Ever get the feeling we're in the midst of some mass psychosis regarding the President of the United States on the part of those who hate his guts?
For example, anti-Obama groups regularly use Nazi imagery in describing or illustrating Obama. Obama is depicted as Adolf Hitler, and or dressed up in an SS uniform -- both crass and ironic considering the Nazis' belief in Aryan racial superiority and the inferiority of Jews, Blacks and others.
I wish such widespread imagery was just a matter of parody. It's not. These refusenik wackos at the healthcare town halls have made clear their fervent belief that Obama is exactly the same as Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
Pick a lane, pitchfork-bearers. Hitler and Stalin did not share ideologies. But to this anti-intellectual crowd, Stalin and Hitler are also the same, in this Cyclops-like worldview. Though many capitalists thrived under the Nazi regime, often by plundering the assets and property of the conquered and the Jews. Such capitalists would likely have been considered counter-revolutionary and sent off to the gulags in Stalin's Russia.
Obama is also viewed as Orwellian and falsely messianic by many on the kooky right. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has criticized the "worshipful tone" of President Barack Obama's stay-in-school-and-study speech to the kids. Now Clint Bolick, of the Goldwater Institute's jumped on this backwards-moving bandwagon, with a little e-mail ditty he's sent out, titled, "Building the Cult of Obama, Starting with Kindergarten."
Um, "cult"? Really, Clint? Are you planning to sign up for the anti-swine flu vaccine insanity too? Do you also buy the bull that Obama is Hitler, or Stalin, or any of that other nonsense peddled by your fellow libertarians?
Bolick's probably using the cult-comparison as a metaphor. Still, he seems to be exploiting this irrational, conspira-nut hatred of Obama on the right for his own political reasons. He decries "President Obama's unprecedented address to the nation's schoolchildren," then, below his screed, he links to a CNN article on the subject that points out that the presidential address is not unprecedented.
"President George H.W. Bush delivered a nationally televised speech to students from a Washington D.C., school in the fall of 1991," reads the CNN article, "encouraging them to say no to drugs and work hard.
"In November 1988, President Ronald Reagan delivered more politically charged remarks that were made available to students nationwide. Among other things, Reagan called taxes "such a penalty on people that there's no incentive for them to prosper ... because they have to give so much to the government."
I've gotta wonder, did Bolick even bother to read this CNN piece? Bolick seems awfully proud that his son's in a charter school (big whup), and that he won't be watching the president's speech.
That's just super, Clint. But if you were any kind of real, red-meat-eatin' conservative dad, you'd be homeschooling your youngin so he knows that Obama is a cult leader. Oh, and that way, it's a lot easier to teach 'em the world is flat, that evolution is bunk, and that vaccines are poison.
Bolick ends with a line of Latin. You know, to prove he ain't just a regular Obama-hatin' clodhopper. Nah, he's got hisself an edu-mah-cation:
"Civics or indoctrination? For once, a Latin phrase I learned in law school comes in handy: res ipsa loquitor--the thing speaks for itself."
Actually, in the case of Bolick, I think the phrase ad nauseam better applies.
UPDATE: Above's the "cult" address from President Barack Obama. At least, that's how Bolick anticipated it. The address was full of such "cultish" messages as the following:
"And no matter what you want to do with your life - I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it."
Wow. I'm sure glad Bolick could afford to send his kid to a charter school where he wouldn't hear such Orwellian jibber-jabber as this. Heaven forbid, Bolick junior might have been inspired.
In response to Bolick's comment below (if it was him commenting -- hard to know), the very CNN article you linked to in your e-mail mentioned past addresses by presidents to schoolkids. Try reading what you send out, Bolick, before you do so, OK? As far as Sheriff Joe goes, thankfully Arpaio is not President of the United States.
