Note: I want to get a few things straight at the start. I am NOT talking about those who know what the President has done and disapprove. Some might think that he isn't pushing hard enough for a big enough economic stimulus package. Some might see him as being too quick to compromise. Some might be impatient with his incremental approach.
Others want to see more action on promises.
Still others (our conservative friends; the ones that we respect) just don't agree with his philosophy; they want less government or perhaps they think that we should focus on paying down the debt right now (I disagree...but..that is a topic for another diary)
I am NOT talking about the above in this diary!
A few days ago, I was in a discussion with a Republican on facebook about national issues; of course this guy doesn't approve of the President's job performance. That in and of itself isn't the topic for this post; I understand that a conservative won't like his policies. But another conservative jumped into the conversation and said this:
Obama is a disgrace. He is unqualified to be president as he and his clowns in the white house have shown for nearly 1 1/2 years. absolute embarrasment to the democratic part (or what is left of it anymore!)
I responded:
do you care to explain why you think that? This is an honest question; I am not going to argue with you, call you names, etc. If you'd like, you can send me a private message explaining why you think that.
I really wanted to know what this individual thought; exactly what was the President doing that he hated so much.
It turns out: not much. Read his response:
he is a community organizer (ala ACORN). he has shown through his track record the most liberal senetor while in chicago. he has quadrupled the debt in only one year. he has went against his campaign promise to be open book and non-partisan. within each of these there are 100 examples. i guess those who drink the obama, pelosi. reid cool aid never will get it. The rest of the nation does!
So let's see. The first thing that he mentions is that he "is a community organizer" and mentions "ACORN". Sure, ACORN had some internal corruption problems (mismanagement of funds, embezzlement by some members) though some stuff was overblown, exaggerated or just made up. But what I find baffling is that this person seemed to think that if ACORN had problems then "community organizing" is somehow bad.
That's a bit like saying "charity X had corruption problems therefore all charities are bad".
I swear; I thought that the fact that Barack Obama turned down the prospect of a well paying job to help people out was laudable. But not in the mind of this individual.
Next comment:
"he has shown through his track record the most liberal senetor while in chicago"
I am not sure if this person is referring to his State Senate record or his US Senate record, and I am not sure where the "most liberal" ranking came from. But I noticed that "Chicago" came up; that must be bad too. Sure, Illinois politics has had the reputation of being corrupt (well deserved) but again, there was no evidence of anything involving Barack Obama. But as you can see, some of what the President is hated for is more about what he is (community organizer from Chicago who is LIBERAL) than anything he has done).
"he has went against his campaign promise to be open book and non-partisan."
Well, much of the negotiations for the major bills WERE on CPSAN as promised. He never said that he would be non-partisan but that he would reach out, and by any objective measure, he DID. Unfortunately, Republicans had the singular goal of breaking him. As far as other promises, here is a non-partisan look at how he is doing.
"he has quadrupled the debt in only one year."
Of course, this is completely false. The National Debt is about 13 trillion dollars now and it was about 10.7 trillion dollars when he took office.
Of course, this individual may have been referring to some of the talk about the PROJECTIONS of what the national debt would be. But understand it isn't that simple:
You remember Judd Gregg, the Republican senator from New Hampshire tapped by President Obama to be commerce secretary. He was one of Obama's celebrated bipartisan Cabinet picks, but then withdrew his nomination in February, citing "irresolvable conflicts" with the Obama agenda.
Conflicts indeed.
This week, Gregg has appeared on several news programs lambasting Obama's proposed 2010 budget, saying it runs up so much debt "it basically will bankrupt our children and our children's children."
In what has become a familiar talking point from Republican opponents, Gregg told Fox News on March 25 that Obama's budget "doubles the (national) debt in five years, triples it in 10 years."
To check the claim, we relied on an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, released on March 20. The CBO, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, projects that the national debt will go from $5.8 trillion in 2008 to $11.8 trillion by the end of 2013; and to $17.3 trillion in 2019. By that count, Gregg's claim of doubling the debt in five years, tripling it in 10 years, is correct. But we think that's a little unfair.
In January, the CBO projected the one-year 2009 deficit at $1.2 trillion. Remember, that's the 2009 fiscal year, which began in October 2008. That deficit was worse because of the recession, and grew because of a financial bailout plan in the fall. To be fair, we don't think Obama's record ought to be saddled with something that passed under President Bush.
In short, much of the growth to the national debt was due to things that happened before President Obama took office!
Note how this guy talks about "the rest of the country". Here is the actual "poll of polls". As I noted: his job approval numbers are in line with those of President Reagan and President Clinton at this stage of their administration.
But this person is hardly alone in having bizarre beliefs. This Daily Kos poll (Research 2000 did the polling) actually ASKED Republicans what they thought. The results were incredible:
Markos Moulitsas and Research 2000 have attempted to take it, and the results are up now. Among them:
- Only 24 percent of Republicans say that ACORN definitely did not "steal the 2008 election." Twenty-one percent say the community group did; 55 percent are unsure.
- Thirty-one percent of Republicans say President Obama is "a racist who hates white people." Thirty-six percent disagree; the rest aren’t sure.
- Twenty-three percent of Republicans want their states to secede from the union. In the South, it’s 33 percent.
- Only eight percent of Republicans say that "openly gay men and women [should] be allowed to teach in public schools."
In every case, the more anti-Obama, conservative results come from Republicans in the South.
There were howls of outrage from the right wing media...but then similar results showed up in another poll:
Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party. Here’s new data to prove it:
* 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
* 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
* 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"
* 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
* Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."
These numbers all come from a brand-new Harris poll, inspired in part by my new book Wingnuts. It demonstrates the cost of the campaign of fear and hate that has been pumped up in the service of hyper-partisanship over the past 15 months. We are playing with dynamite by demonizing our president and dividing the United States in the process. What might be good for ratings is bad for the country.
Evidently the "hate Obama" campaign by outlets such as Fox News is effective. And frankly, much of the Republican base consists of seriously deluded people.