Last week, quite a few conservative detractors of President Obama thought they'd uncovered a major story: 22 years ago, Obama hugged a Harvard Law professor at a pro-affirmative action rally. Alas, the story was a dud, and the "controversy" quickly faded into obscurity.
But don't worry, some of these same critics of the president have a new outrage, intended to shock and appall decent people everywhere.
Apparently, in 1990, Obama told the Illinois Daily Herald, "Hopefully, more and more people will begin to feel their story is somehow part of this larger story of how we're going to reshape America in a way that is less mean-spirited and more generous."
Is that it? Yep, that's the whole story, such as it is. From this quote, one prominent right-wing site told readers about Obama, "Face it, he hates you."
Apparently, those who want a less mean-spirited and more generous country should be assumed to hate America.
My reaction upon reading the right's take on this was identical to that of No More Mister Nice Blog's Steve M., who also recalled a speech from two years prior, calling for a "greater tolerance" in America, and a "kinder, gentler nation."
The speaker was George H.W. Bush, and the venue was the 1988 Republican National Convention.
Steve M. added, "[N]ow that I think about it, 'a kinder and gentler nation' is pretty much the same thing as a nation that's 'less mean-spirited and more generous,' isn't it? "
Actually, yes, it is.
Frankly, the hug was more interesting. I can appreciate why conservatives are eager to undermine Obama in an election year, but this latest effort is woefully weak. That the right is still digging through old newspaper clippings, looking for damaging quotes from a college student more than two decades ago, is just kind of sad.
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Breaking news on Fox, "Obama wets bed" According to our investigation early in 1961 he frequently showed disregard for his mother by refusing to use the toilet..
Brace yourselves. The Sotero Diaries are coming soon!
The whole plan for world domination!
"That the right is still digging through old newspaper clippings, looking for damaging quotes from a college student more than two decades ago, is just kind of sad."
As the reich have NO IDEA for moving working Americans (99%) forward, and their only "solution" is more tax-cuts and less regulation - they can do nothing else except clutch at the straws of a "college" Obama! I mean the real Obama and the POLICIES that he's enacted scare them whit-less.....
Nonsense...
Less mean-spirited and more generous = socialism
Kinder and gentler = using a regular whip and not a 'cat-o-nine-tails'
Just remember: these are all pretexts. It's the same "radical socialist" schtick that we've been hearing for three-plus years. People I know were telling me in 2008 that come January 2009 there would be jack-booted ATF teams going door-to-door to confiscate firearms. Today, if I bring that up they tell me that he was forced to back off because he was afraid of a mass uprising -- but he's still going to do it if he's reelected.
There are a thousand night terrors regarding the black in the White House. They're interchangeable because they're not the reason people hate him, it's the other way around: they hate him, therefore they will pass along anything negative they hear about him.
They are just so damn confused that they're trying to confuse us. Just think they have been wrong about African American people all this time. What can they do? Let's make up stuff. Jewish people had to use this method of confusion when they were in the concentration camps in order to survive. God Bless them. But, if this is what the GOP is trying to do, then shame on them!
I basically agree with what you are both saying, except I think that people on the right genuinely see remarks about tolerance as being extremely threatening.
Back when Glenn Beck first started out on Fox 'News', I read an article about him somewhere or other and it mentioned Beck's ideological debt to W. Cleon Skousen. I'd never heard of the guy before, but the article mentioned an exchange among Skousen and a couple of other people that was printed in Dialogue (a Mormon periodical) back in 1970 or 1971 as part of a review of one of Skousen's books.
So I went and read that back-and-forth. One thing that was kind of revelatory was when one of the people responding/reacting to Skousen observed, as a kind of aside, that Skousen seemed to have a problem accepting that there were people in the world who were different from him. It was a very minor point in the context of what that person was saying, but it was a big thing to Skousen, who went on a tear about the tyranny of tolerance. He apparently found the idea of accepting differences a terrifying and threatening one.
Since then, having been sensitized by that exchange, I started to see over and over again in right-wing speech and writing the idea that getting along with other people is a bad and dangerous thing. So I think that, when viewed through a right-wing mental lens, this old Obama quote really does appear to them as bad as they claim it is. It's not really a pretext at all. They really do see things this way. While there is a lot of dishonest posturing on the right sometimes, they are not being dishonest about this.
Well let's add to that the fact that the right does not seem to understand that tolerance =/= acceptance.
To the right if you challenge someone's ideas, if you question someone's statements, or if you hold someone accountable for speech that you disagree w/ you are automatically being intolerant. So PBO suggesting that blacks are treated different than whites and that he, therefore, wants blacks to start organizing and working together is automatically assumed to be intolerant because he's not 'accepting' the views of those who abuse him.
Look at the context in which disagreement from the right is framed the next time someone from the right wing posts a supposed defense of conservative values or a Republican. What you will notice almost automatically is that the defense is based on the idea that if you don't agree w/ that person 100% you are a tyrant and against them. There is very little belief that we can, as Jon Stewart said, have animus and not be enemies.
No, and I think you nailed it with that. It's like their opposition to marriage equality. They can't bring themselves to simply butt out of other people's personal lives because they think that to do so requires them to morally approve of same-sex relationships. They're not being asked, much less ordered, to change their views, just to mind their own damned business. But, in their minds, that places an intolerable burden on their own freedom. It's bonkers, but it's how they think.
"The speaker was George H.W. Bush,"
Exactly. You have unwittingly made the conservative case. GHWB was a RINO at best and therefore also unfit to hold office,
JC is a nazi!!
If this is all they got then, I think the President is in good shape to win the election. I think them trying to dig up dirt and coming up short is a good indication that our President is a truly decent human being. I knew this the first time I saw him smile. Fox has just become desensitized to this because it's been a long time since they have interviewed someone with a heart. Obama Cares.
I agree. Hell, even if Obama isn't a decent person, the Republicans are helping him look like one by being so stupid and petty, and they're certainly helping to make the case for his reelection.
"Why should we vote for you?"
"Well, off the top of my head, I saved the American auto industry and took out bin Laden."
"Yes, but you once said you wanted people to be nicer to each other!"
lol, Stephen. Well put!
Jesus, according to Douglas Adams, was crucified for saying people should be nicer to each other.
I'm not so sure it's possible for Republicans not to be mean spirited today, the extreme of the extreme has driven anyone with a conscience out of the party. In their perversion of the democratic process, as well as their perversion of Christianity, the "true" conservatives have taken the public position that it is their express policy to exterminate all opposition in any way necessary. They abide by no rules, laws or social mores other than survival of the fittest. When they are resisted they play the victimization card, they seem not to understand that throwing tantrums won't get them their way all the time and that short of violent coup d'etat, they are always going to be on the outside throwing ineffective rocks rather than on the inside trying to truly influence policy.
If they are afraid of Muslims I'm sure the Muslims are more afraid of them. They are even scaring me.
Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush. They praise one of 5. Yet Reagan's record is edited as well. Why would a collection like this inspire any thinking person? I know most republicans are capable of thinking. That they choose not to is scarier than if they were unable to reason.
There are animals that sleep in their own ----.
Finding this about the Uganda issue of killing someone, because they are a homosexual is a horrific thought. And some organization like the fellowship may have recommended that this be made a law in Uganda, because it is too late to do it in America is an outrage. These People want to say they are so Christian and they go against the very thing on what Jesus has even tried to teach us. It is more like the very question is - are these people who do these things are they even really Christian? Do these people know nothing of what Jesus has said? Jesus wasn’t mad or angry at homosexuals, but he was angry at the money changers. And why was that? Jesus would teach or talk to any one, he had no limits to who he spoke to, regardless if they were homosexual or not.
No wonder other Countries have embraced President Obama. Who knows what these crazy Republicans have been telling other countries. Seriously I think they should all have their heads examined, literally. Psychiatrist should set up shop at the Capitol.
The quality of wingnuttery is slipping. It's obvious Obama plagiarized George H.W. Bush. It's definitive proof that the Socialist Communist Kenyan in Chief can't speak without a teleprompter, and Bill Ayres wrote all his books. George H.W. Bush says something in 1988, and Obama stole it in 1990.
When he says, "face it, they hate you," it confirms that his audience are mean-spirited Scrooges. Which they manifestly are! Kudos to this kook for honesty!
THIS Republican party is very proud of being mean spirited and stingy. They have shown time and again that they have become morally bankrupt.
If President Obama had any skeletons in his closet, the desperate fervor with which the right has sought them would certainly have produced something by now. He may be one of the most thoroughly vetted people in history and, I'm sure to their chagrin, the right deserves that credit. The utter lack of their existence has only served to strenghten my immense respect for him, and the way he has conducted his entire life. This world needs more like him.
I live in Honolulu, and very warm hugs here are a common form of greeting. To someone from the mainland, the hugs you see at church would suggest that you were observing a sex cult with a large network of very intimate swap partners. It's a point lost on those uncomfortable with physical signs of affection- especially among men. I thought they were going to try and suggest Obama was latent, that's where Breitbart certainly wanted to go- even said he had videotapes proving it.
Anyway, by Hawaii standards, Obama's hug was pretty aloof.
Thanks for the context!
Apparently their problem is that they think this is race baiting. Obama, in the context of his speech, is talking about how he wants to organize communities and churches to work together to provide a forum and a platform for blacks to lift each other up. And apparently this means that he is saying that white people are bad people and are racists.
Hey Rachel - if you do some sentence diagramming of President Obama's 1990 comments, then you see that "mean-spirited" and "more generous" don't pertain to the word America at all - they pertain to the methods to reshape it. Rephrased, it would look like this: '"Hopefully, more and more people will begin to feel their story is somehow part of this larger story of how America could be reshaped via means that are less mean-spirited and more generous."
That is correct..the Mean Spirited Conservatives in America…of course and Obama is 100% correct as evidenced by the crowd responses in the GOP debates, the GOP’s disregard for the poor and vulnerable the bible belt with their bibles and guns…the teabaggers who careless about America’s economy and credit rating…Obama is correct conservative America is mean sprited, an embarrasment in the eyes of the rest of the World…this is why we must ensure that the conservative AynRand Virtue of Selfishness garbage in America do not rule and are thrown out of power
I love this! It seems that there is an unwritten rule that white presidents are permitted to see negative qualities in our country and hope for a brighter future, but this is somehow unpatriotic if the president is black with foreign sounding names (because regardless of what relationship he claims to have with Christ, we know he must not be a true Christian and of course must hate America). I remember this speech by George H. W. Bush. I was a junior in high school, it was the republican national convention and was inspired by him. I was proud of him, hopeful, and saw him as as "my president." I am older, my views are very different, there is a new man in the office, but I am still inspired. I see him as hopeful, empowering, and still "my president."