Posted on 08/01/2012 7:55:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
What drives Barack Obama's "doubters and haters"?
So asks Obama biographer David Maraniss in a recent op-ed article for the Washington Post. By doubters and haters he means the people who think Obama wasn't born in the U.S., that he's a secret Muslim or that he's a closet socialist.
He has an answer: "Some of it can be attributed to the give-and-take of today's harsh ideological divide. Some of it can be explained by the way misinformation spreads virally to millions of like-minded people, reinforcing preconceptions. And some of it, I believe, arises out of fears of demographic changes in this country, and out of racism."
True enough! Some people are no doubt driven by such motivations and anxieties; "some" is a gloriously accommodating word.
But that hardly settles things. For an essay titled "What Drives the Obama Doubters and Haters," Maraniss offers no explanation until the last paragraph (the quote above). And even then he offers no evidence, just assertions.
I think Maraniss is a great reporter, and I don't believe for a moment he is in on a cover-up of Obama's "real" place of birth or his secret Muslim faith. (Nor do I think either allegation is true.)
As to Obama's closet socialism, I've never found it unreasonable (never mind racist or paranoid) to think Obama's more comfortable with European-style social democracy (aka socialism).
Still, let me add two culprits to Maraniss' list: The first is Barack Obama. The second is the journalistic establishment that worked so hard to get him elected.
As Maraniss demonstrates quite effectively in his book, "Barack Obama: The Story," Obama's identity has long been a cultivated political project. Much of the poetic license -- to use a kind phrase -- Obama deploys to tell his own story is plausible only to those eager to take him at his word.
Maraniss couldn't authenticate Obama's tales of racial hardship as a young man. His grandfather being tortured by the British, the bigotry of his high school basketball coach? Untrue.
Moreover, Obama's explanations about the aspects of his past that have managed to become controversies have always seemed insufficient to people not disposed to root for him. Bill Ayers -- a former domestic terrorist -- was "just a guy living in my neighborhood." Obama's word that he wasn't a member of the radical New Party was enough for the press corps to stop digging for evidence that he was (as reported by my National Review Online colleague Stanley Kurtz). Jeremiah Wright? Only right-wing crazies care about him.
Even Obama's more recent embellishments about, for instance, being outspent and outgunned in his previous political races strike many people as the sorts of fibs that would create journalistic frenzies if uttered by a Republican.
And then there's the huge divergence between the president Obama said he would be and the president he's actually been. In 2008, Obama insisted that he was a unifier, a pragmatist and a non-ideologue. You don't have to be a birther or a secret-Muslim conspiracy theorist to feel like that was all a big con job. That's politics and not deceit (a subtle distinction!), but dismay at how Obama has governed doesn't amount to racial panic either. And blame for the widespread feeling that we were sold a bill of goods by a cheering press does, in fact, belong to the press.
Yes, Obama also signaled to his base that he intended to be a "transformative" president, a progressive Ronald Reagan. But that message was intended only for his base. Whenever conservatives picked up on those notes -- when he said he wanted to "spread the wealth around," etc. -- the immediate response from the Sunday talk show crowd was that conservatives were being paranoid for misreading Obama, the pragmatist.
It's fine to beat up on conspiracy theorists, but journalistic muckety-mucks who are mystified by their ever-shrinking credibility -- and profitability -- might wonder what they've done to fuel a climate of distrust. There's a reason why ABC's Jake Tapper is one of the few nonconservative reporters respected on the right: He's stayed as skeptical of Obama as he was of George W. Bush.
Meanwhile, it's fascinating how much attention the conspiracy theorists get. It's almost as if some journalists want to use them as bogeymen to discredit all criticism of Obama. That's some journalists, not all.
She “stinks” to them... 2 Cor 2:14-16
It is because of his color-— Communist Red
Whats behind it for me is that I’m not stupid. I can see in 100 ways that he drips with contempt for me and everything I believe in. I’m merely responding in kind.
What’s behind the hatred? Hatred because he happens to be half-black, now subtly implied he is a direct descendant of the VERY FIRST BLACK enslaved in this country? This Obama?
In truth, it is a seething disappointment of a brighter wish - a wish and some hope, too, that we could put all this black/white racism crap behind us.
Instead, all we get from Obama is division, hatred and abandonment of white peoples’ concerns replaced with outright fiat by the DOJ they would no longer prosecute black-on-white hate crimes, nor pursue egregious and flagrant violations (ala the Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation).
All we get from Obama is BLAME. Blame for whitey, blame for Bush, blame for Wall Street, blame for Capitalism, blame for anyone anywhere that isn’t black or Democrat. Meanwhile his black administration conspires with Green enterprises, automotive enterprises, willing liberal ideologues to bankrupt this country and to ‘get paid’.
You can bet your ass there is hatred. A hatred fueled by not only by disappointment but by a now-realized epiphany of the real ill this despot racist Muslim intends for this America. Yea, there’s hate - and it is well-deserved.
It started with his campaign. I called his campaign headquarters in Chicago, and requested a list of his publications. "I'm sorry sir, we don't have that list to give out." When I asked where I could find white papers, public work product, and even magazine articles he had written, I was pointed to the two books, and that's all. Books that, to my understanding, had already been discredited at the time.
A lawyer's job is words. The more I tried to see his words, the angrier I got.
Obama is a cipher. No papers. No work product. Not even his college grades. Nothing.
I hate liars and those out to destroy America.
Shouldn’t it be “What’s Behind Hatred For 0bama?” Anyway, A LOVE FOR AMERICA is behind hatred for 0bama, because 0bama HATES America.
I hate there’s not been a statesman in the WH for the last 3+ years. That the current encumbent doesn’t respect the office he holds nor the Nation he represents. That’s what I hate.
Yours is a far more illuminating question than the one which Jonah Goldberg addressed for it reveals much about the left while the antipathy toward Barack Obama reveals almost nothing about the right because ours is a normal reaction to deceits and affront. Some time ago (before the election of 2008) I offered up this theory in a vanity entitled,
The Billy Budd Effect.
It is the Billy Budd effect. If you recall your Melville, you will know that Billy Budd was a figure of good whose very presence antagonized the first mate who persecuted Billy Budd unmercifully. The mate was driven to do this unconsciously because the mate was a figure of evil. The mate had his demons. So it is with the left in America today, they are driven to a visceral hatred of Sarah Palin because she is the 21st century figure of Billy Budd. Sarah Palin committed an unforgivable affront, she knowingly carried a Mongoloid to term. This cannot be forgiven. This is the ultimate reproach to the entire belief system of the left. Sarah Palin need not even open her mouth and she is hated with a cold and unremitting fury.
This is why I said that the left hates Sarah Palin not for what she says or how she appears on television but for who she is. The left must react as evil always reacts in the presence of good. Like the second mate, they must persecute Sarah Palin and they do not even know why.
I despise them
what’s behind hatred of anti-american communist fraud and forger? hmmmmm????????
The whole story's a fairy tale.
That was a great analysis. Right on the target.
“What’s Behind Hatred of Obama?”
Because he himself appears to “hate” everything that traditionalists embrace.
He is the enemy of all that American exceptionalism represents.
What more is there to say?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.