Nothing New

This piece of satirical theatre, a group that calls themselves Billionaires for Wealthcare, is brilliant. Why didn't I think of this concept? That's what separates funny and truly talented to the mediocre. A abundantly-creative move, to show these teabaggers who they're really fattening and whose pockets they're padding. The richest of Americans, nowhere near burdened by the everyday economic constraints of the vast majority of the country. For the life of me, I don't get it.



Well, now we've seen how Maureen Dowd called it in today's New York Times column:

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

After the tea party demonstrations of yesterday, 9/12, others are noticing the institutionalized disturbance this is for the Republican party. They're saying, "this isn't exactly shocking to everyone, is it?" I think I can agree with them.

Glenn Greenwald:

It's also why I am extremely unpersuaded by the prevailing media narrative that the Right is suddenly enthralled to its rambunctions and extremist elements and is treating Obama in some sort of unique or unprecedented way. Other than the fact that Obama's race intensifies the hatred in some precincts, nothing that the Right is doing now is new. This is who they are and what they do -- and that's been true for many years, for decades. Even the allegedly "unprecedented" behavior at Obama's speech isn't really unprecedented; although nobody yelled "you lie," Republicans routinely booed and heckled Clinton when he spoke to Congress because they didn't think he was legitimately the President (only for Ted Koppel to claim that it was something "no one at this table has ever heard before" when Democrats, in 2005, booed Bush's Social Security privatization proposal during a speech to Congress).

And Emptywheel:

Now Glenn is describing what the institutional right does to undermine the legitimacy of Democrats and government in general, and to the extent that we're comparing the strategic choice to discredit Obama by mobilizing paranoia and hate, I absolutely agree with him.

But race is important because of the way it has enabled the institutional right, in its efforts to protect corporations, to mobilize paranoia and resentment as a "grassroots" effort directed at Obama. And because the Village (MoDo now excepted) is not yet ready to talk about race, they instead claim the opposition really reflects opposition to Obama's policies. They claim it's ideological.

And the refusal to call racism what it is one of the key means by which the Village continues to portray the public option as unpopular even while 70% of the country supports it.

This is ridiculous.