Via Instapundit I found Kate Allison Granju account of how struck she was by President Bush’s recent graciousness toward President-Elect Obama. I give her full kudos for her kind words. It sets a good tone and shows a smidge of graciousness herself.
Nevertheless it’s hard not to be bitter. Throughout his entire tenure as President, and for that matter as President-elect and as Governor of Texas, what has always been most obvious to President Bush’s supporters, and also to many of his non-supporters before they went absolutely bonkers and started screaming hateful divisive garbage about how he “lied us into war” and “used 9/11 to scare us,” is that he’s always been an uncommonly warm and gracious and civil politician, to his political enemies and detractors in the media as much as to anyone else.
In my entire lifetime I’ve never seen a President subjected to such hateful, nasty, irrational bile. I understand that Lyndon Johnson got as bad or worse as far as hateful bile spewed at him, but I am not quite old enough to remember it so I can only read about it (“hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today?”).
It used to infuriate me how this kind and decent man was treated, and I used to resent it; now it just makes me bitter and cynical in ways I wish I weren’t. Politics in Washington is nasty, nasty business, and no matter how much those on one side of the aisle or the other claim they want to change the tone, the tone rarely operates outside of a range from “tepid hostility” to “shrieking out-of-control rage,” with the tendency mostly toward the latter.
I of course am no fan of Obama, but I’ve been trying pretty regularly on this blog to say nice things about him even if I criticize him for the promises he’s already broken, the cynicism he’s engendered, and the sad way he won the election. But Barack Obama is a gracious and decent man, and I expect him to do his best to do right by the country and leave a legacy he can be proud of. And in the end, that’s a worthy goal for all of us.
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Dean:
I personally intend to try to treat Obama with respect and graciousness, but I won’t shed a tear if he gets the same treatment Bush got. And whether it is with extreme prejudice or not, I think the Republicans should fight his agenda to their very last vote.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Word association?
I also intend to treat Obama with the respect the office demands; but I will harshly criticize him on policy mistakes and screw ups. They won’t be of the "Chimpy McHitler"/"Bush lied, people died!"/"Oh no, concentration camps!" kind, but I will be critical.
I think most conservatives/libertarians will (save for the lunatic fringe). We are at heart different from the Kos Kids or the Huffsters in that we don’t put our dislike/hatred of the man over all other considerations (self, country, family etc); at some point we realize the damage we could do is just too much. For us Cons it’ll be old hat, kinda like the Clinton years redux (and yes, some went way too far back then but no where near as far as Bush’s opponents)
What I’m interested in knowing is what are the ODS sufferers going to do now? Are they going to savage Palin even though she lost? Answer: probably. Will they continue to attack Bush when he’s out of ofice? Answer: Yes, it’ll be his fault even up to ‘16 for every and all hardships in the world big or small.
I think that it’s important to treat Obama with the respect that his office deserves, when actually talking with him.
When talking to Obama supporters, I’m as yet undecided about the morality of talking about how he sells cocaine in order to pay for his kitten-mulching habit. That seems more to be a matter of showing disrespect to the people that you’re talking to, than to Obama himself.
The name of the Lord God is sacred, but I don’t recall anything which says that the name of the president of the United States is sacred. At least, I don’t recall anything in the 10 commandments which prohibits taking the name of Obama in vain.
I meant BDS sufferers. Oi!
I’m not bitter at all, but I’m a mushy, middle-guy, who culturally is a Dem, but over the last decades has slowly moved rightward, hovering in the center. So, it’s easy for me to not be bitter and probably means nothing.
Hail to the Chief!
HB
p.s. However, I do strenuously oppose the Obama hype. If he DOES good things, I will absolutely not withhold credit. If he DOES crappy things (like try to impose Chicago machine Dem politics  at the National level), I will heartily criticize. I ain’t into cult of personalities.
I’m trying hard not to say anything bad, OR good, about Obama until noon on January 21.
I figure he deserves at least 24 hours on the job before I offer up an opinion on his presidency…..
jay:
Yeah, I remember how the Democrats waited patiently for Bush to take office too…
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Word association?
Good point, Jay. On the other hand, I think of his promise to accept spending limits, only to throw them out the window when he realized big-money doners could get him record cash–and then tried to play that off as everyday people just throwing him money. Pah! What really happened is MoveOn and multiple other deep-pocket companies gave him no money–instead they gave him free phone banks and free email lists, run by themselves at their cost, to get money for him. In essence, mullions upon millions of dollars in free support McCain had no chance of duplicating, but that they spin as nothing but spontaneous internet donations by his campaign itself.
While McCain kept his promise, even though he didn’t have to and arguably would have done better not to. There’s justice in it though; McCain/Feingold, the law that made this dishonest, crooked campaign finance system possible, helped undo him in the money department. But one man kept his promise, the other didn’t.
But ah, in classic politician style, he pivoted like crazy and ran away from his base the moment he’d gotten the primary sewn up. He screwed ‘em on Iraq, and half of them thanked him for it. (Showing, maybe, they didn’t really give a damn about Iraq all along, just about hating Bush?)
The relentless way he trashed Hillary–then took on the positions he trashed her for? Classic. I’m sure some rabid Republican Clinton haters enjoyed that. Not me.
Or how his questionable and possibly corrupt past as a Chicago poll got portrayed as outrageous and out of bounds, but they dug through Sarah Palin’s garbage looking for the least little thing?
Oh, I could go on but why bother? As I say, politics is a nasty, nasty business and Obama is the quintessentially typical politician, capping it all off with creating the illusion that he isn’t one.
A nicer guy than Bill though. And gracious and funny in some ways. Empty suit brought into power on charisma and that’s all I see so far.
But ya know what? Let’s see what his first year or two brings. Maybe he’ll be great. I’d like to think so.
Dean,
Sad way Obama won the election? Can you elaborate? I’ve never heard it put like that and I’d like to know where you’re coming from.
Dean,
I also have a question. Why do you think that McCain could not have duplicated what the Obama campaign had with MoveOn, etc.?
George the 1st was legendary for his graciousness, hundreds of hand signed thank you notes, phone calls and the like.
I guess some of that passed down to the son. Though G2 didn’t seem to pick up on any of his fathers knack for working well with others.
Bobby
http://www.idlewordship.com
bobby:
In Texas "G2" was universally acclaimed for reaching across the aisles and forging workable compromises. His rise to national prominence was in large part fueled by the nice things Democrats in Texas said about him.
The first thing he did as President was invite the Democrat’s most powerful partisans, including Ted Kennedy, to the White House where he did his level best to build a relationship that would lead to productive partnerships.
The fact that Democrats spit in his eye because of their bitterness over the election results says more about Democrats than it does about "G2" in my opinion.
The vilification of GWB became a core Democrat strategy, and they stuck to it for eight years. It has proven to be very successful.
Don’t be surprised if Republicans return the favor.
Although I don’t think they will, because in general I believe Republicans are simply more civil than Democrats. Democrats are much more the "ends justifies the means" party imho. Republicans by and large still believe that means are judged on their own merit.
But as I said, eventually Republicans are likely to decide that whether they approve of the means or not, if it’s the only way to play the game, they’ll have to play it themselves.
Frankly I won’t lose a night’s sleep if Republicans turn the tables on the Obama administration. Part of me would say “it’s about time you idiots showed some balls.”
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