Perhaps the best thing for my sanity would be to not watch Fox News or read articles passed on to me from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Post, or even to react quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.

 

Rush, of course, has been quoted as saying that he hopes Obama fails. Do we need to pay attention to such madmen? He’s like the little boy who pulls his pants down to gain attention.

 

Recently, Elizabeth, the blonde, right wing apologist on The View defended Rush, stating that he has the right to say what he said. Well, no one is denying his right. It is his sanity that’s in question. She also argued that “liberals” were critical of Bush, and, indeed she is correct. But we were critical of his failed policies, of his war based on lies, the failure to respond to Katrina, the tax cuts for the wealthiest, his allowing torture to be inflicted, his abandonment of the Bill of Rights and the politicization of the judiciary…his being oblivious of climate change, and arguing against stem cell research, and then there was the economic collapse under his administration after Clinton had erased the deficit.

 

We weren’t rooting for failure. We were witness to it! There is a major difference. No one wanted to lose the war in Iraq. What we didn’t want to lose were young American lives.

 

Last week, the right wing loonies, self-described as conservatives, gathered in the nation’s capital…and the usual suspects were ubiquitous on network TV, including Rush and Ann Coulter. Much of what I heard sounding like excerpts from Mein Kampf. One of the predictable blasts was against the media, controlled by the liberals. But here they were getting full coverage.

 

In the same week, Amy Goodman on Democracy Now covered another gathering in DC, which seemed to have little media coverage. Twelve thousand college and high school youngsters had gathered, confronting and discussing the assault on the Earth by abusers of the air. They sounded creative, informed and responsive...exactly what President Obama has called for…an involved, alert citizenry. But while the cameras were focused on the loonies, the kids were making history. So, the question I pose is this…Is the public buying the irresponsible opposition of O’Reilly, Coulter, Karl Rove, Dick Morris and their ilk…all of whom seem oblivious of the disaster inflicted on this nation by 8 years of Bush-Cheney?

 

And what planet are they on? This nation enjoyed reasonable prosperity under Clinton and it all went up in smoke. The challenge, of course, is whether Obama will get some help from the other side of the aisle, as he continues to reach out. So far, those two nice women in Maine, Republicans both, seem to be the only GOP sign of interest in nation over party.

 

When I first became aware of government and politics, the Democratic leaders were Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, and Mrs. Roosevelt. They regarded the Republicans as the opposition, not the enemy. Bob Taft was the conservative leader and had everyone’s respect. He would have cringed at the tactics of Cheney or Tom DeLay.

 

There is an irony in all of this. They accused liberals of being un-American and there they are…rooting against America…sending scurrilous cartoons about the President around the internet. They are not the responsible opposition. They are self-serving traitors, and in the case of Rush Limbaugh, a pill-popping loony.

(I bring up his drug history only because he was merciless years ago when baseball star Darryl Strawberry was battling his demons.)

 

When some of us challenged the war, we were faced with wild accusations when what we really wanted to bring the troops home. Yes, Limbaugh has the right to speak – Bush didn’t get to that one – but he is dangerous and irresponsible, and a traitor. We have to stop mincing our words in defining irresponsible, dangerous traitorous loonies.

 

The President will continue to reach out to the other party…even if they don’t seem to get it, and I suspect that the American public, with no happy economic endings in sight, might be waking up.

 

 

I’m David Rothenberg…out on a limb.