WASHINGTON – Economic news is Pres. Obama’s toughest challenger for 2012, because Republicans are proving that as disgruntled as some are with our President, the GOP’s message machine is on life support.
This Washington Examiner editorial made me laugh out loud. The headline is: Mean streak: Obama is not as nice as he looks.
This is news? Evidently the Republicans never heard of Alice Palmer.
Taking on the very obvious first, Republicans are whining because Pres. Obama supposedly gave a “mean-spirited partisanship, gross misrepresentations of fact, and sophistry of the lowest sort concerning Republicans’ alleged desire to hurt old people, the poor and mentally challenged children.” That he did it with Rep. Paul Ryan sitting in the front row was just too much for them to take.
This from a crew who believe that weaning seniors off a guaranteed benefit and putting them on an unequal voucher program is good policy for people who don’t have adequate means to help themselves. That the environment is expendable, who think freedom is just for men and that women’s wombs should be wards of the state (especially if you’re a poor woman), who want to keep expanding the Pentagon while bombing countries that haven’t attacked us, who think separate and unequal justice for people suspected of crimes is good enough, and that blue collar, waitresses, truckers and people in hard labor jobs should have to wait to retire, while the rich are protected from high taxes and corporations get breaks because they’re more important than government programs that offer services for people, including building infrastructure, repairing buildings and roads, but also making things that will make us more competitive, including high speech rail across this country.
From the Examiner editorial:
Obama then spent Thursday evening regaling an audience of Democratic donors with what he thought were off-the-record insider jabs about his recent budget negotiations with House Republicans, including this cheap shot at Ryan: “When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure he’s just being America’s accountant, that he’s being responsible, I mean this is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill — but wasn’t paid for. So it’s not on the level.” The reality is that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars under President Bush were regularly funded by Congress, claiming tax cuts must be “paid for” is a hoary piece of Democratic class-warfare demagoguery, and the prescription drug plan Ryan supported cost half as much as the Democratic alternative then on the table. Such fact-free commentary is to be expected from blind partisans, but not the president of the United States.
We need a lot more demagoguery, put on top of rhetoric that starts a real class war, because working people are getting screwed by both political parties, neither of whom represent the working class anymore. It’s long overdue that politicians start a rhetorical war against the “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%,” to quote Stiglitz, because the super rich are doing just fine, as are the corporations like GE and others who don’t pay taxes in a country where a little corporate patriotism is due.
The other hilarious point about the Examiners Obama’s a Meanie editorial is that these nitwits seem not to recognize another campaign speech when they see it. I’m sorry to bring up Barack Obama’s record, because I know how the media at large gets annoyed when someone reminds people, but Obama is one of the toughest, hard boiled and ruthless campaigners around. There is nothing he won’t do or say in pursuit of the presidency.
Where were these people during the primaries of 2008?
But pretending like Republicans and the Right aren’t scurrilous election mode vipers is really too much. People laugh at the birther issue, but there really isn’t anything more dangerous or reprehensible than trying to delegitimize a sitting president. This is a regular pattern with Republicans, because they tried to do the same thing with William Jefferson Clinton. The difference being that Clinton came in after Reagan, with Republicans and much of the Washington elite incensed about the Hicks from the Sticks usurping the conservative king’s domain, while Barack Obama came in with the people at his feet, the press on his side and the world waiting for Mr. Hope to deliver “fundamental change.”
Besides, as we’ve learned in Pres. Obama’s first term, it’s not like he’s going to deliver on anything he says as Candidate Obama.
So Republicans, relax, be happy. There’s never been an election where you didn’t give as good as you got. I’m sure 2012 won’t be any different.
Taylor Marsh is a Washington based political analyst, writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. A veteran national politics writer, Taylor’s been writing on the web since 1996. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her blog.
Paul Szep cartoon used by permission, any reprint or other use is strictly prohibited.