bobbyw24
04-19-2010, 04:47 AM
By W. James Antle, III on 4.19.10 @ 6:09AM
Furrowing his brow at the protesters rudely demonstrating their ingratitude to benevolent old Uncle Sam, Bill Clinton decided to take a trip down memory lane. While others indulge their 1990s nostalgia by watching Seinfeld reruns and listening to Hootie and the Blowfish CDs, Clinton prefers to repeat his favorite smears of anyone uncouth enough to criticize the government from the right.
Then as now, our leaders had to deal with a fearsome tide of antigovernment extremism. Today we have Michelle Bachmann, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota. Back then, it was Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and a Democratic president who stood up and announced the end of the "era of big government."
Well, never mind that last example. But Clinton is concerned that his former sidekick Al Gore made things worse with his prized invention. "Because of the Internet, there is this vast echo chamber and our advocacy reaches into corners that never would have been possible before," Clinton told the New York Times. The unwashed masses lapping up this advocacy may be "serious and seriously disturbed."
Protest against a Republican-run federal government, no matter how intemperate, is patriotic. Protest against Democratic-controlled government leads inexorably Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. No matter how anfractuous the logic, the fact that such protest is now widespread is what has Clinton seriously disturbed.
Such splendid demagoguery worked wonders for Clinton back in 1995, when he shamelessly exploited McVeigh's atrocities to turn back rising conservative and populist opposition to his agenda. But this latest rendition also serves to remind those who cannot tell the difference between a Tea Party protest and a Klan rally that things weren't much different the last time a liberal president tried to govern, even though that president was Southern and white.
Despite Clinton's pasty whiteness, the liberal line of attack wasn't much different. Then as now, all conservative opposition was really just the thinly veiled racism of "angry white males." This held true even when the issue at hand had no obvious racial connotations. Right before the 1994 elections, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) told a Manhattan audience that the Klan's white hoods had been replaced with "black suits and red ties."
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/04/19/crying-hate-suppressing-debate
Furrowing his brow at the protesters rudely demonstrating their ingratitude to benevolent old Uncle Sam, Bill Clinton decided to take a trip down memory lane. While others indulge their 1990s nostalgia by watching Seinfeld reruns and listening to Hootie and the Blowfish CDs, Clinton prefers to repeat his favorite smears of anyone uncouth enough to criticize the government from the right.
Then as now, our leaders had to deal with a fearsome tide of antigovernment extremism. Today we have Michelle Bachmann, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota. Back then, it was Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and a Democratic president who stood up and announced the end of the "era of big government."
Well, never mind that last example. But Clinton is concerned that his former sidekick Al Gore made things worse with his prized invention. "Because of the Internet, there is this vast echo chamber and our advocacy reaches into corners that never would have been possible before," Clinton told the New York Times. The unwashed masses lapping up this advocacy may be "serious and seriously disturbed."
Protest against a Republican-run federal government, no matter how intemperate, is patriotic. Protest against Democratic-controlled government leads inexorably Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. No matter how anfractuous the logic, the fact that such protest is now widespread is what has Clinton seriously disturbed.
Such splendid demagoguery worked wonders for Clinton back in 1995, when he shamelessly exploited McVeigh's atrocities to turn back rising conservative and populist opposition to his agenda. But this latest rendition also serves to remind those who cannot tell the difference between a Tea Party protest and a Klan rally that things weren't much different the last time a liberal president tried to govern, even though that president was Southern and white.
Despite Clinton's pasty whiteness, the liberal line of attack wasn't much different. Then as now, all conservative opposition was really just the thinly veiled racism of "angry white males." This held true even when the issue at hand had no obvious racial connotations. Right before the 1994 elections, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) told a Manhattan audience that the Klan's white hoods had been replaced with "black suits and red ties."
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/04/19/crying-hate-suppressing-debate