Apology Accepted

The cat apparently has Rush Limbaugh's tongue. In a deafening roar of silence we hear none of his bloated blather about the "Obama recession" after the market rose nearly 800 points in two days in a vote of confidence for the president-elect. The economic team of seasoned experts that Obama has put in place has stepped in to fill the gaping canyon of incompetence left behind by a clueless president Bush. The market was free-falling in the face of Bush's deer-in-the-headlights approach to leadership, with no bottom in sight. Who among us could not feel a bit creepy when listening to Bush after his meeting with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who "invited him for some coffee." All Bush could muster was a few syntax-challenged bombastic generalities about these being "tough times" and banalities about us "getting through it." Such colossal cluelessness makes one's skin crawl. While not yet president, Obama had to step into this void to calm international financial centers, and he did so with his trademark calm and poise. The world could only wonder at the contrast between a diminished Bush standing confused at the bottom of the Treasury stairs, and a confident, knowledgeable, and forceful Obama leading a meaningful and purposeful press conference, in full command of the facts.

In spite of this evident disparity in ability between the current president and his successor, Rush's grotesque assertion about the cause of our economic woes apparently works in only one direction. When the market plummets, Obama is at fault, even a few days after being elected and three months before taking office. You see, Rush makes the surrealistic claim that for two years people have anticipated an Obama election and have been holding back investments for fear of a socialist revolution. According to Rush, eight years of criminal negligence at the White House, ballooning debts, record deficits, subprime lending, rampant deregulation and $1 trillion of hidden credit default swaps had nothing to do with the implosion on Wall Street. No, Obama was to blame. But when we see an uptick, a growth in confidence, and a strong rally in stocks unambiguously in response to Obama's actions, Rush is mum, or more bizarrely, ranting about big government. Rush's contact with reality has been completely severed. His listeners are equally suspect if they take anything he says seriously. Perhaps some tune in simply for the clownish entertainment offered up by a madman unable to control his urges for food, drugs or demagoguery.

But Rush is not alone in his erroneous claims about Obama. Sarah Palin accused Obama of "palling around with domestic terrorists." If we are to accuse a man through guilt by association, exactly what Palin did, we would now have to consider Obama's suspicious ties to Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, James Jones and Robert Gates. That is quite a group of terrorists.

McCain repeatedly accused Obama of being a socialist hell bent on redistributing wealth. Yet his Cabinet choices are all seasoned centrists who value moderation. All have experience reaching across the aisle. Not one word from Obama since the election would warrant concern about "socialist tendencies." Claims of socialism during the campaign were purely bogus, and rather embarrassing for the accusers in the face of reality.

Obama was simultaneously accused of being a Muslim and a radical Christian, with the contradiction never explored or explained. We will ignore the odd fact that Palin never mentioned McCain's association with preacher John Hagee while tying Obama to Jeremiah Wright. We will also leave unexplored for now the offensive idea that simply adhering to one religion would be automatically disqualifying. The fact remains Obama is not Muslim, and those making that claim knew it to be false. Nor is Obama a radical Christian. He is a loving father and decent family man.

The McCain campaign, in cooperation with the Bush Administration, got the FBI illegally involved in a bogus claim of voter fraud. That issue was quickly dropped from the news cycle when the Obama campaign challenged the validity of the claim and the use of the FBI to influence the outcome of an election with hints of Watergate.

So the right-wing world of pundits on talk radio and biased news reporters on Fox News and the O'Reilly Factor, and in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the Weekly Standard, the American Spectator and the New Republic all want to apologize. They are sorry for their exaggerations, half-truths and outright fabrications. They are sorry for being wrong about Obama on every count. He is not Muslim. He is not radical. He is not a socialist. He will not raise taxes on the middle class and small businesses. He is not a Communist. He does not want to socialize medicine. He does not pal around with terrorists. He lives in "real" America. The past eight years are not an Obama recession.

The right has never been so wrong. So I am sure they want to apologize. Otherwise we would have to conclude they hate America, do not support our troops, hope for the economy to fail, want us to declare defeat in Iraq, and don't live in real America, right? After all, the right believes if we do not agree with them, we are not patriots, so the inverse would have to be true, too, no? Either that, or the idea is absurd and wrong on both counts, meaning that questioning an opponent's love of country is vile and the sign of a small mind.

So while an apology remains stuck in their throats, I know the words are anxious to come out. So I accept. Now with their gracious apology behind us, we can move forward.

Comments

[tompoe]

Jeff: What are you talking about? they hate America, do not support our troops, made sure the economy failed, declared defeat in Iraq, and don't live in real America. None of that can be apologized away. Anymore than they shredded our Constitution, and can simply apologize and move on. Accountability is not an apology. On September 19, 2008, Paulson demanded entitlement for Bush's going away present for his cronies. That's the day the Party of Small Government admitted they're the Party of Corporate Welfare. America does not tolerate corporate welfare. Those who apologize, and think we can move along, need to find another party to join. The Party of Corporate Welfare is a non-starter at this point. We'll clean up the mess, but never will we forgive those who took Habeas Corpus and flushed it down the toilet, took torture and raised it to a virtue, took domestic surveillance and made it a feature, took civil society and made it a police state.

[Jeff Schweitzer - Huffpost Blogger]

I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek, making it clear that they would never and could never apologize for the horrors of the past eight years.

[txbluedot]

"All Bush could muster was a few syntax-challenged bombastic generalities about these being "tough times" and banalities about us "getting through it."

Substitute "Palin" for "Bush" in this sentence... that is what we would get in 2012 if she were to run and win. More of the same!! Frightening! People, wake up!

[LeftRight]

I find it most amusing that the only times they used the word "recession" before the election were to claim that we weren't IN a recession. Suddenly after Obama was elected, however, we were in a recession and it was ALL Obama's fault!!!

[Jeff Schweitzer - Huffpost Blogger]

Exactly. Right wing Republicans selectively use reality and fantasy to justify their failed philosophy. They have no shame. They twist the truth, fabricate facts and have no hesitation to embrace hypocrisy. Limbaugh's comments on the recession, though, were unusually over the top, one of the most insane proclamations to come from a disturbed man.