It appears that when a political party falls from power, has no leadership and can’t admit to themselves and take blame for the havoc they caused while in power, they go a little crazy. This is from the thoroughly conservative David Horowitz.
I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the Right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the “Bush Is Hitler” crowd on the Left.
Speaking of this crowd, have you seen any “I am so sorry” postings from that quarter as Obama continues and even escalates the former president’s war policy in Afghanistan and attempts to consolidate his military occupation of Iraq?
Conservatives, please. Let’s not duplicate the manias of the Left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the anti-Christ, although a disturbing number of people on the Right are convinced he is.
I have recently received commentaries that claim that “Obama’s speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history” and “never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people” and “Obama is a narcissist,” which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.
This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists – and that a recent American president was a world-class exponent of the imperial me. So what? Political egos are one of the reasons the Founders put checks and balances on executive power. As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that? And once, the same recent president set a pretty a high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama’s speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louie Farrakhan, Fidel Castro vein. They are in fact eloquently and cleverly centrist and sober.
This ODS continues on Morning Joe as some repuglican shill is talking about Obama not being patriotic enough “while on French soil.”
The poor Bushie acknowledge Obama’s popularity around the war and complain about the very reason that he has that status: he’s not a pretend cowboy that seriously doesn’t care what other countries think. Atleast thats the public face.
How wonder how long it will be until prayer in schools, gay bashing, and tax cuts for the rich will be the winning platform for a political party==outside of the Middle East that is.
This warning, coming from a conservative, seems to be well placed. The over the top Bush-bashing had no place in the last 8 years. The ‘Bush is Hitler’ crowd was ridiculous.
Obama probably thinks that his policies will make America better and help the most people. His heart is in the right place. He does not have a devious plan for causing harm to Americans.
However, I disagree with his policies and believe they will cause harm to Americans. I will attack the policies and not the man.
#3–Benji==can you give us 2-3 specifics?
The Republicans fear that Obama has created a perception that took them 30 years to cultivate in the new christian right consciousness.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_04/017609.php
You know that I don’t think that we are going to have to worry about the left taking anything from Obama’s reputation. If Obama continues to run these CEO’s out of their positions, it shouldn’t be long before the people that voted him into office get tired of finding themselves without a job.
I’m kind of amazed that Horowitz wrote this. I saw the guy speak when he came to my school and he said some pretty amazing things like, “The left is responsible for the deaths of millions of people” and offer no explanation as to what he meant by that (I can only assume he is equating political left with Stalin?).
Nice try, Uncle Dave. The collapse of the housing market can be put directly at the feet of the Democrats and their Community Redevelopment Act which demanded special mortgages to people who did not qualify for normal mortgages.
And the Wall Street collapse is due to the forward-looking nature of investors. They say the Obama hand-writing on the wall when Obama was elected.
Toss in the tripling of the national debt in 15 years due to Obama’s earmarks, and you have the recipe for disaster.
http://bit.ly/JB1RS
#2,
No one on the left anywhere ever suggested Bush was the anti-christ, only that he was a villan.
There is a huge difference between the Obama DS and Bush DS.
Bush DS didn’t really start to appear until after he took us into Iraq. The stories of torture, black sites, ignoring the American people, the constant “if you ain’t wit’ us you’s agin us” speeches, all made Bush an ugly politician.
Obama DS is something the right has quickly come up with, even before he was sworn in. Fueled by the deranged right, including not only FOX SPEWS, but also people like Joe Scarborough. It doesn’t matter what Obama does, these right wing nuts automatically think it is bad. And none of them have anything original to offer.
Alphie, you know you are afflicted with ODS. Please, post some verification of your claim that Obama sold drugs or that Obama will confiscate all the guns before you bore us with your bullshit.
#6 CEO’s voted him into office? I doubt they make up more than 1% of the population! Unless you are going with the ‘John Galt’ theory that without the benighted leadership of our monied elites, all of us would be sitting on our asses without a job. Tell that to the people who used to work at all of those small businesses before they were bought, consumed and destroyed by big businesses solely to destroy potential competitors! Tell that to all of the people that were and are being swindled by this lovely ponzi-economy those monied elites gave us. What bull!
As for ODS, I have to note that the difference between it and BDS is that BDS sufferers build giant puppets and bitch a lot, whereas ODS sufferers seem to be inclined to acts of great violence.
http://thepittsburghchannel.com/news/19094064/detail.html
Mr Fusion,
Say what you want, but we are now at a place where the gun nuts are committing mass murder just about every day. It is happening so frequently now it doesn’t make the news anymore.
That will result in enhanced gun control laws, and Obama will have very little to do with it. It will be the result of the gun nuts own malfeasance.
The collapse of the housing market can be put directly at the feet of the Democrats and their Community Redevelopment Act which demanded special mortgages to people who did not qualify for normal mortgages.
Yes, because something as complex as the housing market has only one cause. It has nothing to do with the lenders offering mortgages without credit checks or telling people to lie about their income or anything. Yes the law says they have to make high-risk loans that jeopardize their safety. Oh wait, no it didn’t… http://federalreserve.gov/dcca/cra/
The government may have laid the seeds but the lenders were the ones that fertilized it and encouraged it to grow.
Forgot to make it tiny!
http://tinyurl.com/ddp64k
#8, benson,
Yup. ODS in full blown mode. No evidence, just a lot of claims. Oh, and that link? Ya riiiight!!! A link to your own site of a stupid graph with no explanation except to denigrate Obama and a stupid kitty that will be dead in a few months from neglect.
I’m pissed Obama has managed to restore world respect for the US in less than 3 months in office. My party is screwed.
The logical way to regain any hope for our party to win in 2011 is to spread FUD on President Obama. It’s important to start early.
What the fuck is it with people posting pointless links?
#5 Regenvelter,
The article you linked to has nothing to do with your point whatsoever.
#8 jbenson2,
You link to a flickr picture of some kind of chart of proposed budget numbers with no backup, no source, and not even an origin, and a lolcat frowning. Real helpful.
The thing I’m most concerned about is the spreading of all of these rumors that O is going to head some vast gun confiscation effort. Even though this is kind of a silly thought (his plate is kind of full at the moment, and for the foreseeable future) it could have the perverse effect of becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. That is to say, as more and more people lash out in violence out of the fear that full blown tyranny is right around the corner, the greater the chances of that self-same tyranny coming into being as a reaction against the violence! As a gun owner and someone who engages in regular target practice, that sort of scenario is the only one that I can see that could actually produce a vast gun control system. The people have to demand it first, and your violence IS NOT HELPING!
One last time; if you really want to collapse the Government, just do nothing at all. Stay home from work and watch some Buffy. A general strike would crush the Government in a few weeks with little or no violence at all!
#12, Greg,
I couldn’t agree more and welcome such restrictions.
Reading the Pittsburgh story, this deranged guy actually bought more guns and ammo because he was told Obama would restrict his rights. The Binginham gunman was obviously not mentally stable. And so many others that all thought they deserved to own guns.
Hell, our own infamous “Alphie” wrote about using a gun on a “grassy knoll” on Bobbo and myself.
#8 I like to come here because it is so easy to find out the latest right wing talking point.
How could the housing crisis have started with Clinton’s enforcement of the CRA in 1994, when the housing market did not take off until 1997? The “sub prime” loans did not start showing up until the Republicans, led by Phil Gramm, deregulated the banking industry. (Yes, Dems voted for it too, and Clinton signed it, but it was the GOP that pushed it through.)
The other flaw in the CRA theory is that it is highly unlikely that GWB would have continued to enforce it throughout his administration.
Actually the biggest flaw in the CRA argument is that the total value of all residential mortgages in the US is less than a trillion, and yet the derivatives spun of off these mortgages are somehow valued at many hundreds of trillions of dollars! And it is these derivatives being worth bupkiss that is killing our economy! In other words, it wasn’t the mortgages that crashed the banks, but the silly-stupid bets on bets that our Finance sector was engaging in, and this explosion of derivatives happened solely under Bush’s watch. They don’t let you bet on bets in Vegas, because it never works out well, how in God’s name did the ‘Masters of the Universe’ think that they could make out on them?! Not to mention the massive fraud that we have with a lot of these derivatives being based off of nonexistent properties!
What we are seeing is a failed act of global piracy on behalf of the banks, not some sort of failed government policy of getting people into houses. Though that is a boondoggle too, but a far less destructive one overall.
#20, Arriane,
Very true, BUT, the Obama Deranged Syndrome sufferers would have nothing to wail about else wise if they didn’t make up their own shit.
# 20 ArianeB said, “How could the housing crisis have started with Clinton’s enforcement of the CRA in 1994, when the housing market did not take off until 1997?”
?? In ’75 the median price of a house was ~$27k, by ’93 it was ~$100k. Almost a 400% increase… By mid ’06 it was ~$250k, up 250%.
Republicans are not but whinny ass bitches. Plain and simple. You had your turn, and obviously you fukced up. Back to the end of the line
not = nothing. Sorry bout that.
#23 Indeed, that is the -less- disastrous boondoggle I was referring to. The increase in prices over that period produced a situation in which most people couldn’t afford houses without a big mortgage. But this merely created the correct environment for the big boys to perpetrate their massive mortgage derivatives fraud, it didn’t -force- them to engage in a quadrillion dollar fraud!
Really, you argument is analogous to blaming Ford for a bank robbery, since they produced the vehicle that was used in the getaway!
Better analogy. It’s like blaming the rain forest for malaria; sure, the environment there produced a perfect breeding ground for malarial mosquitoes, but the real culprit is the protozoa in your blood. Burning down the rain forest will not cure your disease.
#26 – I see what you’re saying. I think you’re correct in some ways. The high prices made congress act to try and get the less privileged into housing. Of course the legislation drove lots of unqualled buyers into the market…
FYI – For those of you in the Phoenix area, Horowitz will be speaking this Wednesday, April 8, at ASU Tempe campus. 7:00PM in LSA191. He is being brought in by the ASU College Republicans, a rather libertarian organization.
Map: http://bit.ly/FyoTd
Let me expand this just a little.
Not ODS, but RDS (Republican Derangement Syndrome). This is manifest by the derangement that anything Republican is bad. Same goes for DDS (Democratic Derangement Syndrome).
Both are just as bad.
The housing crisis? BOTH parties are to blame, pretty much equally. Clinton/Carter may have started it but Bush sure sped it along. Etc. Etc.
Obama, as Fusion alluded to in #10, should be judged by his actions. He has only stated that he wanted to restore the gun laws in place during the Clinton years. No biggie. But the gun fanatics have gone overboard on this one.
In fact, since his inauguration, Obama hasn’t done much except work on America’s public image and sign into law the largest bunch of porkulus spendings since the beginning of the Republic.
(Here is my jab – wait for it!)
I sure remember the flames about Bush’s war spending – which will cost a huge 1.6 TRILLION dollars!
1.6 trillion for the war. http://tinyurl.com/2xwnxx
Obama, on the other hand, has already cost 8 TRILLION dollars in less the 5 months! http://tinyurl.com/7gdkae
Change I can believe in!
(Ok, OAP – Obama APologist, let’s here how Bush’s 1.7 trillion was waste, but Obama’s 8 trillion is NEEDED!)
Last sentence of Horowitz’s article: “Let’s leave that kind of behavior to the liberals who invented it.”
I guess he forgot about that frenzy of bashing and smearing and derangement during the Clinton years. The Republicans hated him with a blind, irrational hatred.
Whereas us liberals had reasons to hate Bush, and if you didn’t notice, the country came around to our viewpoint, eventually. Even as an ex-president, he’s still way down in the approval numbers.
But hey, Republicans, keep on digging your own grave with the Obama bashing.