Oh Dear Our National Conversation Has Turned Into a Pub Brawl - in 2 parts

Part II

I actually got worse. A women accused the President of following a Nazi policy and asked the gay Jewish Congressman why he too supported this Nazi policy, which does not exist in any of the bills working their way through congress. And, I have been hearing commentary that Barney Frank was rude and disrespectful. Cong. Frank does not have to suffer such fools. It also turns out the Hitler/Obama photo she was flashing around is a product of the Lyndon Larouche people. Google/Bing that name. These wackos have been haunting the Democratic Party for decades. These people are so far out there that they make junky radio top talkers and Glen Beck seem like fun loving progressives.


The history of this type of rude political discourse has a very long history in this country. In fact, it goes back to the beginning of the republic. In the beginning each faction had their own newspapers and many of the leaders within the factions had their own newspapers. These people would write such really awful and disgusting things about their opponents it would sicken many of my gentle readers. The accusations were made in such colorful terms and the not so subtle innuendo were so bold that many husbands would not let their wives read such things.


This continued well in to the 19th century and in some cases continues today, an example would be the NY Post, but the crap they write is Disneyesque compared to what our noble founding fathers wrote about each other.


Andrew Jackson's opponents were so harsh his wife Rachel died from stress of the attacks, Buchanan was referred to as an Aunt Nancy, Lincoln was mocked for his looks and lack of education, Grant was called a drunk, Cleveland had baby daddy sayings chanted about him, Taft had fat jokes, Harding was mocked as stupid (he was), Coolidge for his silent ways, FDR for his charming ways, Truman for his height, Johnson's supporters chanted In Your Guts You Know He's Nuts about Goldwater and ran the Daisy ad. Eisenhower was called stupid, despite his winning the war in Europe, Johnson's big ears. Kennedy was a Papist, his brother a N-word lover. Mario Cuomo's supporters in the race for mayor hung posters that read Vote for Cuomo Not the Homo. All candidates were called traitors by the other side.


In the spirit of full disclosure, I too participated in such behavior and I am none too proud of my actions. In 1968 I gathered some of my fourth grade classmates and we walked to a few polling places and I led the chant "Humphrey Humphrey He's Our Man - Nixon Belongs In the Garbage Can." I am not proud of this dark moment in this nations political discourse but I thought every one should know the shame I have been living with all these years.


This new era of nastiness can be traced back to the darkest of all our our modern political leaders, Richard M. Nixon. His dirty tricks committee really set the ball in motion for what our politics and political discourse has become. Many of those folks are still around and active today, Charles Colson, G. Gordon Liddy and Pat Buchanan to name a few. Another Nixon protege GHW Bush was so desperate to win he allowed the Willy Horton ad, spread Kitty Dukakis was a drunk and a Flag burner rumors and demonized the ACLU.


This was followed by 8 years of relentless attacks as well as costly and pointless investigations of the Clinton's that led to the impeachment trail of a President for not telling the truth about not being faithful in his marriage. It also led to the rise of the politics of personal destruction led by the very moral and strong family man Newt Gingrich. Then of course the Democrats could not rise above it and they destroyed the career of Robert Bork, tried to destroy Clarence Thomas and used threw the Nazi terms about Bush around pretty liberally.


Now that we have elected a black man President all restraints have been stripped away. I fear we have not reached our lowest point but where else can they go after the birthers. I shudder.


This seedy side of political discourse is as old as this great republic. It just that now the mean little people seem to be really stupid and lack much of the cleverness of the past 250 years of town hall shouters.

I suspect there may be a part III