The recent flap over Obama’s televised speech to public schools across America is the latest grave miscalculation from the Right, who’s strategy to oppose everything that Obama and the Democrats stand for is so transparent, so reactionary, it is drawing fire from it’s own side.
Conservatives from the main to the fringe (although mostly fringe) have been calling Obama’s speech to the schools as a platform to push his socialist agenda. The media tells us off families and even whole school districts that were pulling away from Obama’s speech. This, of course, turned out to be nothing more than the media’s love of controversy, as the decidedly apolitical speech that encouraged kids to stay in school and take personal responsibility caused all rational criticism to evaporate. When a transcript of the speech was released yesterday, even the Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, one of the speech’s most loud opponents backed off his early remarks and even allowed his children to see the speech. What remained was a bunch of fringe loons who looked as if they went too far.
Did the fringe Conservatives back themselves into a corner? Did they get the party worked up over nothing only to make themselves look ridiculous? Are the moderates beginning to question the direction the radicals are taking the Republican Party?
It would appear to be yes on all accounts.
Notable Libertarian (and Republican in disguise) Tunku Varadarajan wrote an article for Forbes that lampooned the overblown response from Conservatives on Obama’s speech to students. He titled it “Too Many Kooks†and you can imagine where he goes with it. Being on the Right, he tries to be constructive and so he resorts to the “we are holier than thou†argument by saying the Republicans hated it when Liberals hated Bush and they are clearly the party that holds respect for the President so they should not be hypocrites.
Well that is somewhat of a laughable point. The Republicans are the party that impeached Clinton because of a blow-job and for the last 30 years have been either in your face when they are in power and a bunch of whinny self-martyrs when they are out of power.
Still the article has an impact. Famed Radical-Right blogger, Michelle Malkin, went on the defensive the next day, claiming “It’s not the speech, it’s the subtext.” This post, in-turn, drew a humorous response from Wall Street Journal opinion writer James Taranto who summed up her word play by saying “she is objecting to something that is completely unobjectionable in the hope of somehow advancing her objections to things that may actually be objectionable.†Taranto further criticizes Drudge, who mocked Obama’s sentence or two on the virtues of washing hands to prevent the Swine Flu from spreading. “Is it really their position that children should have filthy hands?†asks Taranto.
It is not likely that this will be any great turning point for Conservatives. As Malkin proved, they will not wake up the next day and realize that they are being absolutely ridiculous. The lunatics have gotten control of the asylum and the “kooks†are getting rich while they do it. Guys like Glen Beck have a slue of equally nutty followers who pay good money to hear some guy who cries openly on TV tell them exactly what they want to hear. Do you think Beck would suddenly wake up and start telling the truth? Why mess up a good thing?
What this moment really proves is that the Republican Party is having a major identity crisis. Many are beginning to push back against the commentators like Rush and Beck. Newt Gingrich today, of all people, even recommended Obama’s speech to “everybodyâ€.
Hopefully the Repubs will return from their fring Right status soon. There was a time when politicians won their elections than went to Washington and got things done. Now we are in a state of permanent election and endless polarizing rhetoric. The American people deserve a government that gets things done regardless of party.
ONE MORE NOTE ON VARADARAJAN
Of course I completely disagree with Varadarajan on his point about the Left’s dislike of Bush being equivalent to the Right’s smear campaign against Obama , mainly because, we didn’t draw first blood. Bush was not elected the first term and there were wide-spread accusations of fraud in both elections, yet Bush ruled from the Far-Right as if he had a mandate. Each policy more outrageous than the other, most of which, were tied into 9-11 somehow to frighten opponents. Two wars, massive tax-cuts for the rich, policies that butchered the environment, torture and violence carried forth in our names was unacceptable and so we fought back. How can you respect a President who essentially disrespected half of the nation?
What’s more, is that we turned out to be correct! We protested the Iraq War, before it started, as a massive mistake which it was. We asserted that torture, warrant-less wiretapping and holding detainees indefinitely was illegal, which it was all found to be later by the Supreme Court. We complained corporate welfare contracts, corporate tax-breaks, deregulation and tax-cuts for the rich as all being bad for the economy which the current crisis confirms. Sure some called Bush a Nazi and there are always people that take things too far. That being said, fascists DID start pre-emptive wars, detained dissidents indefinitely, tortured them and they most certainly handed out corrupt contracts to private corporations who just happened to be run by political allies.
Varadarajan made a fair point, however this is apples and oranges. To compare the Far-Right, outrageous, disrespectful and ultimately damaging Bush to the bi-partisan, moderate and very Presidential Obama is deceptive. The attacks hurled at Obama are far more angry, completely unjustified and tinged with a dash of racism.