Has the Level of Public Debate Fallen Since OBAMA?
October 21, 2009 by Caitlin
Filed under Bloggers, Caitlin Frazier, Voices of Xenia
Since January 2009, it seems that there’s been an influx of yelling and screaming in the public discourse. Has the Obama Administration inadvertently lowered the bar of public debate?
Today I read the following passage from Daniel Lyons’ Newsweek article about the US’s place in the next round of scientific innovation, clean energy. He was writing of the challenges faced by American scientists.
But look at what they’re up against: a noisy babble of morons and Luddites, the “Drill, baby, drill” crowd, the birthers, and tea-party kooks who have done their best to derail health-care reform and will do the same to any kind of energy policy.
This made me wonder, have the progressive efforts of the Obama administration and the conservative pushback somehow inadvertently lowered the level of public debate in our country? The examples are endless, but here are a few:
George Bush Sr. insulting MSNBC’s hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow:
He singled out two…talkers on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, calling them both “sick puppies.”
RNC Chariman Michael Steele mocking Obama’s Peace Prize win in a GOP fundraising letter:
“But Republican National Committee head Michael Steele is bristling with outrage, saying in a letter that Obama won the prize “for awesomeness.” It shows “how meaningless a once honorable and respected award has become,” he wrote, asking for contributions of $25 to $1,000 for the RNC.
The teabagging April protests, some of which were blatantly racist:
Americans in many cities around the country gathered in public around their chosen protest symbol today, the tea bag…”Well, there was a—there was a sign of Obama being a shoe shine boy.”
People carrying guns to Obama protests:
About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama
was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.
Virtually every townhall meeting that was held on healthcare also fits into this category but my favorite follows:
At a Barney Frank town hall meeting in Dartmouth, MA, a constituent asks, “Why are you supporting this Nazi policy?” Frank responds: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” He then calls her approach “vile, contemptible nonsense.” He closes by saying: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.”
The Barney Frank example is the most obviously off the chart of reasonable. Have our townhall meetings, which are supposedly vehicles for Congressmen to exchange ideas with their constituencies, really come down to comparing the president to Hitler and the consituent to a piece of furniture? What has happened to an informed citizenry? Did we ever even have one? Perhaps my lack of memory is to blame for my confusion at the recent conversation. I cannot imagine that the discourse around Monica Lewinsky was particularly high minded but I was only thirteen at the time and thus too young to remember much of it.
With only one year in office, Obama seems to have already endured the worst of the worst, people calling him Hitler, a terrorist, and threatening his life. Where will we go from here? Can we bail out the marketplace of ideas?
At a Barney Frank town hall meeting in Dartmouth, MA, a constituent asks, “Why are you supporting this Nazi policy?”
Frank responds: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” He then calls her approach “vile, contemptible nonsense.” He closes by saying: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.”
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/19/barney-frank-confronts-wo_n_262682.html
But Republican National Committee head Michael Steele is bristling with outrage, saying in a letter that Obama won the prize “for awesomeness.”
It shows “how meaningless a once honorable and respected award has become,” he wrote, asking for contributions of $25 to $1,000 for the RNC.
But Republican National Committee head Michael Steele is bristling with outrage, saying in a letter that Obama won the prize “for awesomeness.”
It shows “how meaningless a once honorable and respected award has become,” he wrote, asking for contributions of $25 to $1,000 for the RNC.
Caitlin is a University of Oklahoma graduate who is recently completed an Americorps year of service in Los Angeles, CA. She lives in LA and writes freelance.
The White House continues to belittle Americans who are against socialized health care, out-of-control spending, and bailouts carried on the backs of the taxpayer, but we are expected to lay on our backs and just take it without speaking up. When we peacefully come together to show our disagreement, we are called teapartying “kooks” and racists. We shouldn’t be upset though, right?
No, Jason.
Frank’s rejoinder to the young woman was far better and more honest than anything the right has come up with. At some point, one has to call people who are stupid, stupid. It’s really that simple. The Obama Administration is only “responsible” for any lowering of discourse due to the right’s knee-jerk hysteria over his Presidency.
Frank is right, trying to talk to these people in a reasonable fashion is a bit like talking to furniture, and even less productive.