There was a time not long ago when it was utterly beyond the pale in American politics to suggest, for example, that one's habitual claims of being one election away from emigration might not be the strongest evidence of a citizen's patriotism. Dissent is patriotic, we were incessantly lectured, even the sort of patriotism that only considers your country worth living in when your team is in charge. Well, that's all out the window now, as Wanda Sykes, in a "comedy" routine at the White House Press Correspondents' dinner, (in which the comedians traditionally roast the sitting president), blusters that Rush Limbaugh is a treasonous terrorist who ought to be tortured. Oh, and she wishes he would die. Painfully. All this because he has stated that he hopes Obama fails. I genuinely can't understand why the Obots have such a hard time understanding this: did these people spend eight years dutifully wishing success upon the policies of George W. Bush? Did any of us expect them to? Good grief! Sykes:
Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails. So you're saying, 'I hope America fails', you're, like, 'I don't care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq'. He just wants the country to fail.Leftists blithely equate one politician's ambitions with the entirety of the American enterprise, yet seem completely baffled when people suggest there's something creepily totalitarian about this. This is the definition of totalitarianism, after all, the idea that the entire nation is represented in this one man. I fear for the future.
2 comments:
I think you're off mark with assuming partisan lines in this issue. It is an American epidemic, our politics are a commodity, and in this country, most people put a great stake of their sense of self in their possessions.
Beyond that, there are worse hypocracies to consider, the rhetoric of both parties is venemous to say the least.
There are about a million montages available for you to view in your self-publishing site of choice, which include the pundits and talking heads of the right-wing media, echoing Wanda Sykes' remarks to the tee, referencing the growing dissent amongst Americans during our last presidency.
What is disturbing is that our Pundits aren't held to a stronger judge than The Daily Show.
There is hate, real hate being stewed in our media institutions on both sides of the party line,
and for my Lefty part in things,
even I fear more for the moral wealth of my country than our shared economic survival.
I think the important thing to remember is that Wanda Sykes isn't funny.
But I'm with Matt Yglesias on this: the only possible justification for the WHCA dinner is to crack jokes at the president (see Colbert's uncomfortably biting satire from a few years back) - if you're not going to do that, there really isn't a point to have the event.
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