Nancy LeTourneau has a good piece up at the Washington Monthly on what extreme anti-Obama rhetoric is doing to our country, particularly when it is uttered by formerly respectable Republicans like Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney. Even the New York Times has taken notice of the savage downturn in civility that has accompanied the right’s decision to side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
LeTourneau refers us to a piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Jay Bookman. Bookman’s point of departure is a segment of an interview that the former vice-president gave with noted-wingnut and aspiring Republican debate moderator Hugh Hewitt:
“I vacillate between the various theories I’ve heard, but you know, if you had somebody as president who wanted to take America down, who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world and reduce our capacity to influence events, turn our back on our allies and encourage our adversaries, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama’s doing.”
If there is one word that I never thought I’d hear Dick Cheney self-apply, it’s “vacillate.” What’s ironic about this statement from Cheney is that it would seem to apply perfectly to the decision to invade Iraq.
Bookman says the following about Cheney’s remarks:
It would be nice to be able to brush such craziness aside as inconsequential, but it is not. For democracy to work, it requires a deep and mutual understanding among all parties that while we differ on the details, we’re at least all acting in good faith. The other side may be misinformed, dumb, incompetent or any number of things, but we at least have to allow that they are patriotic in their mistakes. And while that good-faith understanding will get bruised from time to time in the rugby scrum that is self-governance, it remains essential. In countries such as Iraq, where democracy has proved unable to take root, it’s usually because that minimal belief in the good faith of your opponents is absent.
I think this is largely correct, but with a caveat. In the end, if you think your political adversaries are destroying the country, it’s doesn’t matter whether or not you are generous enough to give them points for good intentions. Your reaction is going to be to try to save the Republic, and almost any means will meet the test of being necessary.
If, on the other hand, your predictions of doom are mainly theoretical and the potential harm really isn’t all that bad, then taking means that destroy the Republic in an effort to save it will create a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The evidence is in about the Bush/Cheney administration. They wrecked this country on the shoals of Iraq and the Great Recession. So far, most of the metrics you would use to judge the Obama administration point in the direction of recovery. The Republicans have predicted disaster from the moment Obama was elected, but their dire predictions just aren’t panning out.
Now they want to tear this country apart to prevent a deal with Iran. Why would we trust them this time?
“… formerly respectable Republicans like Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney.”
I assume you mean “respectable to the Village” or some such.
I mean, Mayor 9-11 used to have his respectable moments, but Dick Cheney? As far as I can tell, his behavior hasn’t changed since his days in the Nixon administration.
Hell, I bet he was a bully in kindergarten.
I guess, although most people only knew him from his stint as Secretary of Defense during the Persian Gulf War, and he wasn’t exactly behaving like a blood-deprived vampire during his press conferences at that time.
then there’s him setting himself up as the fourth branch of gov
Boo’s right, this is a fundamentally different kind of language that used to be restricted to the John Birch Society and talk radio, hinting that the president is literally guilty of treason. Cheney and Giuliani were always bad men and reactionaries, but they’d have been embarrassed to talk like this a few years back.
Simply put, Cheney’s brand of rotten owns the US Congress and most of the States.
The USA has become a beacon of rotten. Just hoping this brand of hatred will pass like the McCarthy days. But it’s driven by Fox now, so I’m betting the rotten is here to stay.
You know this is one time that I have to bring out the point clearly. President Obama would not be having these problems from All of these former Bush Administration people. If he would have upon gaining office immediately started an investigation against them. These people all should have been put on trial.
Thus I find it hard to get upset about this for President Obama has allowed these people to do this. Try to help cover up hard issues and it will always come back and smack you upside of the head!
And if they had been put on trial Cheney and his crew, the Republican Part and the right-wing movement would have quieted down their rhetoric? Come, now. Their rhetoric and obstructionist strategies would have been cranked up to 12+.
And, the Administration and Congress would have been absorbed in the hearings and trials, effectively destroying their ability to deal with an economic crisis which was causing the U.S. to lose 700,000+ jobs a month.
The argument that Bush, Cheney and others should have been brought up on charges by Congress and/or the Administration is one best made on the grounds of delivering justice, enforcing laws, and ensuring that our government does not return to the destructive, lawbreaking policies of the Bush Administration. That would have been desirable, but don’t pretend it wouldn’t have come at a dear cost.
It weakens such arguments for justice to fail to acknowledge that if President Obama and Congress had overseen prosecutions of Bush Administration officials, the economy would not have been repaired, the fine record of the 111th Congress would not have been accomplished, and Obama would not have won re-election.
It weakens such arguments for justice to fail to acknowledge that if President Obama and Congress had overseen prosecutions of Bush Administration officials, the economy would not have been repaired, the fine record of the 111th Congress would not have been accomplished, and Obama would not have won re-election.
Complete bullshit. We got a muddling along, not a recovery. The rich keep getting richer and the rest just stagnate. What you’re also admitting is that there are two sets of laws. One for the rich and connected and one for everyone else. When you openly admit that, you’re admitting that everything this country supposedly stands for is a sham.
We DO have a recovery, muddling along as it is. The real alternative was a new Great Depression, with unemployment rates returning toward the 25% level which we had in the U.S. in 1932 and 1933. And everyone who is on this comments thread who is honest would concede that the GOP Caucus in Congress, and the right-wing movement in total, would have been happy to see unemployment, deprivation and homelessness skyrocket in 2009 and 2010, because they could and would have blamed it on Obama and the Democrats. And, sadly, in our current media and campaign financing environment, that would have worked.
And then where would we have been from 2012 to now, with a Republican President and Congress in thrall to the “TEA Party”? In our completely fucked-up media environment, the TEA Party would have been acclaimed as an unstoppable electoral and governing force. With that would have came evisceration of the New Deal/Great Society programs, war in Iran and elsewhere, a Justice Department which would have applauded and enabled the militarized police state in poor communities, a Supreme Court in the control of radical conservatives through at least 2040, and much more.
The 111th Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, meaningful consumer protections from abuse by financial institutions, and many other valuable and important laws which have helped people. The Obama Administration has been ticking off accomplishments, reversing most of the completely middle-class-crushing policies and actions of previous Administrations. If you think economic inequality is being increased by actions of the President and Congressional Democrats, that’s an extreme misreading of the facts.
If you care to enter into a discussion on these things, that’s fine. But it requires engaging in a discussion meant to persuade, and grappling with my points here. If you think Obama and Congressional Dems could have prosecuted the Bush/Cheney cabal AND governed into and through re-elections, then make that case.
“What you’re also admitting is that there are two sets of laws. One for the rich and connected and one for everyone else.”
I’m not “admitting” that. I’m dealing with the reality that there are, in practice, two sets of laws. What our movement needs to do is gain enough power for a long enough period of time that we can achieve equal justice and opportunity, so that “everything this country supposedly stands for is” not “a sham”.
Right now, everything this country supposedly stands for IS a sham. Where I differ with some is that I don’t think our country would be delivered out of that state if we had prosecuted Bush and Cheney in 2009. The rot is miles deeper than that, and it requires our movement to elect leaders who will execute better policies to begin stripping away that rot, and help think through conditions where those leaders can gain re-election often enough to repair decades of damage.
agree with your well expressed points, but would add that what Obama chose to do first was improve / stabilize the lives of the non wealthy- i.e. improve economic, education security, access to health care, etc instead of prosecuting the previous admin which, I agree, would have had results you describe.
That hypothetical argument is like arguing that we would not be having all these cops shooting innocent black people if US Grant or William T. Sherman had hanged Nathan Bedford Forrest and Wade Hampton III (an argument that the War Nerd made this week).
Correct but now irrelevant.
The New York Times condescended to notice it today, by the way. I really think we may be at a darkest-before-dawn moment where public attitudes are really changing. The violence and distemper of Dick Cheney is that of somebody who knows, at some level, that he has lost the debate.
yes, I was pleased to read that op ed but disappointed that they didn’t acknowledge their role, i.e. 5 plus years with at least one negative-to-Obama column or slant of a story per edition [ok, probably more, but I don’t tally]. I read the NYTimes but the constant negativity, suspicion etc towards Obama is a problem.
imo, since Bush2 we’ve been engaged in a non battlefield second Civil War to preserve our form of gov – does seem to be some tides turning this past year, many thanks to Obama and his pulling the rug out from under the neocons. interesting to me that there’s starting to be discussion of O’Malley’s chances, which to me is essential in a real change of direction.
employment of “distemper”!
Cheney and the Doomers are out of control. They are leaving their candidate no space to move to the middle other than a new middle east war.
“as president who wanted to take America down, who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world and reduce our capacity to influence events”
The above partial quote from Cheney describes the George W. Bush presidency and it’s telling the American Public lies so he could conduct his illegal and immoral war against Iraq.
Thanks Booman. I have wasted an entire afternoon trying to recall a moment when Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney were respectable. I guess it was way before I ever heard of them.
Now I’ll be trying to figure out what makes respectability become corruption. These are things I really shouldn’t bother my pretty little head about.
Dick Cheney is 74.
Dick Cheney is either running for President or as the GOP’s ideological shadow. The elder statesman of the W administration. W himself is relieved not to have any more ambitions thrust upon him by his parents.
I suspect that a lack of mutual understanding was behind ancient Athens’ custom of ostracism. Sometimes this town ain’t big enough for the both of them.
It’s projection, all the way down.
There, boo, FTFY.
They are preaching to the choir, not winning converts.
Or, to be more accurate: even among the choir, many hate Cheney, Giuliani et al., preferring people like, say, Rand Paul, or Huckabee, or Cruz.
So what Cheney & Co. are actually doing is, they are competing with the rest of the Obama-haters to prove that they hate Obama even more. And the rest are doing it too. In that sense, they are all hoping to win a some converts, and perhaps they will.
But all the action is taking place among the 27%, which is still 27%. And to the rest of the country they are just looking more and more like the assholes they are.