The Politics Of Fear Are Spiraling Out Of Control For Conservatives

The politics of fear, divisiveness, ugliness, anger and hatred sadly were hallmarks of the failed presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

The fear, divisiveness, anger and hatred McCain and Palin attempted to harness, to build a successful campaign toward the White House, failed and merely set the stage for a level of anger we’re seeing today that should put a chill down the spine of this country. Hateful extremist conservatives have ratcheted up the hatred to seemingly the highest political DEFCON-type levels and have directed their disproportionate and misguided anger at President Barack Obama. Many of these same far-right conservatives, who were in full attack mode against President Clinton, then fell back into a soft zone defense during the President Bush years are now running a fastbreak of hate, anger and division against President Obama.

Today, far-right conservatives are attacking with reckless abandon.

As a nation, we witnessed this dangerous emotion throughout last year’s presidential campaign during several rallies put together to support McCain and Palin.

To his credit, near the end of the presidential campaign, it seemed McCain recognized the hatred had begun to spiral beyond control into a dangerous territory.

But, on Tuesday in his home state of Arizona, McCain recently got another whiff of the hatred that was sparked during his campaign. McCain attempted to tell his people that the president respects the constitution, but that he and other Republicans simply had differences of opinion as to how to guide the country. Whether or not that is the simple basis for the anger is debatable, but what is hardly debatable is the angry response that popped McCain upside the head.

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” he told the crowd in Sun City, Airzona. “He is sincere in his beliefs, we just happen to disagree. And he is the president. And let’s be respectful.”

A questioner had asked whether Obama realized that the spending priorities his administration is pursuing are “against the Constitution.”

“Doesn’t he know that we still live under a Constitution?” the attendee asked.

“I’m sure that he does,” McCain responded. The crowd, thinking the response was a joke, laughed along.

“No, no. I am serious. I am sure that he does and I’m sure he respects the Constitution,” said McCain.

Shouts of “No” came from the crowd.

“I really do,” McCain pleaded. “I am absolutely convinced of it. I just believe, my friends, that there is a fundamental difference in philosophy and about the role of government. That is why we have competition for public office and competition amongst parties, and competition about different ideas and vision for the future of America. I’m convinced the president is absolutely sincere in his beliefs.”

Moderate conservatives have allowed (by not standing against it strongly enough) this hateful rhetoric (using code words like socialist, socialism, Nazi, Hitler and more) to sow the seeds of hate and hostility and portray the president (as we’ve seen with this ridiculous birther campaign pushed by far-right nuts) as “not one of us.”

This kind of talk is dangerous and is taking this country where it should not want to go.

Fox News Provides Comforting Platform To Santorum Who Compares President Obama To Hugo Chavez

Here is a nice catch by News Hounds that helps illustrate the hypocrisy of Fox News in terms of how it treats President Obama. Fox News, whining about mild criticism (depending on whether or not the following comments are put into context) from President Obama in isolated comments he has made about the media. Fox has been working hard to be the network of opposition and obstruction to President Obama and this current duly-elected administration that is leading the United States of America.

Here is an excerpt from the News Hounds blog about an exchange between Greta Van Susteren and Rick Santorum as Santorum compares President Obama to Venezuela President Hugo Chavez:

The segment began with Van Susteren playing a montage of Obama’s comments about cable news. Each clip was from a different setting:

- Referring to media coverage after Sarah Palin’s nomination for vice president in 2008, Obama said, “Cable was 24 hours a day (saying) Obama’s lost his mojo.”

- Speaking to his supporters, Obama said, “Instead of being preoccupied with the polls and with the pundits and with the cable chatter, what you guys consistently did was you just kept on working.”

- “They don’t want to be constructive, they just want to get in the usual political fights back and forth. And sometimes that’s fed by all the cable chatter on the media.”

- “I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration… That’s a pretty big megaphone.”

- “I don’t find most of the cable chatter very persuasive… It feels like WWF wrestling. Everybody’s got their role to play.”

Santorum reacted by saying, “This is an attack on Fox. This reminds me of what Hugo Chavez is doing down in Venezuela, trying to shut down the voice of opposition in the media. This is not good.”

Santorum took the president’s comment about Fox News out of context.

This is all old news, but naturally host Van Susteren (who is no liberal as proven by her spectator status in regard to the smear) and hardcore right-wing extremist Rick Santorum leave on the table no opportunity (large or small) to attack President Obama. And, as you might expect, he is once again compared to a leader (who is considered a dictator) from a foreign country. It fits right into the theme of the far right to paint President Obama as extremist, as socialist, as not one of us, as different, as exotic … so on and so forth.

The work of Fox News, to mischaracterize and demonize our president and commander-in-chief continues.