Stop the presses! The political party whose bellicose leaders brought us the tragic, obscenely expensive, and ultimately pointless Iraq War doesn’t think America’s current president is tough enough. This is nearly as jaw-dropping as last spring’s stunning announcement from the Vatican that the new pope would be a Catholic.
Shortly after it became apparent the first-ever person of color to be elected president of the United States wasn’t going to acknowledge he was born in Kenya, admit his campaign had been guilty of massive voter fraud, or confess to being a terrorist-sponsored, big-business-hating, firearm-seizing, Socialist anti-Christ, the ranting zealots on the right wing took their gloves off.
Their shrill, ceaseless and generally irrational vilification began in late January 2009 and will undoubtedly persist until such time as a card-carrying member of the GOP takes up residence in the White House. And at that point, Democrats (or at least a for-profit group of left-wing polarizers professing to speak for them) will undoubtedly return the favor by showering invective on the nation’s new commander in chief, whose acolytes will in turn accuse the president’s critics of disloyalty, treason and whatever other high crimes and misdemeanors they think might further inflame public indignation.
While the specifics of the GOP’s script change from time to time, the tactics don’t. There’s no need to worry about veracity; just keep repeating the message. Speaking of the administration’s foreign policy, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie intoned, “We no longer have a government that people around the world want to emulate.” South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham labeled Barack Obama, “A weak and indecisive president who invites aggression.” Even John McCain, the veteran Arizona senator who generally behaves rationally when he’s not seeking higher office, called the president’s current overseas strategies, “feckless,” a term meaning, “ineffective, incompetent, futile, or without purpose.” That’s an odd accusation from the 2008 GOP’s presidential nominee, who chose for his running-mate someone whose chief foreign policy credential was the ability to see Russia from her home state.
To be fair, it’s not easy being Republican these days. Some of the party’s more logic-challenged members have all-too-publicly spouted bizarre opinions seemingly designed to turn off women, immigrants, gays, unions, senior citizens, young people, food-stamp recipients, environmentalists, non-NRA members, practitioners of non-Christian faiths, non-believers, fact-checkers and anyone capable of rational thought.
Many of the charges being hurled at the president by the Irrational Right involve contradictions in logic, or more often no logic (or actual facts) at all. Jobless rate up? Obama’s fault. Jobless rate down? Only because of all those Obama-inspired, low-paying, no-benefit jobs. Real estate values down? It’s because of Obama! Housing unaffordable? That’s on Obama, too!
The president is responsible for America’s faltering educational system. Oh, and he’s spending too much money; better cut rural and inner-city Head Start programs. Poverty is up because of Obama. Why doesn’t he just reduce aid to the poor? Everyone knows welfare just enables them. Gas prices up? Hold Obama accountable. Gas prices down? Only because Obama’s been kowtowing to those Middle-Eastern sheiks and Russian oligarchs. The health-care system is broken, but for God’s sake, don’t let Obama try and fix it!
It’s abundantly clear that if Barack Obama cured cancer, Fox News would eviscerate him for putting thousands of oncologists out of work.
But nonsensical mud-slinging in American politics is by no means one-way. Labeling Republicans as racists because of their treatment of the current President is demonstrably unfair. They tarred and feathered the last Democratic president, a white male, just as ceaselessly and irrationally as they’re demonizing the current one. And they’ll no doubt vilify the next Democratic party head of state regardless of gender, race, religion or age. Influence-seeking Republican politicians and their enablers/allies have always been equal opportunity character assassins.
Those critical of the president for justifiable and/or imaginary reasons should try recalling the last sitting chief executive whose foreign policy was actually approved of by most of the country. It certainly wasn’t Mr. Obama’s strutting, inarticulate predecessor, a marionette whose every move was dictated and choreographed by unelected co-presidents Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Even pre-Lewinsky Bill Clinton and pre-Iran/Contra Ronald Reagan had legions of detractors. The last two-term American president who wasn’t reviled by a significant portion of the nation when he left office was probably George Washington.
Given America’s unlimited freedom of the press, two major political parties that are moving further and further apart, and the profitability (on both the left and the right) of keeping Americans polarized by running down the opposition to audiences eager to hear more of what they think they already know, it’s doubtful any U.S. president in the near future will be universally seen as strong on foreign policy by Americans at home, Americans abroad, or by the leaders and citizens of other nations.
— Andy Young is an English teacher at a York County high school, although he would undoubtedly be an internationally renowned novelist and philanthropist were it not for the failed policies of Barack Obama.
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