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Hunting the Obama Haters
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Seventy percent of Americans—even Karl Rove!—are happy with Barack Obama. But don't tell the holdouts on the left and right, who are poised for battle. Avlon is the author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America.
Barack Obama's era of good feeling rolled on this week—even Karl Rove expressed admiration for his centrist Cabinet picks.
But not everyone is singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Democracy is messy, and even when nearly 70 percent of Americans are optimistic that Obama will be a good president, there is the other 30 percent. Look beyond the sober skeptics and the principled opposition, and you'll find an ugly fringe festival on the web, cultivating the wounds left by the 2008 campaign.
While the liberal Netroots are grumbling about the insufficient radicalism in Obama's cabinet and threatening future protest, some folks on the right are pouring gasoline on the embers of the culture wars.
This is the Obama resistance. They are the hardcore haters, the unhinged, the paranoid—firing their shots from the outer-reaches of American politics and strafing the common sense center.
On the left, the self-appointed ideological enforcers are smelling a bait and switch. They see Obama's decidedly centrist Cabinet as a betrayal of his beliefs and his base. As the executive director of Moveon.org Eli Pariser told the AP: "If they turn out to be all disappointments, we'll have a good three years to storm the gates at the White House." For the new New Left, the reflexive rhetoric of Ramparts lives on.
They can already claim some scalps. Obama's campaign intelligence advisor, John Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran, who was widely believed to be a shoo-in for CIA Director, withdrew his name from consideration in part because he came under fire from the blogosphere for being inadequately opposed to terrorist interrogation techniques such as isolation, sleep deprivation, and rendition.
To be sure, a large part of the far-left’s discomfort is with the non-optional war we find ourselves in against radical Islam itself—as 60’s lefty Robert Scheer complained after the president-elect’s condemnation of the Mumbai attacks, “Unfortunately, on Monday Obama stuck with the absurd ‘War on Terror’ language he inherited from Bush.” But the most focused fire of the past week, from The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel on down, has been directed at the reappointment of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. This criticism from OpenLeft.com's Chris Bowers is typical: "Obama's retention of Gates as Secretary of Defense signals, above all, a clear unwillingness on Obama's part to engage in politically difficult fights at the start of his administration."
This perspective is consistent with a longstanding liberal Netroots Obama critique, expressed by the founder of DailyKos, Markos Moulitsas, on MSNBC after this summer's FISA vote. Moulitsas said Obama might be one of those "spineless Democrats who are ... afraid of controversy." (Moulitsas, for his part, has declared himself skeptical but not angry at the Gates reappointment.)
In the eyes of some liberal Netroot skeptics, Obama's self-described pragmatism and cool, conciliatory manner is a sellout sign of weakness, not strength. To them, the hyper-partisan politics of confrontation is a positive good, an appropriately equal and opposite reaction to the Bush administration.
Ironically, some wingnuts on the right are blaming Democrats' techniques on their newfound commitment to tear down the next President of the United States. Take one particularly unhinged culture warrior, Michael Eden of TheAmericanSentinel.com, who writes: "Barack Hussein Obama and his Democratic lackeys get to wear the bullseyes on their foreheads for the duration of the next election cycle…don't let a bunch of appallingly blatant hypocrites tell you that you owe Obama one more iota of respect than they gave Bush… It’s time to start burning down their houses and salting their fields."
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
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John Avlon’s new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the web and in paperback. Advance orders can be placed here. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
Queen of the Tea Party
John Avlon’s new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the web and in paperback. Advance orders can be placed here. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
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John Avlon’s new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the web and in paperback. Advance orders can be placed here. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
venezia
John Avlon,
the way you quoted Moveon.org's Eli, to make it sound like he was talking about Obama's "centrist" cabinet members, is willfully deceitful.
Here's the quote, in context, from AP. ""We'll see," said Eli Pariser, executive director of the liberal powerhouse Moveon.org, about what Obama will deliver. "If they turn out to be all disappointments, we'll have a good three years to storm the gates at the White House."
It's clear that Eli was talking about the future, ie once Obama is actually in office, and actually doing things, and not about the choice of cabinet members.
Regardless, why waste time on the fringes of the parties when a USAToday poll shows this:
""A USA Today/Gallup poll released December 2 found that 94 percent of Democrats "approve of the way Obama is handling his presidential transition." The poll also found that 89 percent of Democrats approve of Sen. Hillary Clinton's nomination to be secretary of state and that 79 percent of Democrats approve of Obama's decision to reappoint Defense Secretary Robert Gates.:"
cajola
I wish all these so called "haters" would wait and give the man a chance to get sworn in first before they start complaining about everything Obama has done so far.
He hands are tied until then, and not everybody is going to be happy with his choices, but time will tell whether they were right.
BernieO
I find it funny that those on the left are so shocked by Obama's transition. It was clear from his campaign that in many ways he was running in the center or even to the right of Hillary Clinton. His refusal to propose a universal health care mandate is a glaring example. The left projected their own desires onto Obama making him a real-life Chauncey Gardiner.
bencharif
I'll grant Mr. Avlon his right to think Obama critics premature, but much of the reaction isn't overreaction at all. Rather, it is an entirely appropriate attempt to separate reality from spin; to figure out what's really going on and why.
I'm less disappointed by the selection of Gates than I am wary of the policy-making of Messrs. Geithner and Summers, former champions of deregulation who claim to have seen the light and now talk in urgent tones about economic inequality.
When Eli Pariser uses the term 'storming the gates,' most people understand he's talking about organizing. Nobody on the left that I'm aware of is proposing to burn down anybody's house or threatening assassination.
This story is a making-much, in my opinion, of very little.
DonWinston
This is sick. Hate is equivalent to principle?
Banjo1
This is a phony story meant only to occupy column inches. With all there is to write about, why work the margins like this unless to keep the divisiveness going.
getalifevirginia
The writer of this article, John Avlon, is obviously drinking too much Koolaid. He's lost touch with reality.
I'm still chuckling at his "silly" comments. He's even got his statistics wrong!
SusanLaw
This is very yesterdays news
Andeeroo
John:
I appreciate and respect your comments about the vitriol against Obama during the campaign and from angry conservatives living among the potatoes. When you attack candidates personally instead of on policy it is wrong. I have not looked at your campaign reporting from Sept-Oct. but I'm sure you ran to the bullwarks for Sarah Pallin's low-brow public mockery by those on the left back in the fall. You seem a champion of fairness to our politicans.
drkaza12
Great Eisenhower quote. I agree with you that the left should always give attention to the right. As hands it's the best way to confirm your grip, which I feel Obama is attempting by issuing in a bi-partisan agenda.
The unfortunate thing to some is in any circus there can only be one ring master, and if it isn't white, then it's time to burn the tent down. Any other hue in the hippodrome confirms the ending of days and a legacy of corruptions, which we best keep on the radar; not in the cross hairs as some without hesitation on the left also contend.
An article in the L.A.Times, Nov.30, by Neal Gabler, mentions the gene of the GOP not originating in Goldwater, but in McCarthy, and finding further definition in Sarah Palin.
An "evangelical, right-wing, Oogedy-Boogedy" as refer to by Kathleen Parker, that would rather burn books than guns, that are loading up their artillery right now, offering not a debate of ideas, or a face off podium to podium, but a serious turf war.
This has got to be more than Obama being a socialist. This has got to be more than some one knocking a sandwich out of your hand or putting up a speed bump on your street without asking.
Chris Hedges at Truthdig frames the "Oogedy-Boogedy" as two America's, in which one is, "thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities"; entities only generations of diffusion will confirm in a grip, which for some on the Right, is essentially corrupt.
Howard Zinn says "Most wars, after all, present themselves as humanitarian endeavors to help people".
I'm wondering who Michael Eden is helping by rallying up people saying "It's time to start burning down their houses and salting their fields", because some one disagrees with him and was antagonistic towards the Bush and his administration.
John; I believe a house divided can not survive, and that the left has to keep vigil and fully awake regarding the Right. But I also believe the Dog that gave birth to Hitler is fully awake and charged and its gene pool can be followed back to McCarthyism.
However like Lionel Stander in front of the HUAC, we have to declare.
"My estimation of this committee is that this committee arrogates judicial and punitive powers which it does not possess".
And that looking over your shoulder to keep an eye on them is, "like the Spanish Inquisition, you may not be burned, but you can't help coming away a little singed."
Helena1940Handbasket
lol .... I have to agree with BernieO's assessment .... as I have said all along Obama is a created entity with an obvious agenda.
Enjoyed the article Mr. Avlon. I'm glad you gave equal ire to the lunatic fringe that live on the extremes of left and right. The fringes are not going anywhere, anytime soon ...... it is America after all. Cheers of the Christmas Season ....
madmonq
Let the trolling begin!
Those who weren't mentioned (and if you asked them they'd claim it was a purposeful omission) the former Hillary primary supporters AKA P.U.M.A.s. They've claimed the moral high ground of angry and confused.
Although Obama and Hillary's politics and policies are virtually identical, they're garnered a list of right and left wing grievances against him, guaranteeing none of his decisions will be correct (even after he nominates HRC as Sec of State). They were one of the first groups to intensely dislike the Commander-in-Chief elect before office and before it became popular (but after the racists).
Lotto1
Unfortunately unless the voice of lunatic fringe is not front and center at all times we as a nation will never get a chance to dialogue about important issues. I wish your article was about the people who do want to figure a way out of this mess and much much less coverage of the lunatic fringe of the population.
milkbone
How can you impeach someone who isn't even swore in yet?
Lizabeth92
Oh please. The two sides of the fridge are not comparable. One is unhappy that Obama is centrist. Not a shock to me...but hardly a real issue.
The other is claiming to love America, hiding behind their flags, bigotry and ignorance and proporting a terroristic activity.
Because last I checked, assasination of the President is a rather teroristic.
Who says they're all Eye-Rabs.
Oh right. The same inbred slack jawed yokels who claim that all gays are evil and horrible (at least until they're found gaged and splayed in their own hotel room gay-a-thons).
The same that call the Civl War the "War of Northern Agression" and really think slavery wasn't that bad. That 'negros' are much happier being subserviant and Uncle Tom-like.
The same people who think woman who live alone and do their own thing are all 'lesbos'. The ones who think the natural act of sexual intamacy = evil and impurity.
These people who pervert American Values (while dubbing themselves the St. Peter's of the Values Club) are a waste of resources. We need to start confronting what is actually the problem. Slack jawed bigots and morons like Palin.
Thank you.
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