Making peace with ourselves
October 10,2009 
by Ari Rutenberg
It seems that Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win has
made clear the contempt the Republican
establishment has for Obama, as if it needed clarification. However it has also exposed their unwillingness to do what is good for the country if it means defeating Obama. These observations are not revelatory, and have been pointed out by many other commentators. But at this point, any defender of these antics must either admit the petty cruelty and school-age maturity of these braying donkeys or be grouped among those considered "bat-shit crazy" by anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty and a modicum of decency left. The wignuts have been complaining about the moral degradation of our country for years, only it is they who have descended to the moral depths of violent threats, both intellectual and physical, to sway the argument to their side.
It's nice to see the rest of the world validate the progressive point of view, which directly repudiates the greedy, bigoted, anachronistic world view of the right. This also is really a final desperate grasp at framing the national debate using a tactic they have overused and burned out: extreme, inflammatory rhetoric. The Republican establishment decided early on to oppose Obama using Karl Rove's strategy of lying and defaming your opponent. The problem with this tactic is that there is a limit on how extreme rhetoric can get. Each time you engage in extreme rhetoric, it raises the public's tolerance and lowers their expectations, so that each time you must become more and more extreme. Once you have reached the point of comparing someone to Hitler, advocating assassination, and trying to incite an armed revolution, there is really no place left to go. And once all of your allegations have been demonstrated to be at best false, and at worst slanderous, you lack both the credibility and rhetorical space to be taken seriously when casting dispersions.
Thus the Republicans have taken themselves out of the game. They have a steadily decreasing party ID, and they are losing the debates on health care, financial regulation, and foreign policy in the public eye. And it is because they no longer understand how to debate policy without ad hominem attacks. And they have even exhausted that. Unless they come up with some real policy ideas instead of criticizing Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize (to which I would add…who hates on the Peace Prize? and why would they get mad at Obama…After all he doesn't decide who wins) the Republican party will be swept aside by the tide of public opinion in favor of acting to fix our problems, instead of acting to oppose a bogeyman and any change at all.
The Republicans are losing. They will continue to lose. And its their own damn fault. The Democrats are about as spineless and intellectually weak as they could be and still maintain their physical coherency. The Republicans have ruined their own name and reputation, but as a result some good things will happen in this country. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the 2 smart Republicans left figured out the only way to save this country is to get so extreme that no one would pay attention. So maybe they are actually working for the good of the country, by demonstrating the futile end of their politics. Or maybe they're just incredibly greedy, myopic, and intellectually bankrupt. And now they're paying the price.
by Ari Rutenberg
It seems that Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win has
made clear the contempt the Republican establishment has for Obama, as if it needed clarification. However it has also exposed their unwillingness to do what is good for the country if it means defeating Obama. These observations are not revelatory, and have been pointed out by many other commentators. But at this point, any defender of these antics must either admit the petty cruelty and school-age maturity of these braying donkeys or be grouped among those considered "bat-shit crazy" by anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty and a modicum of decency left. The wignuts have been complaining about the moral degradation of our country for years, only it is they who have descended to the moral depths of violent threats, both intellectual and physical, to sway the argument to their side.
It's nice to see the rest of the world validate the progressive point of view, which directly repudiates the greedy, bigoted, anachronistic world view of the right. This also is really a final desperate grasp at framing the national debate using a tactic they have overused and burned out: extreme, inflammatory rhetoric. The Republican establishment decided early on to oppose Obama using Karl Rove's strategy of lying and defaming your opponent. The problem with this tactic is that there is a limit on how extreme rhetoric can get. Each time you engage in extreme rhetoric, it raises the public's tolerance and lowers their expectations, so that each time you must become more and more extreme. Once you have reached the point of comparing someone to Hitler, advocating assassination, and trying to incite an armed revolution, there is really no place left to go. And once all of your allegations have been demonstrated to be at best false, and at worst slanderous, you lack both the credibility and rhetorical space to be taken seriously when casting dispersions.
Thus the Republicans have taken themselves out of the game. They have a steadily decreasing party ID, and they are losing the debates on health care, financial regulation, and foreign policy in the public eye. And it is because they no longer understand how to debate policy without ad hominem attacks. And they have even exhausted that. Unless they come up with some real policy ideas instead of criticizing Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize (to which I would add…who hates on the Peace Prize? and why would they get mad at Obama…After all he doesn't decide who wins) the Republican party will be swept aside by the tide of public opinion in favor of acting to fix our problems, instead of acting to oppose a bogeyman and any change at all.
The Republicans are losing. They will continue to lose. And its their own damn fault. The Democrats are about as spineless and intellectually weak as they could be and still maintain their physical coherency. The Republicans have ruined their own name and reputation, but as a result some good things will happen in this country. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the 2 smart Republicans left figured out the only way to save this country is to get so extreme that no one would pay attention. So maybe they are actually working for the good of the country, by demonstrating the futile end of their politics. Or maybe they're just incredibly greedy, myopic, and intellectually bankrupt. And now they're paying the price.