NEWS ANALYSIS (YBH) – President Obama wants to know whose “ass to kick.” During the 2008 election campaign he told his supporters to “argue” and get in opponents’ “faces.” His administration has said that they will put “the boot to BP’s neck.” Film director, and long-time Democrat, Spike Lee, is calling for the President to “Go off!” And lastly, HBO political analyst and comedian Bill Maher wants Obama to act “black” and pull out a gun when dealing with opponents.
What is going on with Democrats?
At first look, it seems that Democrats are attempting to fight back against the image of the soft-spoken wimpy liberal. But is their more to it than that?
Leftism, and rightism for that matter, if taken to its extreme leads to violence. Any orthodoxy followed with complete inflexibility will lead to violence. Radical Islam is a perfect example. The rare, but often used by the left as an example of Christian violence, abortion bombings are a product of the same ethos.
The disturbing thing about today’s violent imagery is that it is coming from the top of our elected government. It escapes me to think of a time when a candidate for President told his supporters to argue and get in the faces of opponents. Many commentators on the right said things like “Please please, please let a leftist get in my face and argue….I’ll be waiting.” Thankfully, America isn’t buying Mr. Obama’s call to arguing-and-face-getting-in. Private citizens have other things to worry about.
Was President Obama influenced by the comments of Mr. Maher, Mr. Lee, and others when he told Matt Lauer on the “Today” show that he needed to find out “whose ass to kick”? However you slice it, the “ass kick” line devalued the American Presidency just a bit more. President Bush flubbing the simplest of sentences had much the same effect during his tenure. Language matters.
To get a real sense of violent imagery on the left, just visit the Daily Kos or the Huffington Post and peruse the comments left behind by readers. Many commenters at both sites are reasonable people who disagree with conservatives on almost every issue, however if an article is written about BP, Republicans or Israel look for the anonymous calls for violence to fly. The hatred for all things non-Democrat is palpable and disturbing.
None of the above is pointed out to try and change or regulate anything. Free speech means free. There should be very few restrictions on free speech and “boot” or “ass” comments do not rise to this level in any way. Likewise for the wackos commenting over at the HuffPost. However, it is becoming clearer by the day that the image of the happy liberal driving their Prius and drinking Starbucks is being replaced with that of a government-loving, authority-seeking goon. We are not headed toward Jews and conservatives being rounded up and put in camps, but the level of rhetoric on the left shows that some people are pining for such a policy.
The country is slowly beginning to boil. Anger on both sides is near irreconcilable. Mr. Obama and his team would be well served to cool it down and seek common ground with the right. Mr. Obama’s comments during the campaign and his more recent ones suggest this will not be the case.
The left has successfully painted conservatives as racist, gun-toting, violent, and uneducated. Conservatives in coming years will paint Democrats as angry authoritarians hell bent on control of every action of American citizens. Democrats will be seen as freedom and liberty-hating autocrats. They will have no one to blame but themselves.
Related posts:
- HBO’s Bill Maher Compares Islam to a “Violent Drunk”
- Laguardia Airport Trash Plant Won’t Increase Bird-Plane Collisions: City
- Ndamukong Suh Tweets After NFL Fines Him $20K For Violent Hit (VIDEO)
- Democrats Outfox Republicans Again
John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
