Right-wing radio futility:Joan Walsh
writes:
All weekend long, Fox's Sean Hannity and others were blaring "Obama Attacks America" and airing the truncated Obama quote. Karl Rove complained darkly: "There are ways to make the point he made without running down America." Hosting for Limbaugh, an overwrought Mark Steyn claimed the U.S. is "hanging upside down in the bondage dungeon being flogged and humiliated by the rest of the planet" in the wake of Obama's visit ...
What Hannity et al are claiming is this:
The President of the United States doesn't like the United States.
That message fails because the leader of an entity is assumed, absent compelling evidence, to be supportive of that entity. But the Hannity line-of-attack seems to be all the right wing radio has. It's like saying Santa Claus doesn't like children. The Pope doesn't like to take Mass. LeBron James doesn't like to shoot hoops. Etc.
posted by Quiddity at 4/08/2009 07:33:00 AM
Except that George Bush took an oath to preserve the U.S. Constitution...and John Bolton was a vocal advocate for disbanding the UN.
Sometimes the guy on the top of the totem pole isn't a fan of totem poles.
In the colloquia of the Bush Years, "hating America" assumed a new meaning, and that new meaning actually does fit Obama's philosophy.
Of course you're correct, but the semantics are a little tricker than you've allowed for...
