Obama vs. the 'Outside Agitators'

Readers may have noticed that, during the past seven or eight months, the tradition of honorable dissent in American political life seems to have become dishonorable.

Disagreement with the administration is no longer the Higher Patriotism but the Lower Patriotism--a form of opportunism dressed up as hypocrisy. Indeed, criticism of the president is no longer a healthy symptom of democracy but an irresponsible (some would argue treasonous) act of political sedition. Right-thinking people agree: We have only one president at a time, and his success is the country's success; his failure is the fault of embittered partisans.

If readers detect a smidgen of cynicism in THE SCRAPBOOK's attitude here, there's good reason. This sea change in principles seems to have coincided with the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as president. Whereas it was once lively and brave and culturally imperative to depict George W. Bush as Hitler, complete with swastikas and squared-off moustache, or cast aspersions on the character, intelligence, morals, and family life of Bush or Dick Cheney or Karl Rove, it appears to be something approaching a hate crime to depict President Obama in anything less than hagiographical mode.

Which is why THE SCRAPBOOK is enjoying itself so much these days. As the various Obama initiatives--socialized medicine, "stimulus" spending, cap-and-trade--grow less and less popular with the voting populace, yesterday's bulging-vein, red-in-the-face Bush-haters are discovering that public discontent manifests itself today in old-fashioned, tried-and-true, rough-and-tumble methods: booing congressmen at town meetings and shouting down weaselly answers, holding up signs in front of television cameras, marching in protest--even criticizing President Obama on the Internet!

And yet, instead of celebrating these tributes to the dissenting spirit of the antiwar movement of the 1960s or acts of civil disobedience for civil rights, the left has chosen to react like Uncle Harry when his son came home from college wearing a beard. Here is the communications director of the Democratic National Committee, Brad Woodhouse:

Republicans . . . are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America.

And here is the Washington Post's designated socialist op-ed columnist, Harold Meyerson:

[R]ight-wing Republicans stormed a number of . . . meetings across the country, shouting down members of the House and, in Philadelphia, Sen. Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius. In Austin, protesters blocked Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett's car and made it impossible for him to talk to constituents about such matters as appointments to military academies.

Sounds more like Aunt Harriet than Red Harold. Yes, not only did "rabid" protestors "shout down" Sen. Arlen Specter, and "disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care," they were following the orders of unnamed "K Street lobbyists" and other outside agitators, and preventing Lloyd Doggett from talking about West Point! Somehow, Obama's supporters--you might call them the silent majority--just aren't able to cut through all the noise.

Readers may ask, where have we heard this before? Well, turn the clock back a few revolutions, and the voice of Richard M. Nixon may be heard, complaining about the decibel level of protestors and pleading for a national conversation.

In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another--until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

That, of course, was from Nixon's first Inaugural Address (1969)--and if we may say so, the communications director of the Democratic National Committee, Brad Woodhouse, couldn't have said it better.

Appeasing North Korea