February 13, 2009

• moving beyond wishing for failure

  It’s sort of an old news story now so most of you have probably already heard of it by now. There was an incident where Rush Limbaugh went on the air and said something along the lines of “I hope he fails” referring to the policies of the Obama administration. His words, as always were fire starters designed to rile people up. That’s how he works. But this time his words invoked a bigger response than usual and his quote has been brought up and debated all over the media. Many condemn the words. Some defend them.

  Now, I don’t really care what Rush Limbaugh says. I think the sooner people start completely ignoring him the better off we’ll all be.  But even so I’d defend his right to say whatever he feels like to my dying day and I’m not about to condemn him for wishing Obama’s policies fail and that Obama ends up being a bad President. Really that in no way surprises me at all, if anything I’m just surprised by his honesty and directness. At least he doesn’t pay bad lip service to supporting the President while stabbing him in the back when he’s not looking. Really everybody and anybody who ever listened to his program knew Limbaugh was against Obama, so why the shock and amazement?

  No what does surprise me a lot more is the idea that many Conservatives are taking up the call of “I hope he fails” as a rallying call. Taking his words as symbollic and repeating them over and over again with no shame or remorse or even a sense of conflict. To them it’s perfectly reasonable to say that they hope Obama, THEIR President, fails and they see no problem with this.

  The irony of course is amazing.

  For years, these same conservatives, perhaps most vocally Rush Limbaugh himself, were adamant in declaring liberals corrupt, evil, and dangerous because of their criticisms of the Bush administration and conservation groups and politicians. The rallying cries of these condemnations? “Liberals are Anti-American!” “Liberals just want America to Fail!” “If liberals hate America so much they should just move to Canada! (or France!)” etc. etc.

  In other words many conservatives were able to turn liberal criticisms into a mark of shame a sense of anti-patriotism, and a kind of moral failing.  The implaction was clear. If you weren’t for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the protectionist measures like the patriot act, guantanamo bay, warrantless wiretapping, torture, etc. you were implicitly wishing for the terrorists to win, and the destruction of the American way of life.

  Not ALL conservatives leveled such baseless claims, of course, only the most extreme and vociferous would stoop so low. They are the ones who claimed that liberals were fighting for the failure of our nation. Those like Rush Limbaugh.

  Many of the very same conservatives who are now are wishing for the current president to fail. 

  Don’t they see the irony?

  For surely if me saying former President Bush’s policies were destructive and dangerous implies I am hoping for another terrorist attack, then it should equally be true that someone wishing for President Obama’s policies to fail is wishing for economic collapse in the United States. Wishing for families to starve and become homeless. Wishing for businesses to collapse. Wishing for savings to be wiped out and for our position as a preeminent economic force in the world to cease.

  But of course, I don’t make such claims about conservatives because it’s obviously not true. Most conservatives want what’s best for their country just like most liberals do. It’s just that our beliefs on what those things are differ radically.

  I don’t think liberals should engage in the same base and unfounded attacks on conservatives that they were subjected to because of statements like these. I think they should rise above such devisive rhetoric. If you considered it wrong when conservatives did it to you, then it’s STILL wrong when you do it to conservatives. Turnabout is not fair play.

  But at the same time, the idea that Conservatives would try to use the “I hope he fails” phrase as a rallying cry galls me. It’s rude, inappropriate, and just plain mean. Speak about specific policies of Obama you don’t like and wish to be changed sure. But in a time where most Americans are hurting and hoping that *something* our government will do will help them at least a little, and putting so much hope and faith in this new and untried Preisdent, that’s kinda equivalent of spitting in all those people’s faces.

  Let’s put behind the era of catchy phrases and create a political dialogue of substance.

  • 8:17 pm
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