Birth Of The Professional Obama Haters
Every President has had his contingent of seemingly-professional haters, sometimes stemming from policy but sometimes stemming from the need to market an opposition persona, increase readership or an audience, or rally partisan followers to do battle to halt specific polices. The degree of hatred varies in both its intensity and justification.
Democrat Bill Clinton had his big share of professional Clinton haters (both prominent and not so prominent would say things such as “He’s not MY President…”) and Democrats decried it and some Republicans defended it. Then came Republican George W. Bush who got his share of haters, then Republicans decried it (the most typical defense was to try and go on the offense and lump those who’d strongly criticize the President on policy with the professional Bush haters as suffering from “Bush derangement syndrome” — a tidy way to try to discredit all critics suggesting they were all unreasonable and not having legitimate grounds for strong criticism) and some Democrats who decried the lack of respect for Clinton defended it.
But here in December 2008 we ‘re seeing a special kind of political hatred — way early in the game.
President Elect Barack Obama has not put his fanny in the Oval Office chair for one second yet, and there is an intensity now among some Republican conservatives to push frantically push hot buttons — a probable harbinger of what is likely to come. Amid reports that the economy is not just bad but is on the brink of tanking, their emphasis is not on policy but overt or slightly disguised overt political demonization. Using whatever they feel can stick to rally their audience and/or readership.
Believe it or not, they’re still beating the now-thinly-disguised drum over Obama’s middle name “Hussein.” Which they wouldn’t do if it had been Walker or even Schwartz. Isn’t it time to call THIS detailed in this post for what it is? It’s politics of hate couched in (barely) plausible deniability.
The good news: the bulk of Americans aren’t buying the idea that at a time when stores are pulling out all stops trying to attract frightened buyers but signs now point to it being the worst in decades, it’s time for not just politics as usual but an expansion of political hatreds based on party or personal background.
A new poll shows most Americans down on Obama even thought he isn’t even up in his office in the White House:
About 70 percent of Americans are optimistic about President-elect Barack Obama’s overall policies and believe he will be successful as president, according to a new ABC News-Washington Post opinion poll.
The survey released late Saturday indicated that more than two-thirds of those polled thought Obama would be able to make significant improvements to the health-care system.
About the same share of respondents expected him to implement policies to reduce global warming. And 64 percent said Obama will be able to end US involvement in Iraq.
More than half, 55 percent, think he is off to a good start dealing with the troubled US economy, the poll found.
Overall, 76 percent approve of the way he is handling the transition period. Even 59 percent of Republican respondents gave him a positive assessment, the survey indicated.
Note the last line.
Colin Powell’s point about GOP’s need to stop listening to radio talk show hosts (which earned him the predictable discrediting response) should be broadened: the GOP and the bulk of Americans need to reject those who try to spread a talk radio political culture that tries to whip up resentments and hatreds at a time of crisis when unity and serious criticisms of policy proposals and policies as they’re put in place is what’s needed. If the new administration’s policies are inadequate or incompetent, they’ll need to be so in specifics.
Question: Is the GOP’s long term goal audience share — or future electoral majorities?
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21 Responses to “Birth Of The Professional Obama Haters”
Great post, Joe. At a time when we so desperately need to pull together and get very very focused on practical solutions, it is encouraging that 3/4 of Americans are behind Obama now. Sadly, I don't think the other 24% will be joining us. They're focused on hate-mongering and distortion and as your graphic so brilliantly summarizes, dividing.
As to your question, I think it's both. The Rovian formula of whipping up “fear of other” through appeals to nationalism and religion is alive and well in the GOP, and they know many people can be swayed by this type of appeal. I hope they're wrong this time.
Watching the US election of Barack Obama from the UK as I did it reminded me a lot of the election of Labour with Tony Blair as leader. That came after a lengthy period of the Conservative party being in power and Tony Blair arrived like a breath of clean air. There was a very positive feeling about him.
Tony Blair remained very popular for a long time. The biggest problem for Tony Blair was his support for the invasion of Iraq.
When Tony Blair and the Labour party came to power the economy was in quite good shape. Their Conservative party predecessors had looked after the UK state well economically speaking. Their unpopularity was for different reasons.
Barack Obama does have a very much greater job that Tony Blair had in that the US economy has been left by George Bush in a dangerously bad shape.
Barack Obama might well be the one who will be taking the blame for mismanagement of the economy by his predecessor. Soon the public will have forgotten George Bush and the economic bust will happen in Barack Obama's Presidency. That bust is George Bush's legacy, but when it manifests itself he will be happily off stage.
Great post. No, I really mean it! I'm sure if our president-in-waiting were conservative Republican “Jim M. Davis” – the “M” standing for “Mussolini” – everything would just be switched around and Joe would be calling for everyone to raly around our new Leader.
Unfortunately there will be a wild card in this new era, even with some fairly reasonable people racism is an issue. An unfounded hatred fueling messy and ugly behavior may become an issue. I hope not.
Our new president deserves our highest respect and cooperation. His security and that of his family must be of prior concern. When hatred is in the air it generates hotspots which kindle other things.
Let us hope and pray more reasoned heads and hearts prevail.
why is everyone so fast to blame the economy on President Bush when his hands have been tied by the Democratic controlled congress and house who have blocked every attempt to do anything for this country through most of his term as president? As far as Obama goes, he has already proven he is not trustworthy and his word means nothing. He is only interested in his own agenda and his tactics are strong arm. Even the Clintons didn't get over on him and that should open some eyes to the truth.
“A new poll shows most Americans down on Obama even thought he isn’t even up in his office in the White House:”
I think you meant “down WITH”.
Mcary,
Your comments really go to prove the writer's (Joe) point. You sound exactly like a professional Obama hater throwing out generic innuendos with no facts to back it up.
Lets see: Republican controlled house and senate for six years but I guess it is useless to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
I seem to see a lot of criticism both from the right and the far left. I give Obama credit for falling somewhere in the middle!
Shortly after Obama was elected I did have a brief and terrifying thought that his presidency at some stage might be brought to an end by assassination.
It wouldn't be the first time, of course, however with Obama there would be the additional fear of igniting racial tensions.
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You're right about the people who are acting crazy about Obama, but the notion that there's something unusual about hatred for a president before he takes office makes me wonder where you were in 2000? Remember “Selected, not elected?” Remember “pResident Bush”?
Both sides are guilty of this, and to pretend otherwise is to make a mockery of the blog's name.
This post is Alice in Wonderland stuff. Obama has been treated a hundred times better by Republicans than Bush was in 2000. In September 2000, two months before the election, Democrats held a star studded fund raiser for Gore and Lieberman at Radio City Music Hall in NYC where they ridiculed George Bush, repeatedly calling him stupid and frightening. Julia Roberts said that the word Republican is in the dictionary between the words reptile and repugnant, etc., etc. [http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/2000/09/15/concert/index.html]. Then, Democrats falsely claimed that Bush stole the election. They falsely claimed that the Bush campaign and/or Jeb Bush was behind the infamous butterfly ballot when it was the Democrat election supervisor in Palm Beach County who designed it. Then they falsely accused the Bush campaign and/or Jeb Bush of racial intimidation on election day in Florida even though career prosecutors in the Civil Rights Div. of the U.S. Justice Dept. investigated and found the allegations were totally unfounded [http://www.gwu.edu/~action/dojfl060702.html]. Then, after a media recount showed that Bush would have won if the recount had continued, Democrats continued to falsely claim that the Supreme Court gave the election to him [http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:p5bIQkmaHdIJ:query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html%3Fres%3D950DEEDB1338F931A25752C1A9679C8B63+media+recount+finds+bush+won+in+2000&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us]
Subsequently, we have witnessed a Iraq war authorization drafted by Richard Gephardt and passed with support of the majority of the Democrats in congress, You Tube videos documenting the unequivocal statements by Democrats like Hillary Clinton, John D. Rockefeller, John Edwards, Al Gore etc. in 2002-2003 making exactly the same claims that Bush did about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton both admitted that they consulted with former Clinton administration officials before casting their votes in favor of the war authorization and that the Clinton officials also told them that Saddam had WMD and posed a threat [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16903253] [http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/157wjmhn.asp].
Then despite the findings of the Silberman-Robb Report and two Senate Intelligence committee investigations showing that the Bush Administration did not lie about the WMD intelligence, Democrats are intent on pretending that Bush lied. And, despite John Rockefeller's false claims on the Senate floor that the second Sen. Intelligence committee investigation (issued June 5, 2008) proved that Bush lied us into the war, the actual report signed by the Democrat majority found that Bush's claims about Iraq's chemical, nuclear, biological and WMD programs in general were “substantiated by the intelligence information” [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801687.html].
I know that none of those facts matter to the commenters herein. The facts listed above are only a small fraction of the history of Democrats' visceral hate for George Bush. Democrats have created a caricature of Bush that has almost no relationship with reality. They hated him before the election and they have only grown more shrill. The idea that Obama has been subjected to the same level of vitriol is laughable. Jonathan Chait wrote an op-ed piece admitting that he hated George Bush and that many liberals he knew got sick when they heard his voice on television. Howard Kurtz had a pretty detailed run down of how widely he was hated by the left [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46805-2003Oct18?language=printer].
James Carville summed it up when he said he hated Ken Starr. He said that this is a free country and he could hate Ken Starr if he wanted. In the same vein, Democrats could and do hate George Bush. Democrats set a vicious standard over the last eight years. You can whine all you want, but the standard has been set and Obama doesn't get a free pass just because you like him. Obama has already lied about getting the troops out of Iraq in 16 months, his campaign admitted that it turned off the security settings on its web site and then refused to disclose its sub $200 donors, he lied when he said no one in his camp had talked to Blagejovich about the Senate appointment, etc., etc. I now that dissent is patriotic because Democrats have told us so for last eight years so get ready for some dissent. The only difference will be that conservatives won't repeatedly lie about Obama like Democrats have about Bush.
When did the Democrats lie about Bush? His presidency has been such a miserable failure that there's no need to embellish the truth. Yes, I did not vote for him — but at one time I tried to keep an open mind and be supportive. Little by little his destruction of our country and its values closed that window. I still don't hate him- but I hate what he's done to my country.
I think there's a difference with Clinton and Obama- Clinton's failings were mostly in his personal character- he was still able to do a reasonably good job as president- There's really no comparison between the US in 2000 and the US of 2008. Clinton was impeached and still had a 70% approval rating when he left office- while GWB's hovers around 11%
– Obama has not even taken the oath of office yet-so any hatred of him seems premature.
I was just reminded of this gem. In October 2000, the NAACP ran an ad in which the daughter of James Byrd said that electing George Bush would be like having her father dragged to death all over again. That was before he even became president and after eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency in which the incarceration rate of black males tripled. Are the people on this thread serious? Do you all live in reality? Obama hasn't dealt with anything like the hatred of the left toward Bush.
I did not vote for Obama. But I hope he is the best President this country has ever had. He has my support because when a President fails it causes our country to fail. I love this country!! I believe I live in the best country in the world. I do not want to see my country fail. What happened to people caring about this country as a whole. It seems like everyone is more concerned with pointing out whose to blame because someone is a democrat or repubican. I don't care if my president is a democrat, republican, black, white, or purple. There is so much hatred these days in America. What happened to patriotism? The problems in this country started long before Bush took office. If the people of this country don't change the way they think and present themselves. It won't matter who is in the White House. We all need to take a long look in the mirror before we judge someone else. This country has no morals anymore. That is no ones fault but our own.
JT007— In the recent campaign Obama was accused of palling around with terrorists, being a socialist, a Communist, and a fascist. At rallies he was called a traitor and his middle name was mentioned over and over to bring up the image of Saddam Hussein. Many did not believe he was a Christian, and thought instead he had attended Madrassas and was a secret Muslim, who would sell out to al queda.
The left has no monopoly on hatred.
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obama is a commie and will ruin this country.i hope he gets what he deserves a new war (lets see how he handles it) also 3/4 of black americans not white are behind him . also why did they allow all the illegals vote in this election? He has no track record at all, I am not saying bush did a good job but it was a democratic congress that screwed things up now it will be worse.
Please find one example where Obama has stated that he was born in Hawaii. We all talk about our birthplace. He is very intelligent and has not perjured himself. Take a look, surely there would be one audio or video or him stating his birthplace. Find it.
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