Posted on 09/17/2009 6:03:08 AM PDT by Tolik
It was certainly uncouth of Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) to scream, “You lie!” at his commander-in-chief in the middle of Barack Obama’s recent health-care speech before a joint session of Congress.
And others who keep insisting that the president doesn’t have an authentic U.S. birth certificate clearly come off as unhinged — much like just-resigned White House green-jobs czar Van Jones does for having signed his name to a petition stating that the Bush administration may have allowed the 9/11 murders of 3,000 people to happen.
During his speech the other night, the president calmly called for a new civility — although he had just accused his opponents of dissimulation in their attack on his health-care plan, while himself presenting many dubious suppositions as fact.
Over the last three decades, we saw vicious attacks on Ronald Reagan and on Bill Clinton, and their tough replies in turn. But recently the vicious rhetoric has escalated far beyond anything in the past. The smears seem reminiscent more of the brawling on the eve of the Civil War, or the nastiness during the 1960s that took decades to heal.
No one knows what the rules of engagement are now. Republicans have not forgotten that Democratic legislators loudly booed Bush during his 2005 State of the Union. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic party, not long ago boasted, “I hate Republicans!” Around the same time, The New Republic magazine published an article entitled “Why I Hate George W. Bush.”
Major politicians such as former vice president Al Gore, Sen. Robert Byrd (D., W.Va.), and former senator John Glenn (D., Ohio), have compared George W. Bush or his supporters to Nazis or the brown shirts. A major publishing house released a novel about killing President Bush; a movie won a prize at the Toronto Film Festival with the same theme. Bush Derangement Syndrome was no joke.
What exactly has gone wrong?
A number of things. For years, liberals were out of power. They became increasingly shrill in their frustration at George W. Bush — who seemed to set them off like no other Republican in memory.
Now that Democrats control both the Congress and the presidency, they are once more the establishment. Yet suddenly they have become angered that some conservatives, in tit-for-tat fashion, would dare resort to some of the crassness that was used to defame Bush — when any means were felt necessary to achieve the noble ends of opposing his policies.
Commentary, of course, has changed. The need for constant controversy on 24/7 cable television, nonstop blogging, and ratings-driven talk radio ensure first thoughts are aired — before more sober second ones can rein in the emotion. News is entertainment. Anger sells. Slurs, not reflection, win ratings.
Many political hit men and talking heads are also baby boomers. They cut their teeth on coarse, anything-goes Vietnam War protests. These aging children of protest still haven’t quite figured out that they are now supposed to be sober seniors teaching younger generations the vital rules of decorum. Instead, our teachers themselves still need to be taught manners.
Another cause of the new rudeness is that the country is fragmenting. Almost every issue is dissected by its effect not on the American people as a whole, but rather on a particular constituency defined by race, class, or gender. The louder and more melodramatic the accusation, the more attention and federal money follow.
Yet, just as even the gory gladiators at Rome, in their blood-soaked arena, followed a few rules, perhaps we can at least do the same:
Don’t call anyone a Nazi or brown shirt. Avoid shouting down a public official. Remember that there usually aren’t clear good and bad political choices, just bad and worse ones. Don’t get outraged at a slur against your team if you once made the same sort of one against the opposition.
And, most of all, remember that while we’re shouting at each other, the country is at war and piling up debt at the rate of $2 trillion a year — while plenty of rivals and enemies abroad are smiling as never before.
Exactly. I’m all for the factual inquiry - and frankly, I do think it’s odd that BHO has been so non-forthcoming to date. But again, that doesn’t actually “prove” anything. Personally, I think his hesitancy is due to the fact that he is an arrogant jerk, and feels he doesn’t have to prove anything to “the little people” who didn’t vote for him anywise. Does that make him a jerkwad? Yes. Does it prove that he’s really a Kenyan? No.
“If you read him for the last 8 years you would know.”
An assumption.
“The country would be plunged into a cataclysm.”
####
And the problem with this is what exactly?
We have a race Marxist destroying, just for starters American traditions, economic prowess and military strength before our eyes.
Cataclysm? That would be a step in the RIGHT direction.
VDH was once one of my favorite reads. If he intends to continue making statements like the one above, he will be off my reading list.
If he has seen an authentic U.S. birth certificate for the pres__ent, then he should share it with us. Until then perhaps it would be best to stay away from that particular topic.
The point about the birth certificate is surely this:I'm going to continue reading VDH, because I think that it was a thoughtless slip for him to style the POTUS as the commander in chief of the Congress. I know that he knows better than that.
- Obama has spent a lot of money to avoid having to produce a document which he could obtain for a pittance. It certainly would be interesting to know why.
- Obama spent so much time outside the country as a kid that even if he was "native born," that is pretty much a technicality. So much, indeed, that it's not unreasonable to suspect that he has had a passport from a country other than the United States. Who else would ever speak of "57 states" while running for POTUS?
let's also stop calling people racists for disagreeing with a policy decision.Hear, hear!!9 posted on September 17, 2009 9:16:50 AM EDT by randita
Sorry, I want to win without plunging the country into a Civil war. I am sure we’d win that war, but... Civil Wars tend to be very bloody.
IMHO of course
Your post explains quite clearly why the birther nonsense needs to go away.
Very well said, CharlesWayneCT.
If we allow shouts against President, do you think President Palin would be able to make an uninterrupted speech, oh well like 20 seconds long?
Those are good points, Charles, especially the part about mixing the content of political campaigning with what’s supposed to be the context of a lawmaking assembly.
The country has always been fragmented in varying degrees, this is nothing new and shouldn't be currently attributed to Baby Boomers, but rather to human nature.
How about the following regarding the heated debates over the adoption of the Jay Treaty in 1795:
"For several days, New York City was saturated with handbills urging citizens to gather at City Hall (Federal Hall) at noon on July 18 'to deliberate upon the proper mode of communicating to the President their disapprobation of the English treaty.' Boston citizens had issued a blanket condemnation of the Jay Treaty, and Hamilton feared a bandwagon effect. Already leaders of the Democratic clubs were delivering heated antitreaty speeches on Manhattan street corners. To devise ways to blunt the gathering, the business community summoned a meeting at the Tontine Coffee House on the night of the seventeenth at which Hamilton and Rufus King endorsed the Jay Treaty. They appealed to supporters to show up at City Hall the next day and stage a counter-demonstration.
As the clock tolled twelve the next day, Hamilton took up a position on the stoop of an old Dutch building on the west side of Broad Street, right across from City Hall. More than five thousand people had squeezed into the intersection where George Washington had taken the oath as president in 1789. But the scene of concord six years earlier now witnessed one of the uglier clashes in the early republic. From his stoop, Hamilton shouted out and demanded to know who had convened the meeting. The irate crowd shouted back in response, 'Let us have a chairman.' Colonel William S. Smith, John Adams's son-in-law, was chosen and presided from the balcony of City Hall. Peter R. Livingston began to speak against the Jay Treaty, but he was brusquely interrupted by Hamilton, who questioned his right to speak first. When a vote was taken, the vast majority of those present favored Livingston, who resumed his oration. But there was so much heckling, such a tremendous din of voices, that Livingston could not be heard, and he suggested to treaty opponents that they move down Wall Street toward Trinity Church.
Not all treaty critics drifted away, however, and about five hundred listened in a surly mood as Hamilton began his ringing defense. According to one newspaper, Hamilton stressed 'the necessity of a full discussion before the citizens could form their opinions. Very few sentences, however, could be heard on account of hissings, coughings, and hootings, which entirely prevented his proceeding.' This was a remarkable spectacle: the former treasury secretary had descended from Mount Olympus to expose himself to street hecklers. John Church Hamilton contends that when his father asked the demonstrators to show respect, he was greeted 'by a volume of stones, one of which struck his forehead. When bowing, he remarked, 'If you use such knock-down arguments, I must retire.' Federalist Seth Johnson confirmed the tale: 'Stones were thrown at Mr. Hamilton one of which grazed his head,' while another indignant Federalist said that the 'Jacobins were prudent to endeavour to knock out Hamilton's brains to reduce him to an equality with themselves.' Before long, treaty opponents stormed down to the Battery, formed a circle, and ceremonially burned a copy of the Jay Treaty. When Jefferson heard about Hamilton being stoned in the street, he didn't react with horror or sadness; rather, he was elated, telling Madison that 'the Livingstonians appealed to stones and clubs and beat him and his party off the ground.' Evidently, Jefferson thought this would delight the author of the Bill of Rights."
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Sorry, but in your point of view, there is too much acquiescence to the lies of the Democrats and their media.
Giving the stolen election mythology of Gore the same legitimacy as valid questions about Obama’s BASIC qualifications to serve as President, just concedes the basic premises of the argument to the Left.
Far too much of that has gone on for the past 40-50 years.
The easy path of incremental appeasement is not the way out.
What civility is there in calling people “unhinged”, or in promoting the entrapment of a society by a falsehoods and a charlatan of a leader (and leaders) who lie at will and almost constantly?
There is no such civility. To have a civilization and keep it requires a healthy regard for the Truth, to replace that with something lesser, in this case to replace the regard for Truth with a regard of for a highly structured politeness, is a sure welcome for rot and social breakdown.
Clearly we now have obvious the massive rot and the social breakdown may also be close — yet why then does Mr. Hanson praise the form and empty the content?
Further they do not hesitate to put the positions of those with whom the disagree in a false light. Why was standard enforcement mechanism specifically voted out of 0's health plan regarding service to illegal aliens?
I cannot think of any real examples of our side telling lies about their side.
It's not going to change until they change.
‘Tis a great rejoinder to a invalid, delusional and intemperate essay by the normally well-grounded and healthy Mr. Hanson.
The President is CIC of the military ONLY.
While I agree with the sentiment that Rep. Wilson's comment was inappropriate (imagine the precedent, a President could never get through one of those things if Congress could point out all the lies), it is, as you say, “gross ignorance” to think that the President “commands” any Congressman, or any civilian for that matter.
WRONG!!!!!!.
The President of the United States is a part of the Executive Branch of the United States government.
A Member of Congress is a part of the Legislative Branch of the United States government.
The President is not the Congressman's boss, commander, or master. In fact, the President can (legally) only exercise such authority as is granted to him by Congress in accordance with the Constitution ... and owes an accounting of his exercise of authority to the Congress.
Yes, he is certainly arrogant. Go to a typical politician’s website, and you’ll find a picture of them looking right at you and smiling, like they want to be your friend.
Go to a Barack Obama web site, and you find a picture of him standing, looking away from you and up, pensively, like he has much better things to do than be bothered with the common folk.
If he is currently a Reserve JAG, then Obama IS his Commander-in-Chief.
What I don’t know is if a retired military person still calls the President “Commander-in-Chief”.
It was the holding of of a Joint Session of Congress to appease the excessive vanity and massive hubris of Obama and the stridently partisan and venally corrupt Democratic leaders of Congress which was uncouth. For such sessions are rare and reserved for subjects of the greatest import to the WHOLE of the nation, and where the interest of all is clearly made and it is undeniably non-partisan.
THIS JOINT SESSION WAS called for the most petty and partisan politics, and the speech giver himself went out of his way to call ALL OF US LIARS, and to speak in bitterly partisan and divisive language.
That was uncouth.
The most adult and responsible person that night was Joe Wilson.
Doesn't matter.
When he's sitting there in the House of Representatives, he's Congressman Joe Wilson ... and Congressman Joe Wilson does NOT have a "commander in chief" ... certainly not one from the Executive Branch.
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