display your anger or sarcasm and attack, the more you get audience share or readers.
And it’s a natural sequel to “You lie!” being shouted out during a State of the Union address (making the Republican who did this unprecedented breach of manners and respect a hero to conservatives, who sent him big bucks) — yet more sign of the disdain and disrespect (whether you agree with his policies or not) the coutnry’s first African-American President is getting while conducting his official duties from some far right GOPers who ought to (and do) know better.
It’s tax dollars — and our toxic politics — at work.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.