I woke up this morning mad as hell. Like Howard Beale in the 70's movie Network, I'm angry and ready to stick my head out the window and yell.
Yesterday, President Obama gave an innocous, all-inclusive, "let's all pull together as Americans" speech in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday. As typical for President Obama, he strove for a humble but inspiring theme, urging Americans to "watch out for each other" and "move forward as one people." It was a low-key, emotionally mild speech, focusing on personal sacrifice and an improving future. In sum, it was an even-keeled, fully Presidential speech.
However, no sooner had the words left Obama's mouth than he was under attack from the Far Right. Rush Limbaugh - recently crowned by Newsweek magazine as one of America's 50 most influential people and an infamous, Oxycontin-gobbling gasbag - immediately attacked the President, not for his speech, but for the Proclamation posted on the White House website.
Now, it's not news that Rush Limbaugh is a major A-hole and a disruptive, divisive, overpaid, Far Right mouthpiece. So, that is not the point of this diary. What makes me mad as hell is this: when George W. Bush was in office, the Far Right - especially including Rush Limbaugh - never failed to shout "Treason!" at anyone and everyone who criticized President Bush.
During the Bush years, we never stopped hearing that the President is Commander in Chief and to criticize the Commander in Chief during a time of war is TREASON. From the creation of protest zones, to the vicious condemnation of the Dixie Chicks, to hauling peaceful citizens from events for wearing t-shirts or having bumper stickers that even mildly criticized President Bush, the full weight of the Far Right came down on anyone and everyone who spoke out against Bush.
Then President Obama came into office - with the same two hot wars in progress - and suddenly, we're through the looking glass and all the patriotic genuflecting that characterized the Bush years is gone with the wind. Obama is a Socialist, Obama is a Kenyan Manchurian Candidate, Obama hates America, Obama is a Nazi/Communist who wants to destroy our way of life. On and on it goes, relentless and absurd on its face. Yet the daily chorus of hatred and utter disdain for President Obama from the Far Right gets played up, taken seriously, and discussed like it's simple, straight forward fact.
This makes me mad as hell! The hypocrisy, the blatant viciousness, the disgusting double-standard shown toward President Obama pisses me off. If Bush was Commander in Chief and above reproach because we are in a time of war, and those wars are still fully underway, why is the same respect not being shown - nay, even the calls of Treason towards his critics - not echoing out?
You and I both know why. This country is run by the Far Right, the Media is its hobby horse, and the money is largey in the hands of the haters. I've put up with this for two full years, while watching both Congressional Democrats and President Obama act like George McFly in the 80's movie Back to the Future.
I don't own a TV network, have billions in the bank like the Koch Brothers, or get to play smarmy pundit like Tucker Carlson, who made his money the old-fashioned way, by inheriting it. The Right Wing has the money, they have the power, and they can abuse their own standards - that is, their double standards - at will.
I can't shut up Rush Limbaugh, because this is a free society. He has the right to be a gasbag and a vicious fool. He brings in advertisers and pays the bills for self-serving, caviar-eating, Right Wing thugs. He's a tool and an extremely well-paid one. I can't make him go away and I can't shut him down. But his existence - and the damage the Far Right does to this country - is just one reason among many to be pissed off and put my head out the window.
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!!!