The Obama Hypocrisy on “New Tone”

Posted by Warner Todd Huston Sep 8th 2011 at 3:07 pm in Democrats/progressives, GOP, Mainstream Media, Obama, Old media, Politics, Tea Parties, Terrorism, journalism, media bias

Barack Obama is nothing less than a hypocrite on his admonitions over public discourse and the latest example of this truth lies in his refusal to condemn the violence-tinged language of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa not to mention his similar silence on the obscene rhetoric of many of the leading members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

While Obama has tsk tsked folks on the right like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and told the nation that we need to start “talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds,” he has turned a blind eye to his own vice president calling political opponents “terrorists,” members of Congress saying that Republicans and Tea Partiers can “go straight to hell,” and just this week walked on stage grinning like a Cheshire Cat immediately after Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa told a Detroit crowd that they intended to “take those sons a bitches out.” Tonight he hosts AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka in the box next to the First Lady, the same Trumka whose union members this morning stormed a port and took hostages. (MSM was careful to not report this until later today so as not to overshadow the President’s address.)



Obama loves to sound as if he’s somehow above old fashioned, boilerplate rhetoric or the mudslinging that is associated with down-and-dirty politics. He not only claims to avoid such rhetoric himself but acts the national scold and wags fingers at others that do indulge such tactics. Well, he does if it happens to be his political opponents indulging that sort of rhetoric, that is. When his side does it, the scold in chief is suddenly silent.

Let us recall the soothing, soaring rhetoric Obama employed after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords earlier this year (video here). Remember that immediately after the shooting the left-wing Old Media began the drumbeat that it was the “violent rhetoric” of the right that somehow caused that apolitical shooter to take after Giffords — even thought the Tea Party hadn’t come into existence when the shooter first showed his obsession with the congresswoman. Obama scolded America for talking in a way “that wounds.”

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized–at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do–it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Previous to that, Obama pleaded for “civility” in a press conference in November of 2010 saying,

I do believe there is hope for civility. I do believe there’s hope for progress. And that’s because I believe in the resiliency of a nation that’s bounced back from much worse than what we’re going through right now — a nation that’s overcome war and depression, that has been made more perfect in our struggle for individual rights and individual freedoms.

Wonderful sentiment isn’t it? Of course, all this from a guy that said that if the Republicans “bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” This from a guy that said that his supporters should get in the faces of those that disagree with him.

We might also remember in the 2008 contest when Cincinnati radio talker Bill Cunningham opened a John McCain rally by using all three of Obama’s names, an action the left claimed was somehow “racist.” McCain foolishly ran out and repudiated the talk radio host’s use of “Barack Hussein Obama,” and Obama’s campaign praised McCain’s actions as an “attempt to keep it respectful and focused on issues.”

In 2008 Obama was all about being “respectful,” apparently.

But in just the last week alone we’ve seen one calumny after another heaped on Obama’s political opponents by his own vice president and other Obama surrogates. Name calling, hateful rants, allusions to “war” and killing Republicans have been common from Obama and his supporters. And the Old Media has been practically silent on the vaunted “new tone.”

Additionally, what do we get from the national scold? A wave of the hand and a warning that we should not be so worried about Washington’s “Kabuki Theater.” Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissed the disrespectful, violent rhetoric we’ve seen coming from Obama’s supporters saying that, heck, we can’t hold Obama to what others say … right?

But this doesn’t square with Obama’s constant refrain that we need “civility” in our political discourse. For the last four years Obama and his handmaidens in the Old Media have attacked everyone on the right that could be seen in any way as uttering something that might be construed as harsh political rhetoric.

While Obama pretends that he’s interested in “respectful” political discourse we’ve seen a parade of Democrats indulging every manner of disrespectful political speech against Tea Partiers and Republicans. Just in the last few weeks we’ve the following:

• Vice President Biden saying that Republicans and Tea Partiers are “barbarians.”
• Teamsters President Hoffa Says Republicans are “sons a bitches” that should be “taken out.”
• Democrat Andre Carson Says Tea Partiers and Republicans want to start “lynching African Americans.”
• Democrat Maxine Waters says Tea Partiers can “go straight to hell.”
• Vice President Biden calls conservatives “terrorists.”

As I said, this is only a few recent examples. There have been many, many more, all upon which Obama has remained silent. But while Obama may be silent, his hypocrisy and that of his left-wing, Democrat cohorts is deafening.

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