By Gene Lyons
Somebody’s going to have to teach the Republican leadership that bipartisan isn’t a synonym for weak. That somebody may have to be Barack Obama. The success of his presidency may depend upon it. No professorial lectures, please. It’s not possible to reason with people peddling grotesque and preposterous lies, bargain with people who are screaming, or negotiate under threats of violence.
It’s not a professional wrestling exhibition, it’s our democracy. Persons whose behavior would get them thrown out of a Rolling Stones show should be removed by security. Period. President Bush, it will be recalled, almost never appeared before audiences not pre-screened for loyalty. Potential dissenters were prevented from entering, and sometimes arrested.
Democrats shouldn’t act that way. At his recent “Town Hall” in New Hampshire, Obama calmed the crazies by simply asking questioners to identify themselves. Also, even Sarah Palin’s most rapt supporters may have understood that shouting down the president would likely backfire politically.
More broadly, however, Democrats appear once again to have been surprised by the near-hysteria of the GOP’s lunatic fringe. It’s been building for a generation. Early in Bill Clinton’s first term, evangelist Jerry Falwell devoted his TV show to peddling “The Clinton Chronicles,” a crackpot video alleging that the president of the United States was a drug smuggler who had political enemies whacked.
Rush Limbaugh, currently comparing Obama to Hitler, reported that that White House aide Vince Foster had been murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton. Several federal investigations were eventually required to stifle conspiracy theorists. Nor were these absurdities confined to paid programming or the nether regions of the AM radio dial. These “issues” got voluminous coverage on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, among others.
The so-called “mainstream” media provided little help. Fearful of the dread “liberal bias” charge, establishment reporters not only flogged the fake Whitewater scandal, but lionized figures such as Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage.
On TV, conflict builds ratings. “Balance” often means equating reasonable views with fantastical lies. Ordinary viewers too often can’t tell the difference. Short of an opportunity to chronicle the exploits of the risen Michael Jackson, that’s not going to stop.
As Bob Somerby has documented relentlessly at DailyHowler.com, Web site, the 2000 presidential election was probably decided by the falsehood that Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet; the 2004 contest by the “Swift Boat” smear against smear Democratic nominee John Kerry. Time was when journalists and public figures that habitually misrepresented facts were relegated to the fringes. But that time’s gone, and it ain’t coming back.
