And then there's this from a reader at talkingpointsmemo:Where to start to explain this hysteria? Since the height of Sarah Palin's dishonest and divisive campaign last September, I've been alarmed by the unique way in which Obama's opponents paint him as "the other." For the life of me, I can't think of another American politician -- not even Hillary Clinton, although it's close -- who has spurred such visceral, irrational hatred. (Tell me if I've missed anyone in comments.) Sure, John Kerry was "French" and Michael Dukakis was Greek (and looked like a pinhead in that dumb helmet), but only Obama is a Marxist Communist who pals around with terrorists and wants to harm your children.
The hysteria Obama inspires in his far-right foes is primeval, primordial. From the Birthers' obsession with the facts of his birth -- which lets them obsess about his origins in miscegenation -- to the paranoia that he's coming for the children, there's a deep strand of irrational paranoia that can't be anything other than racial. These people don't merely disagree with him, they distrust and dislike him viscerally. He's not merely wrong, he's scary; even terrifying.
How long did it take the right to go from: "if you criticize the President you are a traitor" to "School children should not trust the President."I've been meaning to ask that myself. One guy lied to the country, spied on the country, allowed torture to occur and caused the needless deaths of thousands of American troops and countless innocent Iraqis. The other guy, however, can't be trusted with our nation's children.
Crazie.
