The Hyperbolic Smearing of the President

• BoatShoes

  I remember thinking some of the smears on President Bush were outrageous and over the top. I never thought it'd be worse. The way conservatives have treated this president from even the first day he took office was unbelievably worse.
  
  I think this article sums it up pretty well.
  
  http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20121104_The_Pulse__The_smearing_of_a_president__From_start__unrelenting__unfair.html
  
  
  

  This election has always been a referendum on Barack Obama. For some, not on matters of substance. They can't have it both ways. It's hypocritical to distribute a vicious, false narrative about him while fancying yourself a patriot and a great American. Vilify a sitting president of the United States with fiction and innuendo, and you are neither.
  
  I objected when George W. Bush was the subject of undeserved hyperbolic criticism, but the baseless scorn heaped upon President Obama makes Bush's detractors look diplomatic. The president, the office, and our nation deserve better.
  
  It's been unrelenting. The day after Obama took office, Rush Limbaugh told Sean Hannity he wanted him to "fail." Later, Glenn Beck called the president a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred of white people." Donald Trump's birtherism took hold while words like socialist were uttered with increased frequency. And a prairie fire of falsehoods spread through the Internet suggesting, among other things, that Obama is a Muslim or refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, paving the way for Dinesh D'Souza's fictionalized "documentary" 2016, which characterized Obama as fulfilling the anticolonial agenda of his father - a man he literally knew for just one weekend!
  
  Among the usual memes used to undermine the president is the threat of some apocalyptic cataclysm, usually in the form of an assertion of federal power, like the seizing of guns. These predictions demand unthinking acceptance of the notion that the president, like a bizarre Manchurian candidate, is saving his nefarious agenda for a second term that might never arrive. By my count, the website Snopes.com has evaluated and debunked 103 of 124 Internet assertions about Obama.
  
  
  Just before Hurricane Sandy hit, Ann Coulter called our sitting president a "retard," Sarah Palin mocked his "shuck and jive shtick," and John Sununu openly questioned Gen. Colin Powell's weighty endorsement as being motivated by race. At least earlier in the campaign there was some effort at camouflage. Such as when Mitt Romney aired an anti-Obama welfare commercial that falsely suggested Obama supported handouts ("They just send you your welfare check") when, in fact, Obama was accommodating requests of several governors, two of them conservative Republicans, to try new ways to put people back to work. A similar sentiment was expressed by Romney when he maligned the 47 percent who don't pay federal income taxes, overlooking that 83 percent of that group are either working and paying payroll taxes or they're elderly. And, almost daily, there have been dire warnings about Obama, often with sirens, from the Drudge Report. Example: the Sept. 18 edition featuring a hideous picture of Obama (eyes closed) emblazoned with the all-capped quote: "I ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN REDISTRIBUTION," a 14-year-old excerpt that conveniently excised the future president's explicit embrace of "competition" and "marketplace." No wonder I routinely field calls from radio listeners who, with no hint of embarrassment in their voices, say things such as "I call him 'comrade' " or "he's not my president."
  
  Their best evidence? Obamacare - crafted by the same people who wrote Romneycare. Critics ignore that the Affordable Care Act is premised upon personal responsibility and was born in a right-wing think tank. Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning website of the Tampa Bay Times, called the idea that Obamacare represents a "takeover" of the health-care system the 2010 Lie of the Year. And while some have also labeled the president a "socialist" for signing the $831 billion stimulus, no one ever used such language when Bush acted similarly with the $700 billion TARP. In the final days, the critics have turned to Benghazi, drilling down on the shifting narrative regarding the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, but ignoring that, as the Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 22, "The CIA was consistent from Sept. 13 to Sept. 21 that the attack evolved from a protest." There's another problem with the criticism. Romney now gets intelligence briefings, too. Perhaps that's why he took a pass on this kerfuffle when Libya was the first question at the final debate.
  
  So why the attention on the recent 9/11? Perhaps to deflect attention from Obama avenging the first 9/11. Most disturbing, the president's critics have sought to diminish that achievement by treating his order as a no-brainer. As a candidate in 2008, Obama was roundly criticized when he said (to me and others) that he would act on intelligence regarding the al-Qaeda leader even if he were in Pakistan. To Bush that was "unsavory." To John McCain that was "naive." Hillary Clinton said this was "a mistake." Joe Biden said Obama "undermined his ability to be tough." And Romney regarded that pledge as "ill-timed" and "ill-considered." Imagine the criticism Obama would have faced if the mission had failed.
  
  The reality is that there is much to be admired in the president and his rise to power. Replace Kenya with Poland or Germany, and you'd have observers rightly saying that only in this country could such a career path be possible. He is a loving husband and father who, with the first lady, is ably raising two daughters in the glare of the White House. He is an intellectual heavyweight. And his personal ethics have been above reproach. Real patriots vote for or against candidates based on substance, not smears

• ptown_trojans_1

  

  Treatment of Bush=treatment of Obama.
  
  Both sides are simply a disgrace.
  National discourse is gone.
  
  It is really bad.
  And thing is, no matter who wins, it will continue.
• HitsRus

  

  It is bad enough when talk show hosts do it.... ugh....Limbaugh and even the more foul Bill Maher.
  
  ...but the president himself?
  
  http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/770241_The-troubles-with-2012--Barack-Obama-s-smear-tactics-failed.html
• jhay78

  

  I guess when I listen to Obama's campaign people, especially Axelrod and Cutter, it's hard to feel sorry for the guy.
  
  I agree some smears have been over the top, but there's plenty of substance to criticize him for. And he had majorities in both houses of Congress to work with for two years, thus a lot of the reaction to what looked like a ram-it-through agenda.
• bases_loaded

  

  REVENGE
• majorspark

  

  bases_loaded;1312711 wrote:REVENGE

  Just the kind of politics the current president espouses.
• gut

  It's a little hard to be sympathetic when the liberal media has never questioned or challenged him. They lowered the bar and put a bubble around him. If Romney wins the election, I wonder if the media can remember how to actually do their job after 4 years.
• isadore

  the comments on this thread should be expected toward our first African American President.
• HitsRus

  

  ^^^race card played
• isadore

  that card has been in play at this site since November, 2009
• HitsRus

  

  it's the only one you got. A man's competence is not judged by the the color of his skin. Do you think differently?
• isadore

  he has demonstrated competence at a level far exceeding his predecessor but has been unfairly attacked by critics nationally and at this site who are driven by hatred for our first African American President.
• gut

  isadore;1312898 wrote:he has demonstrated incompetence at a level far exceeding his predecessor .

  fixed it for ya. Take off the blinders - we don't see black or white we only see failure.
• gut

  isadore;1312893 wrote:that card has been in play at this site since November, 2009

  The "Disgusted with Obama" thread wasn't created until nearly 18 months after he took office. Sort of when the early returns started coming in and they weren't good people began to complain.
• BoatShoes

  gut;1312907 wrote:The "Disgusted with Obama" thread wasn't created until nearly 18 months after he took office. Sort of when the early returns started coming in and they weren't good people began to complain.

  They were plenty disgusted at the site that shalt not be named prior to migrating over here. He was opposed beyond all reason from day 1.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  gut;1312907 wrote:The "Disgusted with Obama" thread wasn't created until nearly 18 months after he took office. Sort of when the early returns started coming in and they weren't good people began to complain.

  Obama's shine started to lose luster barely six months in when the U.S. economy was still shedding jobs and the Henry Louis Gates "situation" and follow-up beer summit was actually reported by the media. It was at that point where the Great Uniter appeared to be anything but and was interjecting himself in an issue that he had no business interjecting himself into. Even if the police were wrong (and likely they weren't) the worse that happened to Mr. Gates was that he was inconvenienced for a bit - hardly a Presidential matter - not like Americans being killed at a Libyan Embassy where he wasn't bothered enough to wake up or cancel his campaign trip to Vegas.
  
  At any rate, back to Gates even if those of us knew that his experience was highly lacking, particularly on economic and private sector matters at the time of his election, this was the first indication of his true personality and extremely overinflated opinion of his own awesomeness. The disgust could have started there. He had 6 months to ride his wave of popularity and make a great first impression and blew it. Fortunately for him since then the MSM has had his back and has downplayed every screw-up, whether minor (interjecting himself again in the Trayvon Martin case) or major (Benghazi).
  
  He is simply unqualified, I don't care if he's a good person (from his public persona and inflated ego - I'm not getting it), he's a terrible executive.
• believer

  

  gut;1312836 wrote:It's a little hard to be sympathetic when the liberal media has never questioned or challenged him. They lowered the bar and put a bubble around him. If Romney wins the election, I wonder if the media can remember how to actually do their job after 4 years.

  If Romney wins, the media's Anointed One Syndrome will miraculously go away.
• isadore

  gut;1312906 wrote:fixed it for ya. Take off the blinders - we don't see black or white we only see failure.

  you changed the truth to a lie, as your candidate romney does on a regular basis.
• isadore

  gut;1312907 wrote:The "Disgusted with Obama" thread wasn't created until nearly 18 months after he took office. Sort of when the early returns started coming in and they weren't good people began to complain.

  gosh a ruddies we can find the ha the hatred of our African American president on this site before that thread was created. gosh just go to pages check out some of the early threads, and gosh find some names we still recognize.
• HitsRus

  

  What unmitigated gall of Obama supporters to complain about "smearing" when their campaign has been 'smearing', misrepresenting, and lying about Mitt Romney since the early spring. Romney has been nothing but presidential while the incumbent's nose grows with each passing day.
  
  As for HIM being opposed from day one....you can say that about any sitting president, and HIS was no worse until he decided to ram a huge new entitlement down America's throats....a 1500+ page boondoggle that was only constiutional because it is a TAX (and on the middle class no less!)....that not even its sponsors had a chance to read. Who wrote that anyway????
  
  So much for bipartisan cooperation...and HE has only himself to blame.
• WebFire

  isadore;1312951 wrote:you changed the truth to a lie, as your candidate romney does on a regular basis.

  You hate white people!
• Devils Advocate

  

  There is truth to both sides of the argument. One side has Demonized the POTUS to the point that they cannot conceed ANTHING that the current administration has done is anything but socialist os poison to the entire country.
  
  The other side refused to acknowledge any wrong doing or failure. And if it does, blames it on the right or past administration.
  
  It is a sad period of history for our nation.
• isadore

  HitsRus;1312988 wrote:What unmitigated gall of Obama supporters to complain about "smearing" when their campaign has been 'smearing', misrepresenting, and lying about Mitt Romney since the early spring. Romney has been nothing but presidential while the incumbent's nose grows with each passing day.
  
  As for HIM being opposed from day one....you can say that about any sitting president, and HIS was no worse until he decided to ram a huge new entitlement down America's throats....a 1500+ page boondoggle that was only constiutional because it is a TAX (and on the middle class no less!)....that not even its sponsors had a chance to read. Who wrote that anyway????
  
  So much for bipartisan cooperation...and HE has only himself to blame.

  Oh gosh that is right all those lying smears. Like the one where they claimed Romney said “
  M]y job is not to worry about those people.” about 47% of the American people. Gosh that made him look like a bigoted servant of plutocracy, but no person running for the United States Presidency would ever say that.
  And the claims the lying smears that the Republicans were not interested in b-partisanships, why you would have Mitch McConnell, leader of Republicans in the Senate saying, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
  Gosh a ruddies they would they ever say those things would they. They would have to be complete scum to say those things.
• isadore

  WebFire;1312989 wrote:You hate white people!

  gosh a ruddies some of my best friends are white people.
• WebFire

  isadore;1313043 wrote:gosh a ruddies some of my best friends are white people.

  Ahhh, now see how dumb it is?