I found this latest op-ed piece to be very insightful. It reiterates the points I was already trying to make about the current state of politics as practiced by what is supposed to be the "loyal" opposition. Republicans in the past have delighted in trying to paint liberals as America haters who were not patriotic. (Or worse)
Republicans were very quick to scold Obama for putting so much effort in trying to secure the Olympics for Chicago. Which happens to be in the U.S. They tried to say that this showed that he wasn't taking other matters more seriously. Like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that he never started but is nonetheless stuck with the cleanup. These same conservatives were not giving Bush any grief about all the time he spent in Crawford clearing brush on his ranch. And this was at a time when the war in Iraq was at its gloomiest.
They also weren't scolding him about Katrina which just happened to coincide with his Labor Day vacation back at the ranch in Texas. He wasn't about to cut his vacation short in order to give leadership to the relief and recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast. It wasn't until a week later when enough bodies were piling up in the streets that the Republicans begged him to show some interest in what was going on down there.
Now we have Obama making a one day trip to Europe to lobby for the U.S. to get the Olympics and the Republicans go nuts. They accuse him of going AWOL. Dereliction of duty in a time of crisis... Just on and on. And in that trip to Europe he happens to have a meeting with his top military commander for the Afghanistan and Pakistan theater. Which could hardly be called a waste of his time.
Paul Krugman's article I think unfortunately paints an all too accurate picture of how low the present Republican/conservative establishment has sunk.
Below is Krugman's "The Politics of Spite"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05krugman.html?hp
Republicans were very quick to scold Obama for putting so much effort in trying to secure the Olympics for Chicago. Which happens to be in the U.S. They tried to say that this showed that he wasn't taking other matters more seriously. Like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that he never started but is nonetheless stuck with the cleanup. These same conservatives were not giving Bush any grief about all the time he spent in Crawford clearing brush on his ranch. And this was at a time when the war in Iraq was at its gloomiest.
They also weren't scolding him about Katrina which just happened to coincide with his Labor Day vacation back at the ranch in Texas. He wasn't about to cut his vacation short in order to give leadership to the relief and recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast. It wasn't until a week later when enough bodies were piling up in the streets that the Republicans begged him to show some interest in what was going on down there.
Now we have Obama making a one day trip to Europe to lobby for the U.S. to get the Olympics and the Republicans go nuts. They accuse him of going AWOL. Dereliction of duty in a time of crisis... Just on and on. And in that trip to Europe he happens to have a meeting with his top military commander for the Afghanistan and Pakistan theater. Which could hardly be called a waste of his time.
Paul Krugman's article I think unfortunately paints an all too accurate picture of how low the present Republican/conservative establishment has sunk.
Below is Krugman's "The Politics of Spite"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05krugman.html?hp
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