Barack Obama seemed remarkably upbeat the other day as he left for his first formal vacation as president. It's true that this is one of the coolest cats the world has ever seen, always apparently comfortable in his own skin, unflappable, dignified, whatever the winds swirling around him.
But that doesn't mean he's always right, and there are plenty of reasons to fear that he's very wrong if he doesn't think he's in big, deep trouble.
It's hard when discussing American politics not to want to break into constant superlatives, as in “the craziest” this or “the most extreme” that. I saw a clip the other day of conservative bloviator Charles Krauthammer asserting as a matter of indisputable fact that if Obama lost the health-care battle his administration was over. Full stop. Over. May as well turn the keys of the White House over to Sarah Palin. Yet it's barely half a year since his inauguration and 3½ to go. This is as preposterous a comment as is conceivable – you see, superlatives are already inescapable – yet his fellow pundits on the panel all mindlessly agreed.
What is true is that the U.S. President and the presidency are in great jeopardy, but not from the health-care battle as such. There are an abundance of dire warning signs.
First, the number of threatened assassinations is apparently several times greater than ever before, although the Secret Service seems strangely blasé about the weapons it allows people to carry at Obama's meetings. Would Clint Eastwood have permitted guys to attend carrying pistols, semi-automatic assault rifles, and signs saying “It's time to water the tree of liberty”? The allusion is to the revolutionary slogan coined by that old subversive Tom Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants.” In practice, since Jefferson, only right-wingers can get away with such comments, because they're the patriots. If you're progressive and dare try, you're on the side of tyranny and terrorism, and treated accordingly.
A man carries an assault rifle during a Barack Obama opposition rally in Phoenix on Aug. 17, 2009 — Associated Press
Second, many millions of right-wing Americans are so viscerally hostile to Obama as to be barely under control. These range from “moderate” conservatives to radical conservatives to out-of-their-tree nutbar conservatives to apocalyptic Christian conservatives to violence-prone anti-gay and anti-choice cultural conservatives to plain old racists who can't stomach a black man becoming president. Remember that fully 46 per cent of all Americans voted against Obama, even knowing that Sarah Palin had a real crack at inheriting the presidency from an aging John McCain. And large numbers have never and will never accept the right of Barack Obama to be their president.
We forget, I sense, how bitter, extreme and hysterical his opponents were during that campaign. Remember their violent and menacing language – “Terrorist! Treason! Off with his head!” This wasn't just throw-away rhetoric. Sarah Palin's call to “real Americans” to oppose Obama – who obviously was not a real American – was not mere campaign rabble-rousing. It was what millions believed about this ultra-sophisticated black man – an uppity you-know-what, as far as they were concerned.
The campaign against a minimally progressive health-care plan is the opportunity to lash out for that huge number of hate-filled Americans who will never accept this man as their president. They challenge his American birthright. They carry weapons to his meetings. They call him a Nazi or Communist and paint toothbrush moustaches on his photos. They compare him to Hitler and Stalin. Here's Pastor Rick Joyner on alleged health-care changes: “Hitler and Stalin would have loved to have a means such as this for dispatching the millions they killed.” They want him out, and they're not too fussy about how.
