SUMMARY
The Republicans have perfected three tactics for tearing down Obama and his accomplishments: condemning him for doing the same things Republicans do, claiming that Obama's accomplishments are really Republican accomplishments, and portraying clear Obama wins as defeats. Sometimes they will do two or all three at once: hypocrisy and bad logic are alien concepts to desperate men.
DETAILS
The weakness of their field and their eventual candidate, will make it more critical that the Republicans pull out all the stops. Also this is their last chance to run against the scary black guy: the next Democratic nominee will be vanilla in every way, or possibly Latino.
There are more signs that the ethos of the Republican party is all about beating Obama in 2012, rather than winning philosophical battles. GOP donors are trying to push the presidential nomination process away from bomb-throwers like Bachmann, and toward theoretically electable candidates like Rick Perry. By a 68-29 margin Republicans said they’d rather have someone who can beat Obama, than a policy purist. Even tea-party activists are talking about Obama as much as the issues: they want victory more than purity. This is bad news for people like Palin. So how do you go after Obama, other than the usual pile of lies and attacks?
First, It’s Okay If You’re A Republican. The Republicans regularly condemn Obama and the Democrats for practices which the Republicans themselves have used enthusiastically. Romney in particular is notorious for attacking Democrats for ideas which he and other Republicans have also advocated. We saw a lot of this during the health reform battle: whenever the Democrats even contemplated using a procedural maneuver down the field, like budget reconciliation, the Republicans would explode with outrage, despite the fact that they themselves used it during the Bush era. They also slammed the Democrats for proposing ideas which originated with Republicans, like the end-of-life counseling in the health reform proposals, and for governmental patterns which proliferated during the Bush era, like massive expansions in government spending, and monitoring rightwing extremists.
Also, Obama cut your taxes, and moved to stop corporations from using tax havens and shipping jobs overseas, which means ultimately that we can pay even less tax. So did all these anti-tax tea-baggers come out into the streets and condemn the GOP for blocking an effort which would reduce their taxes? Or thank Obama for the tax cut? Of course not. If it had been Bush, the tea party would have given him a parade. Or a sexy photo op landing on an aircraft carrier.
The most appalling example of this is the GOP health care strategy. They won the House in 2010 by lying to the voters, screaming that Obama was going to destroy Medicare and throw grandma under the bus. The voters believed them, and voted them in. And as soon as Boehner got the gavel, what did they do? Passed a bill to destroy Medicare and throw grandma under the bus. And then told their constituents that it was really Obama doing it.
By the same token, any Republican like Paul Ryan who spent two years using dishonest demogoguery to attack Obama's health reforms, and now has the chutzpah to call Obama a demagogue just for busting the GOP in their lies, really has more brass than the Navy marching band.
Second, An Obama Win Is Really A Republican Win. In addition to the laughable attempt to claim credit for the bin Laden kill by falsely attributing the success to Bush’s torture program, the Republicans are also giving Bush credit for the bailout of the auto industry, and other Obama successes which Republicans opposed. Along the same lines, Republican governors are notorious for bragging to their constituents for getting their hands on stimulus money, all while condemning Obama for signing the stimulus program. John Kasich did the same with the auto bailout, condemning the plan and then taking credit for the bailout money.
Along the same lines, Fox is now giving George Bush credit for launching the electric car. Because George the Kyoto Killer always loved the environment.
Third, Even A Clear Obama Win Is Still A Bad A Thing. Here are two examples. First, Obama gave the order in April 2009 for our navy to take out the pirates in Somalia, which they did. In saner times the Republicans would calmly congratulate the president for his success and move on. Not this time: Rush screeched a Republican president had had the gall to murder black teenagers, "these kids", "inexperienced youths", there would be hell to pay. Bill O’Reilly strategized about how it all could have been resolved with a UN blockade of Somali ports, which evinces cluelessness about the UN, blockades, and Somalia.
And of course Hannity: "If I'm discovering here that legally he had to do it, and his PR team led by “Rahmbo” Emanuel are out there, you know, grabbing credit... There seems to me to be something wrong and that that whole story's not being told....They raced to grab the credit and, apparently, we're discovering, that legally he had no other option. If you're going to take credit for something you really didn't have any choice on, then I think you're manipulating the American people.” So clearly Hannity has no chops as a reporter of fact or as a legal expert.
Gloria Borger hit the nail on the head after the Somalia operation: “Here's the problem: If Republicans can't allow that the president did his job well in this unambiguous case, why should we believe their complaints about anything else? If they can't pat him on the back for this one, why should we even listen to their arguments about the budget, about health care, about energy?”
The second example: Obama’s Nobel Prize. The Republicans, and some reporters, whined that Obama hasn’t accomplished anything, which is absurd on its face. They argued that Obama hasn’t completed his international efforts on arms control, Middle east peace, disengaging in Iraq, outreach to Muslims, climate change, diplomacy, and ending illegal kidnapping, torture and other war crimes.
But that is the case with most Peace Prize winners. The award often goes to people who are fighting to complete works still in progress. So let’s look at the other Peace Prize laureates who didn’t actually complete the efforts they won the award for. People who, at the time they won the award, had failed to achieve their aims.
So by Republican logic, before World War Two the prize was award six times to people for failing to build lasting world peace. After WWII, the prize was awarded three more times to people like Kissinger who failed to achieve world peace, and four times to people like Begin and Arafat for failing to achieve peace in the Middle East.
Four times the award was given to people like the IAEA for failing in their disarmament efforts. Five times the award went to people like the Dalai Lama, Andrei Sakharov, Desmond Tutu and Lech Walesa for not freeing their own people.
The UN got two awards for not solving the refugee problem Martin Luther King got it for not achieving civil rights, Norman Borlaug for not ending world hunger, Al Gore for not solving climate change, Kim Dae Jung for not bringing peace to Korea, Mother Teresa for not achieving a whole bunch of things. All these people, by Republican logic, are failures.
By Republican logic, winning a Nobel Prize, it’s a disaster.
I’m just going to let that hang in the air.
Sometimes the GOP will combine all three strategies! When Obama announced his plan to move forward on the Middle East peace process, a completely uncontroversial proposal based on the formula everyone has been discussing for 40 years….within a couple of hours, half the GOP presidential field was screeching that Obama had thrown Israel under the bus, with Gingrich bellowing that Congress should pass a resolution condemning Obama’s policy: Even A Clear Obama Win Is Still A Bad A Thing. Even though Bush had proposed the same thing as Obama: It’s Okay If You’re A Republican. And within hours Charles Krauthammer closed the triangle by claiming that what Obama was doing was really the Bush doctrine: An Obama Win Is Really A Republican Win. They managed to use all three strategies before the sun even went down. Neatly, it didn't work: Jewish donors ignored the GOP atttempt to misrepresent Obama's stance and opened their wallets.
The Romney team is taking the same counter-intuitive approach regarding the auto bailout. Romney condemned Obama's bailout, which is now working brilliantly. The Romney camp is claiming, simultaneously, that the bailout out was a bad idea, and that it was a good idea which Obama stole from Romney.
The Republicans have perfected three tactics for tearing down Obama and his accomplishments: condemning him for doing the same things Republicans do, claiming that Obama's accomplishments are really Republican accomplishments, and portraying clear Obama wins as defeats. Sometimes they will do two or all three at once: hypocrisy and bad logic are alien concepts to desperate men.
DETAILS
The weakness of their field and their eventual candidate, will make it more critical that the Republicans pull out all the stops. Also this is their last chance to run against the scary black guy: the next Democratic nominee will be vanilla in every way, or possibly Latino.
There are more signs that the ethos of the Republican party is all about beating Obama in 2012, rather than winning philosophical battles. GOP donors are trying to push the presidential nomination process away from bomb-throwers like Bachmann, and toward theoretically electable candidates like Rick Perry. By a 68-29 margin Republicans said they’d rather have someone who can beat Obama, than a policy purist. Even tea-party activists are talking about Obama as much as the issues: they want victory more than purity. This is bad news for people like Palin. So how do you go after Obama, other than the usual pile of lies and attacks?
First, It’s Okay If You’re A Republican. The Republicans regularly condemn Obama and the Democrats for practices which the Republicans themselves have used enthusiastically. Romney in particular is notorious for attacking Democrats for ideas which he and other Republicans have also advocated. We saw a lot of this during the health reform battle: whenever the Democrats even contemplated using a procedural maneuver down the field, like budget reconciliation, the Republicans would explode with outrage, despite the fact that they themselves used it during the Bush era. They also slammed the Democrats for proposing ideas which originated with Republicans, like the end-of-life counseling in the health reform proposals, and for governmental patterns which proliferated during the Bush era, like massive expansions in government spending, and monitoring rightwing extremists.
Also, Obama cut your taxes, and moved to stop corporations from using tax havens and shipping jobs overseas, which means ultimately that we can pay even less tax. So did all these anti-tax tea-baggers come out into the streets and condemn the GOP for blocking an effort which would reduce their taxes? Or thank Obama for the tax cut? Of course not. If it had been Bush, the tea party would have given him a parade. Or a sexy photo op landing on an aircraft carrier.
The most appalling example of this is the GOP health care strategy. They won the House in 2010 by lying to the voters, screaming that Obama was going to destroy Medicare and throw grandma under the bus. The voters believed them, and voted them in. And as soon as Boehner got the gavel, what did they do? Passed a bill to destroy Medicare and throw grandma under the bus. And then told their constituents that it was really Obama doing it.
By the same token, any Republican like Paul Ryan who spent two years using dishonest demogoguery to attack Obama's health reforms, and now has the chutzpah to call Obama a demagogue just for busting the GOP in their lies, really has more brass than the Navy marching band.
Second, An Obama Win Is Really A Republican Win. In addition to the laughable attempt to claim credit for the bin Laden kill by falsely attributing the success to Bush’s torture program, the Republicans are also giving Bush credit for the bailout of the auto industry, and other Obama successes which Republicans opposed. Along the same lines, Republican governors are notorious for bragging to their constituents for getting their hands on stimulus money, all while condemning Obama for signing the stimulus program. John Kasich did the same with the auto bailout, condemning the plan and then taking credit for the bailout money.
Along the same lines, Fox is now giving George Bush credit for launching the electric car. Because George the Kyoto Killer always loved the environment.
Third, Even A Clear Obama Win Is Still A Bad A Thing. Here are two examples. First, Obama gave the order in April 2009 for our navy to take out the pirates in Somalia, which they did. In saner times the Republicans would calmly congratulate the president for his success and move on. Not this time: Rush screeched a Republican president had had the gall to murder black teenagers, "these kids", "inexperienced youths", there would be hell to pay. Bill O’Reilly strategized about how it all could have been resolved with a UN blockade of Somali ports, which evinces cluelessness about the UN, blockades, and Somalia.
And of course Hannity: "If I'm discovering here that legally he had to do it, and his PR team led by “Rahmbo” Emanuel are out there, you know, grabbing credit... There seems to me to be something wrong and that that whole story's not being told....They raced to grab the credit and, apparently, we're discovering, that legally he had no other option. If you're going to take credit for something you really didn't have any choice on, then I think you're manipulating the American people.” So clearly Hannity has no chops as a reporter of fact or as a legal expert.
Gloria Borger hit the nail on the head after the Somalia operation: “Here's the problem: If Republicans can't allow that the president did his job well in this unambiguous case, why should we believe their complaints about anything else? If they can't pat him on the back for this one, why should we even listen to their arguments about the budget, about health care, about energy?”
The second example: Obama’s Nobel Prize. The Republicans, and some reporters, whined that Obama hasn’t accomplished anything, which is absurd on its face. They argued that Obama hasn’t completed his international efforts on arms control, Middle east peace, disengaging in Iraq, outreach to Muslims, climate change, diplomacy, and ending illegal kidnapping, torture and other war crimes.
But that is the case with most Peace Prize winners. The award often goes to people who are fighting to complete works still in progress. So let’s look at the other Peace Prize laureates who didn’t actually complete the efforts they won the award for. People who, at the time they won the award, had failed to achieve their aims.
So by Republican logic, before World War Two the prize was award six times to people for failing to build lasting world peace. After WWII, the prize was awarded three more times to people like Kissinger who failed to achieve world peace, and four times to people like Begin and Arafat for failing to achieve peace in the Middle East.
Four times the award was given to people like the IAEA for failing in their disarmament efforts. Five times the award went to people like the Dalai Lama, Andrei Sakharov, Desmond Tutu and Lech Walesa for not freeing their own people.
The UN got two awards for not solving the refugee problem Martin Luther King got it for not achieving civil rights, Norman Borlaug for not ending world hunger, Al Gore for not solving climate change, Kim Dae Jung for not bringing peace to Korea, Mother Teresa for not achieving a whole bunch of things. All these people, by Republican logic, are failures.
By Republican logic, winning a Nobel Prize, it’s a disaster.
I’m just going to let that hang in the air.
Sometimes the GOP will combine all three strategies! When Obama announced his plan to move forward on the Middle East peace process, a completely uncontroversial proposal based on the formula everyone has been discussing for 40 years….within a couple of hours, half the GOP presidential field was screeching that Obama had thrown Israel under the bus, with Gingrich bellowing that Congress should pass a resolution condemning Obama’s policy: Even A Clear Obama Win Is Still A Bad A Thing. Even though Bush had proposed the same thing as Obama: It’s Okay If You’re A Republican. And within hours Charles Krauthammer closed the triangle by claiming that what Obama was doing was really the Bush doctrine: An Obama Win Is Really A Republican Win. They managed to use all three strategies before the sun even went down. Neatly, it didn't work: Jewish donors ignored the GOP atttempt to misrepresent Obama's stance and opened their wallets.
The Romney team is taking the same counter-intuitive approach regarding the auto bailout. Romney condemned Obama's bailout, which is now working brilliantly. The Romney camp is claiming, simultaneously, that the bailout out was a bad idea, and that it was a good idea which Obama stole from Romney.
Sometimes the attack-no-matter-what strategy becomes simply laughable. After House Democrats split down the middle during the first debt-ceiling vote, the Republican party issued talking points attacking Democrats who voted "yes" and talking points attacking the Democrats who voted "no", all at once. Seriously. And this will continue: if Obama focuses on debt reduction, they scream at him for not focusing on jobs; if he switches to focusing on jobs, they will scream at him for seeking more spending. Attack attack attack.
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