Thursday, February 14, 2013

Hmm, Not So "Kenyan" After All

Trey Smith

What also made this last week unique was the reaction of the American Right. Progressives love to recite the conceit that Republicans will never praise Obama no matter what he does. This is a complete sham: conservatives, including even Cheney himself, have repeatedly lavished praise on Obama for his embrace of Bush/Cheney policies in these areas. But this past week, they did so with such effusive enthusiasm that the cognitive dissonance could not be ignored.

Supreme GOP warmonger Lindsey Graham announced his intention to introduce a Senate resolution praising Obama for his assassination program. RedState's Erick Erickson wrote a Fox News column denouncing civil libertarians and defending Obama: "we must trust that the president and his advisers, when they see a gathering of al-Qaida from the watchful eye of a drone, are going to make the right call and use appropriate restraint and appropriate force to keep us safe." Michelle Malkin criticized her own staff for attacking Obama and wrote: "On this, I will come to Obama's defense." Others vocally defending Obama included John Bolton, Peter King, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann.

These are not just Republicans. They are the most extreme, far-right, warmongering conservatives in the country. And they are all offering unqualified and enthusiastic praise for Obama and his assassination program. In our political culture, where everything is viewed through the lens of partisan conflict and left-right dichotomies, this lineup of right-wing supporters is powerful evidence of how far Obama has gone in pursuit of this worldview. That, too, made the significance of last week's events impossible to ignore.
~ from DOJ Kill List Memo Forces Many Dems Out of the Closet as Overtly Unprincipled Hacks by Glenn Greenwald ~
For people who have been paying attention, this right-wing love fest with Obama shouldn't really surprise you. While some of their wacky supporters are dead serious, most of the histrionics that ultra conservatives go through is just for show. It fans the political base which generates more money and it provides political cover for a Democrat like Obama to sell Republican proposals as somehow being liberal or progressive.

What gets me is that so-called progressive Obama supporters conveniently forget or outright ignore the chief reason Obama won in 2008 and 2012: Corporate America loves this guy!! Sure, they piss and moan a bit, but that's just because they want him to move even further to the right. In both elections, Obama set records for the amount of campaign dollars raised and spent by a presidential candidate. You don't set such records UNLESS the financial titans are pouring money into your campaign coffers.

The corporate world has little use for democracy. Free citizens and the rule of law tend to put a damper on egregious wealth. Wall Street has been begging for a police state for years and now they have the guy in office to deliver the goods. It is not George W. Bush; it's that "socialist" "Kenyan" (wink, wink).

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