All Posts Tagged With: "right-wing"

An aunt in the country illegally and a half-brother arrested on drug charges in Kenya: how are these Barack Obama’s problem?

If your aunt or brother did something illegal, should your reputation be besmirched if you had no involvement in their illicit activities? Does blood relation now automatically qualify you as a conspirator to any of your relatives’ bad choices?

From Politico:

Rush Limbaugh may command a large following, but his caustic comments Monday about the GOP’s congressional leadership have at least one Republican House member defending his colleagues and offering an unusually candid critique of the talk radio powerhouse and his fellow commentators.

Responding to President Obama’s recommendation to Republican congressional leaders last week that they not follow Limbaugh’s lead, the conservative talkmeister said on his show that Obama is “obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He’s more frightened of me, than he is of, say, John Boehner, which doesn’t say much about our party.”

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., did not take kindly to this assessment in an interview with Politico Tuesday.

“I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach,” Gingrey said. “I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party. You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn’t be or wouldn’t be good leaders, they’re not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell.”

Whether it’s the illiterate, irrational ramblings of local bloggers or the perfidious, phantasmic rantings of national commentators, the far right has declared all out jihad against the new president, pulling out all the stops — like truth, reality, facts, evidence, logic, reason, rationality — and spreading fear, distortions, misrepresentations and all out lies. I may address some of the local blogger silliness another time, but here’s an example of some of the ridiculous commentary on the national stage.

Marc Thiessen, former chief speechwriter for former President Bush, has been stirring the pot in the last couple of days. Yesterday, I posted about his “twisted op-ed” in Thursday’s Washington Post in which he proffered a very distorted view of the Bush legacy. In a post at National Review Online yesterday, Thiessen ratchets up the rhetoric to unabashed fear-mongering and hysterics:

The CIA program he is effectively shutting down is the reason why America has not been attacked again after 9/11. He has removed the tool that is singularly responsible for stopping al-Qaeda from flying planes into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, Heathrow Airport, and London’s Canary Warf, and blowing up apartment buildings in Chicago, among other plots. It’s not even the end of inauguration week, and Obama is already proving to be the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent responds:

Obama is already “the most dangerous” President ever?

Here’s the thing about this. You have here an assertion that crosses over from mere opinion into verifiable or disprovable assertion. If you’re going to say that someone has already proven himself to be dangerous, as opposed to merely being potentially dangerous, you need to point to empirical evidence of this, such as lives lost to foreign threats on your watch. There haven’t been any such lives lost under President Obama yet, unlike other past Presidents.

This type of hysteria is not only foolish, it’s absurd. From Rush Limbaugh to countless, unflinchingly-loyal-no-matter-how-often-proven-wrong, diehard right-wing bloggers, there is a cacophonous chorus of toxic rhetoric desperately wishing and unabashedly rooting for this new president to fail. It astounds me. I’m not sure why exactly; I’m not sure why I expect more from this crowd.

No matter how strongly I disagreed with President Bush’s policies and actions, I never wanted him to fail as president. I would fight his agenda, but I never rooted for him to fail. Why would I? His failures negatively impacted me and my country. It’s like despising my boss so much that I rooted for him/her to fail, even though his/her failure could very well negatively impact me and my job!

It’s this type of irrational fear-mongering and hateful rhetoric that makes me worry more for this country than anything George Bush has done or Barack Obama may do. The cancer of “us vs. them” selfishness and refusal to find common ground is dividing this country in ever more irreparable ways. We are doing more harm to our own country than any terrorist could ever do. “United we stand, divided we fall.” We are a nation divided. If we do not find a way to come together, we will fall.

In a word, “NO!” FactCheck.org debunks the prevalent meme amongst right-wing bloggers and “news” outlets:

For much of the past week, several right-leaning news sites have compared an estimated $160 million price tag for Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration to a $42 million tally for George W. Bush’s 2005 inauguration. Those numbers are accurate as far as they go, but not comparable.

The Associated Press and ABC News both report that Obama’s inauguration could cost between $160 and $170 million, while Bush raised a net total of $42.3 million to cover the costs of his inauguration, according the New York Times and others, based on the report Bush’s committee filed with the Federal Election Commission a few months after the event.  But those aren’t direct comparisons; the Obama estimates include the cost of security, while the figure for Bush’s inauguration does not. Continued

Tags: Barack Obama, bullies, costs, debunked, distortions, FactCheck.org, facts, George W. Bush, inauguration, lies, right-wing

For each drop of wisdom or rationality by Hugh Hewitt, there’s a barrel full of willful delusion and partisan bullshit. Earlier today, I agreed with Hewitt’s assessment of what’s at stake for the Obama administration and Congress (particularly the Democratic leadership) with this monumental stimulus package. Yet, this evening I read another post of Hewitt’s from today that’s patently absurd:

the massive spending splurge unveiled by House Democrats is just a joke, an expression of eight years of pent-up liberal frustrations at fiscal discipline –the teenagers given a fifth and the car keys, out on a destructive joyride.

Does Hewitt seriously believe we’ve had eight years of fiscal discipline? What planet has he been living on? Is he that delusional or just that much of a partisan hack. Andrew Sullivan says it better than I could:

Every time you think: nah, they can’t say this with a straight face, they can’t actually pretend - in January 2009 - that the Bush Republicans were adept at fiscal discipline for the past eight years, can they? … not after doubling the national debt, not after raising spending more swiftly than LBJ or FDR, not after a surplus became deficits of trillions of dollars as far as the eye can see, they can’t say that, can they? … you realize - yes they can!

(Stolen from Andrew Sullivan)

“What is interesting is the fact that he would want to do this. And you see that since his election he has kind of reached out to people that may not be ideological allies, to Rick Warren, the pastor who will be at his inaugural, to John McCain, whom he has treated with a lot of dignity and respect, and to a bunch of right wing columnists last night, in part, because I think he is a guy who is intellectually curious and wants to exchange ideas, but also in part he wants to co-opt the vast right wing conspiracy.

And I’m here to tell you that, speaking for myself, he has succeeded. I am brainwashed entirely. I’m in the tank, and I am a believer of hope and change and, above all, audacity,” - Charles Krauthammer, on Fox.

Oklahoma’s own senator once again grabs the national spotlight with rants based more on fear, hysteria and ignorance than on reason, sanity and reality. His antics leave such a “positive” impression of our state, making us all so very “proud.” Think Progress reports on his latest crusade:

Appearing on Fox News this morning, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) peddled the emerging right-wing trope that Barack Obama’s White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner is a secret socialist. The source of the right-wing paranoia is Browner’s brief participation in a group called the Socialist International’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society.

As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson explained in a thorough debunk, the Socialist International is a “worldwide organisation of social democratic, socialist and labour parties” from Albania to Zimbabwe, intended to foster global partnerships to confront issues like climate change. Its members include the center-left New Democratic Party of Canada, the center-left Israeli Labor Party, and the ruling Labour Party in Great Britain.

Nevertheless, following in the footsteps of the National Review, Glenn Beck, the Washington Times, and Drudge, Inhofe called Browner a “socialist.” But he delved even further into conspiracy-land:

I have other problems with Carol Browner. There’s another organization that a lot of people don’t realize — it’s called the Center for American Progress. This report that came out — this is the group that’s trying for the Fairness Doctrine. Trying to, I think, dramatically upend the First Amendment. And try to stop talk radio and talk TV from being conservative.

FOX: And she was a member of that group?

INHOFE: Yes, she was a member of that group. It’s called the Center for American Progress.

In one fell swoop, Inhofe characterized Browner, the Center for American Progress, and the authors of this blog as part of a grand socialist conspiracy.

Inhofe was holding up a copy of a joint Center for American Progress and Free Press report on talk radio, entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.” Inhofe might want to open it up and read what it says about the Fairness Doctrine. The report specifically does not call for reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.

A key author of the report said, “There is no need to return to the Fairness Doctrine.” Instead, the report argues, “Increasing ownership diversity [of radio stations], both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of owners, as well as the number of independent local owners, will lead to more diverse programming.”

Hewing to the baseless concerns of Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing spends an inordinate amount of time mobilizing opposition on a matter that the left has expressed little interest in pursuing. But don’t believe us — we’re all part of a socialist conspiracy!

Sarah Palin addresses sexism, media malpractice and classism in a new conservative documentary.

(Note: Video may take a moment to load)

The right end of the dial is all atwitter — borderline messing themselves — with this Blagojevich scandal. Nothing like a good scandal to get everyone all hot-and-bothered.

“Americans voted for change. Barack Obama promised that he would have the most open and honest administration and transition in history,” said RNC chairman Mike Duncan, on a conference call with reporters. “But that’s not what we’re getting. What we’re getting is the same old politics out of Chicago.”

Why all the sudden interest in an “open and honest administration” by the party whose leader for the last eight years was anything but “open and honest”? What short memories the clamorers must have. Wasn’t this the same party who just a couple of years ago faced significant losses in Congress following one of the worst corruption scandals in Congressional history? Does Abramoff ring any bells?

I’m as disgusted as anyone with the Illinois governor’s outrageous behavior. But, as Mike McCarville said, “guilt by association without facts is irresponsible.” Those so quick to pass arbitrary and capricious judgment on Obama were strangely silent — or worse, complicit with their unashamed defense of the indefensible — when their own president and administration, Congressional leaders and party powerbrokers were whole hog in the filth of corruption.

It seems to me that all the hand-wringing about this scandal would be better done with clean hands — something the GOP and its faithful following in the blogosphere cannot rightfully claim.

The GOP is clammering about Obama’s cabinet selections:

“Leader Boehner obviously hopes and expects that the president-elect will keep his promise to include Republicans in his Cabinet,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner. “Obama has pledged to govern in a bipartisan way, and we have pledged to work with him when he does.”

“Choosing one or two token Republicans in lesser Cabinet positions won’t pass the smell test,” said Dan Bartlett, who served as communications director and counselor to the current President Bush. “Keeping Secretary Gates would be a huge signal and important governing move.”

I wonder. Could either Boehner or Bartlett point to how their party’s most recent White House administrations have done that? I had to go all the way back to Nixon to find a Democrat in a Republican president’s administration (unless you can point to a more recent example). President Bill Clinton appointed Republican William Cohen to be his defense secretary during his second term. What Democrats did George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush or Ronald Reagan appoint to their Cabinets or White House staffs?

Obama has signaled that he may very well appoint Bush’s own defense secretary to continue in that role. He has also considered Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) for a role in his administration as well as former NATO commander Jim Jones for national security advisor.

Even so, grumbling within the right-wing blogosphere is that Obama’s choices aren’t Republican enough. Again I ask, how many Democrats did Dubya have in his Cabinet and White House staff? Why didn’t Boehner — or even the president’s own communications director Dan Bartlett — hold Bush to the same standard?

“43″ certainly was elected by much narrower margins than “44″ — in fact, he didn’t even have the popular vote in 2000. You would think if anyone should govern in a bipartisan way, it would be someone who was elected by the slimmest of margins among a bitterly divided electorate. But that didn’t happen, did it?

In yesterday’s Politico story about the scrutiny of Obama’s picks for his administration, one sentence in particularly really jumped out at me:

“Gates is not a sharply partisan figure.”

Okay… is that a bad thing? Is that why he’s not Republican enough to pass “the smell test”? Because he’s not a “sharply partisan” figure, does that disqualify him as a Republican or mean that Obama isn’t trying to bridge the partisan divide? Do we really want a sharply partisan figure? I thought one of the things about this election is that the American people wanted to move beyond the gridlock of the bitterly divided Washington and transcend such “sharply partisan” politics.

So far, in my opinion, Obama has done a better job than his predecessors of assembling pragmatic, centrist and arguably bipartisan team to help govern this nation through very difficult times. Based on some of the complaints in the left-wing blogosphere, Obama certainly hasn’t picked aggressive progressives that would satisfy the more left-wing branches of the Democratic Party — despite what fear-mongering you may hear from the radical right-wing bloggers. His economic team, which he is set to announce later this morning, is being pretty warmly greeted by Wall Street, which tells me that Obama can’t be too bad for business like the conservative pundits would have you believe.

This election, I believe the significant majority of the electorate made their choice clear, not only electing the candidate they felt best represented change, but also repudiating the governance of the dominant party for the last eight years by electing wider majorities in both the House and the Senate for the other party. Why, then, would we let members of that failed party’s leadership judge who’s best to serve in this new administration? We shouldn’t and Obama won’t.

I believe Obama is firmly committed to governing pragmatically, which means an administration filled with opposing viewpoints — whether it’s Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, pro-business or pro-worker, hawk or dove. There will be many voices led by one leader. It certainly will be a nice change.