April 12, 2015 6:42 AM

Is there anything that Conservatives and Fox News won't blame Barack Obama for?

Fox News host Harris Faulkner suggested on Monday that President Barack Obama had spurred the recent trend of people taking inappropriate photographs of themselves at Auschwitz and sites of other tragedies. Over the weekend, The New York Post blasted “self-absorbed jerks” who had posted “selfies” of themselves in front of the site of an explosion in East Village. By Monday, Fox News had found a way to link the distasteful photographs to the president…. “When the president does it, you’ve got a whole new generation now,” Faulkner opined. “I’m not just picking on the older adults and protecting the little kids.”…. “But you’ve got a bar that’s moving now,” she explained. “That gold standard isn’t what it used to be. You’ve got on a weekend, we’re talking Islamic state, we’re talking all sorts of things, and you’ve got a president with a selfie stick that’s as tall as I am taking pictures of himself[.]

I’ve long since become used to the idea that there are those on the Far Right (some of whom happen to work for Fox News Channel) who could find a way to hold The Black Guy in the White House © responsible for everything from the Lindbergh kidnapping to the Tet Offensive to Louie Gohmert. It’s the political version of theater of the absurd (somewhere warm and breezy, Eugene Ionesco weeps inconsolably into his Dos Equis), and no rational person could take any of this seriously…because the idjits blaming the President aren’t themselves serious people. The get paid to run Barack Obama down; lacking any fact-based arguments to use against him, they cover the spectrum from the sublime to the just plain ridiculous. It’s what the Far Right has done for the past six-plus years, and while it would be easy to be angry with them, their tactics are unlikely to change this late in the game.

That said, the latest attack on The Black Guy in the White House © is about as thoroughly brain-dead and insulting as anything I’ve heard. The idea that the President has a responsibility to set an example so suggestible maroons with double-digit IQs don’t misbehave is absurd. I frequently hear the criticism that The Black Guy in the White House © is being “unPresidential,” though no one ever seems to be able to explain just what acting “Presidential” really means. I suppose it’s like Justice Louis Brandeis’ definition of pornography: “I know it when I see it”- meaning there are as many definitions of acting “Presidential” as there are people who’d care to formulate such a definition. If you’re thinking that this means The Black Guy in the White House © is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, you wouldn’t be far wrong. Turns out there are those so desperate to see this President fail that they’ll throw anything at him in the hope that something- ANYTHING, no matter how absurd- will stick.

“I’m not blaming President Obama,” Faulkner insisted. “I’m just saying that it’s not happening in a vacuum. You have people in positions of authority doing all sorts of silly stuff. What about Nelson Mandela’s funeral? Selfie with the president!”

According to Fox News host Andrea Tantaros, the “self-celebration generation” was to blame.

Of course…and who’s to blame for that? Why, it has to be The Black Guy in the White House ©! It’s not as if we can hold parents responsible for the conduct of their children…or even expect that people would assume responsibility for their own behavior. SOMEONE MUST BE HELD TO ACCOUNT…which means that, you guessed it, Barack Obama is the bad guy.

If only he wasn’t so…black and not knee-jerk Conservative.

There’s no reason why any thinking person should take this sort of visceral, deeply personal hatred of the President to be anything but the hyper-partisan disdain and racism it is. Not being able to dismantle the President based on facts or truth, the only avenue available involves resorting to cheap personal attacks and the absurdity of blaming him for things no rational person would think to hold him responsible for. Then there’s the whole “Presidenting while black” thing.It’s silly, and it’s stupid…but that’s the world we live in. It’s a world where millions unquestioningly swallow everything Fox News broadcasts as if it came from On High and people hate the President because it’s what they’re told to do.

Then again, it beats the Hell out of thinking critically….

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on April 12, 2015 6:42 AM.

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