President Obama Numbers Are Up (And So Is "Obama Derangement Syndrome")

I've always been fascinated in the disconnect between those enraged with President Obama versus his typically much more moderate or typical responses. They see some foaming at the mouth radical, tossing around handouts and sending out assassination squads and I just see this ...

What you don't know is that afterwards the President ate that baby.Oooh. Terrifying. 

It's not that there aren't legitimate things to complain about when it comes to President Obama.

You can ...

• Feel uneasy about the forever jail in Cuba known as Guantanamo that's still not closed despite the President promising early on he would close it.
• Fret over civil liberties still being besmirched and disregarded now that American citizens can be indefinitely detained, in violation of their rights, if they're a "terrorism" suspect.
• Be mad about how we're deporting more people than were deported under George W. Bush -- sometimes whether those folks deserve to be deported or not. 
• Bemoan how much time was wasted by President Obama "negotiating" with the militant GOP wing of Congress during the debt ceiling debate.
• Feel uneasy about our reliance on Predator drones in the never-ending War on Terror that sometimes have this habit of murdering families and wedding parties.
• Be mad about the war in Afghanistan, in general.
• Express how even though you're glad Osama Bin Laden is dead, that really sounded like we straight up assassinated someone when we clearly have a "public" policy of not assassinating people.
• Get on the "what has he done for black folks lately" train.
• Complain that you wanted "single payer" and you got the old GOP healthcare program that now even the GOP doesn't like.

But none of that exactly spells terrorist-caving, crypto-Nazi socialist. That just some sounds like your basic gripe about any modern American president at anytime. That he has a toe in the warmongering pot and a toe in the "celebrate corporate interests" pie and a toe in "but what about the people" cobbler and yet another toe in the "you know how Washington is" fruit cake.

Also, these aren't the things Obama's critics on the Right are complaining about.

From Politico, it's all about Obama "hating" religion, according to Newt Gingrich:

“You’ll notice the President Obama is very quick to apologize for Islam while he attacks the Catholic church,” he said.

Gingrich cut himself off before finishing his next thought.

“You’ll notice that he’s very sensitive about problems involving Islam, but he has a willingness and…” he said.

(...)

“This is the most anti-religious administration in American history. And you have my commitment that on the very first day I will issue an executive order that turns over every single anti-religious act of Barack Obama.”

From Huffington Post, Rick Santorum calls "apologizing" for the accidental Koran burning in Afghanistan "weak:"

During a Sunday appearance on ABC News, Santorum said that Obama should not have apologized for the holy book destruction because the U.S. military had only accidentally burned Qurans. Santorum then added that Obama's apology, rather than the actual burning of Qurans, was hurting both the image of America abroad and the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.

"There was nothing deliberately done wrong here. This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake ... when that is occurring, you should not be apologizing for something that was -- an unfortunate -- say it’s unfortunate, say that this is something that should have been done," Santorum said. "To apologize for something that was not an intentional act is something that the president of the United States, in my opinion, should not have done."

"But if it was a mistake, isn’t apologizing the right, important thing to do?" asked ABC News host George Stephanopoulos.

"It suggests that there is somehow blame, this is somehow that we did something wrong in the sense of doing a deliberate act wrong," Santorum replied. "I think it shows that we are -- that I think it shows weakness."

It's tough being everything to everyone. So it's only natural to his opponents, what seems kind of tepid, frustrating or harmless to us is SCARY BLACK MAN DOING TERRIBLE THINGS to them.

Wanting everyone to have health care? Evil. Allowing gays and lesbians who are already in our military serve openly? An attack on our "values." Finally settling a USDA lawsuit from black farmers who got left out of the farm bailout money from the 1980s? REPARATIONS. Ending the unpopular war in Iraq? Cut and run. Toppling the Libyan regime without invading Libya? Wussy. Reaching out to the citizens of the Middle East after we'd been busy bombing, invading and assassinating people in their countries for decades? Weak and unAmerican. Honoring the various customs of different countries when you visit them? Traitor. Saying that a police officer "acted stupidly" when he arrested the world's most harmless black intellectual Skip Gates? Race-baiter. Wanting your insurance company to cover birth control? ATTACK ON RELIGION.

It all reminds me of this brilliant (and my favorite) "Get Your War On" sketch.

I remember, especially around 2004, how bad "Bush Derangement Syndrome" had gotten. But most of the histrionics came from a very real place. We'd suffered the worst terrorist attack in the history of the United States under the Bush Administration's watch. We were fighting two wars that had become increasingly unpopular. We'd started ignoring the Bill of Rights out of terrorism fears. Domestic spying became more widespread. The Jack Abramoff scandal happened, the Valerie Plame scandal happened, GITMO opened, Hurricane Katrina happened, torture happened, Abu Ghraib happened, the housing market collapsed, the economy tanked, Wall Street almost caused a second Great Depression, the bank bailout began -- all under the Bush administration.

So when people called Bush a "Nazi" it was wrong, as clearly, Bush was not a Nazi. Nazis were efficient and competent and murdered millions of people in a rush of arrogance, anti-Semitism, delusional superiority and maniacal ego.

Bush was a blundering, aspiring one-term president who had a terrorist attack land in his lap and was forced to DO SOMETHING. In that rush to "do something" he proceeded to do many clearly wrong things under the tutelage of an amoral Vice President Dick Cheney and a gaggle of Neo-Cons playing toy soldiers while running around the State Department.

The man simply shouldn't have been president, but his election reflected the cynicism that has clearly only worsened in the GOP, where it was less important to select someone competent enough to govern than to go with a "brand name" and someone who seemed "likeable," arguing that "anyone could be president" as many had convinced themselves Democratic President Bill Clinton was some blundering, uncouth, skirt-chasing Hillbilly when he in fact he was a brilliant, Rhodes Scholar earning, skirt-chasing, politickin' genius.

By devaluing the job Clinton actually did, they'd convinced themselves anyone could do it. Including President Trust Fund Baby. It wasn't so much about governance anymore, but simply winning for the sake of winning.

That's why when people would just FLIP OUT over Bush and his blunders, I could understand why they were flipping out, even if it was over the top and not practical. 

But I don't understand the Great Obama Flip Out. I don't understand it when people on the left act like they'd rather had President Walnuts and The Palinator instead. I don't understand it when people on the right scream about him being Hitler.

Who on Earth are these people talking about?

The guy likes Jesus and basketball and has been married to the same woman since forever. He seems to genuinely want to help people along with possessing just the right amount of ego/narcissism/charisma to run and hold the highest office in the land. This is why that for the longest time when Mitt Romney would attack President Obama, he'd always preface it with that Obama seems like a nice guy. Because ... he does. He seems like a really nice guy. It's hard to paint him as some diabolical monster. The best route is to kind of go "He's a nice guy who doesn't know what he's doing," rather than running around, screaming about the scary black man.

Because, for all that, many still view him as reasonable competent and well-meaning, even if they aren't happy with how he's handled everything. And at the end of the day, he's still the best bet to be realistic about getting us out of our economic malaise, as opposed to Romney's "I'd let the auto industry die" and Santorum's faith-based economics.

Obama understands that the government is just people. Voted for the people, by the people, staffed by the people. It can only be as good as the people we choose to run it. Romney, Santorum and the bulk of the GOP don't believe government can do anything, which means they don't think "people" can do anything. Which means you shouldn't expect anything if they get elected, other than allow the invisible hand of the market to decide your fate and a lot of arguments over things that we thought were already settled, like THE PILL.

So, if that sounds awesome to you -- for corporations and religious institutions (two other groups of "people" deemed more competent by the GOP than the "people" of our government) to be valued over everyone else, even if their purpose isn't to better America necessarily but to better their own accounting books or create new members adhering to their beliefs, you know who your guys are.

If that's not your thing, you probably aren't surprised that despite the "socialist-Nazi" talk, Obama's poll numbers are up.

Comments

[Anonymous]

I think this is my favorite post out of all the ones you've ever done. You've covered all of the insane and hypocritical BS talking points that seem so easily squashable--but seem keep flying under the radar w/both "reasonable people" and MSM. [And for the life of me, I've never understood how we black folk rage against the Magical Negro in general, but we expect President Obama to be one for us. o.0]

There's a reason humanity is headed toward extinction...