And I loved every minute of it.
I even got into a discussion with one guy who insisted that five people really didn't get shot at guns shows in North Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio last Saturday -- he claimed the press just made the whole fucking thing up, doing so at Obama's bidding. I, of course, think the fact that five gun nuts were shot while celebrating "National Gun Appreciation Day" might be the funniest thing I've ever heard and I've been laughing about it for several days now -- but I digress.
This gentleman then went on and on about how Obama is trying to take everyone's guns away and has been doing so since Day One of his presidency. I politely responded that Obama had no interest in doing anything with regard to guns until 20 six-and-seven-year old kids were riddled with bullets last month at Sandy Hook -- one six-year-old victim even had eleven bullet holes in him by the time the shooting had ended. I expected my Obama-hating friend to respond that Sandy Hook was also something that didn't happen and that the Media just pulled it out of their collective asses, but he didn't go there.
Anyway, I realized last night that there is nothing Obama can say or do that would convince these people to stop hating him. I thought perhaps that his winning a second term by an Electoral College landslide might take some of the edge off their hatred, but all the President's reelection did was piss these folks off even more. They've despised him from the first day of his presidency -- mostly because he is a Black man -- and that won't change.
So what Obama needs to do now is stop trying to make nice with these motherfuckers. He spent his first four years attempting to compromise with Republicans and trying not to come off as The Angry Black Man. Well, I think he should become the Angry Black Man during his second term. He doesn't need to run for reelection, so why not become that guy.
I heard bits of his speech yesterday, and I was struck -- and encouraged -- by his partisan tone. Not surprisingly, Republicans were unhappy with it. John McCain, for example, said, "I didn't hear any conciliatory remarks."
Conciliatory remarks? Really? Were you living in a cave for the last four years, Senator McCain? Steve Benen got it right when he wrote this today:
As for the notion that Obama should have been more "post-partisan" and made his address more Republican-friendly, I sincerely hope we're not going to let the last four years slip down the memory hole too quickly. As we discussed yesterday, Republicans spent Obama's first term on a scorched-earth campaign, hoping to destroy his presidency and nearly everything he proposed. GOP leaders met privately exactly four years ago yesterday to plot their comeback by obstructing the president wherever possible, and refusing to compromise with Obama on literally anything, even when he embraced Republican ideas -- and then they executed that plot without hesitation or shame.Fucking-A.
That the president has learned lessons from those experiences isn't a shame; it's a relief.
UPDATE: Here's some more fun stuff on how Obama's inauguration didn't sit well with certain folks yesterday:
1 comment:
I went back and looked at my own blog and I'll admit that I had similar thoughts about Bush II. I think such hatred comes from a belief that the individual in question truly does want to hurt America. In hindsight, Bush II was just an idiot that was easily manipulated and who really just wanted to help out his friends. I've been thinking a lot lately that America really isn't as divided as people say, we just keep hearing the mantra "Americans are deeply divided." I don't think so. Most polling shows that a large percentagge (60% to 70%) of Americans want common sense solutions to most problems. The problem is that people on the fringe control the dialogue. Moderation is boring and doesn't generate viewership. Extreme blowhard politics does.
Post a Comment