September 12, 2010

The Blame Game

This steaming pile of excrement arrived in my Time magazine yesterday.

Shorter Mark Halperin: Blame the victim

I've highly enjoyed Obama's latest speeches and press conference; it's about time he started piling on the Republicans. There's no shame in calling your opponent an "unprincipled chucklehead" (as Halperin puts it) if that is, in fact, what they are. Halperin admits this in an earlier paragraph.

Republicans aren't suggesting Obama's ideas are bad. Sticking to House minority leader John Boehner's playbook, they are simply dodging any action that might improve the President's standing.

But instead of suggesting that the Party of Obstructionists might actually consider, you know, not obstructing,
Halperin resorts to the time-honored technique of blaming the victim. That is, now that the President has finally lost patience and is nailing the Repubs for what they're doing (and have been doing since he took office) somehow the Republican stonewalling is all Obama's fault, just because he hurt their pwecious fweelings. 

This is patent nonsense. For myself, I don't mind "contemptuous rhetoric" in the least, especially when it's directed at those who so clearly deserve it. I don't know if shaming Boehner and his tone-deaf crowd is going to do much good in the sense of getting them to do what's right for the country, but at the least it will expose them for what they are.

Keep it up, Mr. President.

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