Last week Neil Munro of a internet rag called the Daily Caller heckled the President during a speech. The rag, which is the brain child of attention whore Tucker Carlson has a reputation for being sensational in its reporting but this is a symptom of something much worse. This is just another in a long line of people who seem to show no respect for the office of the Presidency since President Obama was elected. But first let's go back to Munro. His low-life tactics have been roundly criticized by the likes of Chris Wallace and Bernie Goldberg, two conservative news people who frankly I don't have nice things to say about usually but they got this right. Goldberg went so far to say that if he was his boss, he would have fired Munro before he got back to the office. But what did Munro's real boss, Carlson do? He tweeted: “We are very proud of, @NeilMunroDC for doing his job.”
Really? You are proud of him for being a rude child during a Presidential speech? At the White House Rose Garden? Really? Well Tucker, maybe your bowtie is too tight because if you truly were a newsman you would see where the line is between being an aggressive reporter and punk. Yeah, You and Munroe are simply punks with funding and a webpage. Nice. You think you are some how relevant, I guess if that were the case maybe your friends wouldn't have to continue to distance themselves from you. But then someone who criticized a comedian for not being a proper reporter in the past probably doesn't understand the duty of a reporter.
Now the right wing noise machine jumped on the Munroe bandwagon right away, calling him some kind of hero. My favorite was likening it to Sam Donaldson's famous questioning of Reagan. I will make a donation to one of Karl Rove's anti-Democratic Super PACs if anyone can produce evidence that ever happened. But if you suggest it did and fail to prove you must donate to Obama for America. You see while people like Donaldson and later Gregory and President Bush had heated exchanges, they never interrupted the President during a speech at the White House. I remember the era of Reagan and the fundamental disgust some reporters had for his unwillingness to answer tough questions. But I never saw the President get treated like this.
However it is not the first time. Rep. Joe Wilson yelling out during a joint session of Congress calling the President a liar. He is a particularly interesting character having once lied on C-Span when another Congressman mentioned that the US helped provide Iraq with chemical and biological weapons in the past. Wilson's response was "This hatred of America by some people is just outrageous. And you need to get over that." He later had to apologize for this lie and for the smearing of a great many Americans who were troubled by the efforts to prop up Saddam under the Reagan Administration. He was seen as a right wing hero. Then the is Rep. Joe Walsh who said the President got elected because he was black, who takes every waking moment to be critical of anything the President touches, who is a darling of the conservatives and yet is among other things: a. a critic of veterans even attacking his opponent for Congress, a disabled veteran and former Black Hawk pilot asking "What else has she done?" and of course saying any veterans in the Occupy movement are anti-American. b. Owes over $100,000 in child support, (family values seem to be keeping what I value from my family) for him. c. He defaulted on a mortgage and then had the nerve to say it makes him more in touch with the average person. He too is a hero of the right and I have no doubt that when he loses this fall he will have a nice chair at the right wing think tank and probably a noise machine radio or TV gig.
This is what the Presidency has become and it makes me wonder. Through LBJ's abrasiveness, Nixon's criminality, Carter's almost comical micromanaging, Reagan's arrogant detachment, Clinton's various scandals and Bush's election fiasco there were many who questioned the Presidents of my lifetime and even their legitimacy. But I do not recall the way the office was trashed by people inside the system. Yeah some nuts burned President Bush in effigy, I wore pins questioning President Reagan's mental stability, and Late Night comedy thrived over cigars and interns under Clinton but we never saw Bob Woodward try to shout down the President, we never saw Howard Metzenbaum question President's Reagan during a speech. These were just not done until Obama came to office.
But the climate is ripe. Leaders in the Republican party have said he lied about his birth record calling the government of the state of Hawaii liars as well as the President. We have seen people like Franklin Graham, an insider in GOP politics suggest the President is lying about his religion and we have seen the GOP candidate for President of the United State who lost to President Obama say just this past Sunday that attacks on him that were unfair 4 years ago are find for this guy. So I have to ask, can some one please point out to me why THIS PRESIDENT who while we can easily disagree on policy with is not being attacked on policy but as a person. Why have so many people felt the decorum that comes with the office can be ignored and why those people are becoming heroes. HELP.
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