-By Warner Todd Huston
Even as Obama stood in front of hundreds of thousands of admirers during his inaugural speech saying that we needed to end the name calling, many in his party and many of his surrogates have utterly ignored that advice.
“We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate,” Obama said from the Capitol steps on inauguration Monday.
But only a few days later, even as the President was heard pleading for civility, Democrat Senator Patty Murray (WA) accused Republicans of “hostage-taking” over the budget process.
The left is full of that new tone.
There was lots of other such “civility” on the left, too. On the same day that Senator Murray threw names at the GOP, MSNBC screecher Chris Matthews called Republican Senator Ron Johnson (WI) a “pissant.”
Then ABC News’ Terry Moran attacked Senator Rand Paul for daring to question Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her Benghazi testimony, asking, “Did he serve in the military? Did he study, live, do business or charity overseas?”
Apparently being an elected official–and a senator, no less–doesn’t count for anything to Mr. Moran. Though one would search in vain for an example of a similar Moran attack on any Democrat that never served in the military or “studied overseas.”
Or how about Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Times who on the same day Obama was making his plaintive plea for civility was busy accusing Republicans of being racists.
The days before Obama’s inaugural also had many examples of that kinder, gentler left-wing. Only two days before Obama’s inaugural speech CBS News political director John Dickerson advised Obama to “destroy the GOP.”
Three days before Obama’s big day Greg Sargent of the Washington Post’s The Plum Line blog likened Republicans to “suicide bombers.”
Of course, everyone understands that neither Obama nor the left really expect any such new tone nor do they plan to initiate such a thing. After a vicious election where Obama and his campaign said that GOP nominee Mitt Romney never paid taxes, disdained regular Americans, hated dogs, and even murdered an employee’s wife, who would ever expect this president to suddenly swear off name calling?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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