Richard A. Stitt: President Barack Obama Speaks at Texas A&M University

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Richard A. Stitt
 
On October 16, Barack Obama accepted the honor to speak at Texas A&M University campus where the George H.W. Bush Library is housed. He appeared at the invitation of George H.W. Bush to honor the thousand points of light envisioned by the former president during his four years in the White House.
 
But I have never seen or experienced the bitterness, rancor, and outright hatred against President Barack Obama or any president in my lifetime as that exhibited by the unprincipled, toxic, and depraved Republican Party from the day he took the oath of office.
 
Over 48 years ago, John F. Kennedy also experienced extreme backlash from those who claimed, that as the first Catholic president, the Vatican would run the White House. But, the racists, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-Black extremists have not toned down their rhetoric. On the contrary, they have sharpened and increased the frequency of their hate propaganda.
 
Today, we have experienced the total mutation of the Republican Party from one when the Religious Right hijacked it back in the 1990's to where it is now: militant, enraged losers made up mostly of angry white (usually older) males who have nothing positive to offer our country. Their Svengali, Rush Limbaugh, whose potent gift of toxic rhetoric percolates to his followers like a queen ant emitting pheromones to the obedient drone colony.
 
When Republican congressmen and women are questioned or confronted over the extent of Limbaugh's influence they respond by saying, "Well, Rush Limbaugh is an entertainment talk radio host but he doesn't make policy." That's not true. Limbaugh taps into the very heart of today's racist, militant, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-Hispanic, AR-15 toting, birthers, teabagger Republican Party wackos who wrap themselves in the cross and the flag and belch their malignant tirades at anyone who dares to disagree with them on any issue.
 
Most of the anger directed against Barack Obama is a protraction of the 2008 campaign where piercing signs appeared at the McCain-Palin rallies: "He's a Socialist-Marxist!; A Communist!; He isn't an American citizen!; Kill him; Off with his head! He's an Arab; He's a Nazi! He's palling around with terrorists!"
 
It hasn't stopped. Republicans are still enraged and fuming over the fact that they lost the November 4, 2008 election in which voters repudiated not only Bush-Cheney, McCain-Palin, but also congressional GOP candidates. Right-wing extremists, birthers, teabaggers, gun-toting racists, and xenophobes are still carrying out the orders issued by screech radio bombast Rush Limbaugh and other extremist groups such as the Minutemen, Tea Bag Patriots, FreedomWorks, and other corporate-funded splinter groups determined to undermine, subvert and sabotage our president, our democracy and our country to keep us from making forward progress.
 
They yearn for the good old days when the Bush-Cheney regime larded out $1.35 trillion tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of the population while they installed foxes such as Harvey Pitt and Christopher Cox to head the Securities Exchange Commission to guard the henhouse and look the other way while the Wall Street hucksters and swindlers ran wild with their derivatives, hedge funds, junk bonds, and other Ponzi schemes such as credit default swaps. Surely, we cannot forget Harvey Pitt whose primary qualifications for the job was in representing corrupt corporate CEO thieves and tax evaders against both the SEC and the IRS?
 
The Bush-Cheney administration was totally complicit in aiding this larceny from Day One. They were accomplices in aiding and abetting former Feeding Chairman Alan Greenspan and his successor, Ben Bernanke, to shake the money tree on demand. It wasn't until the summer of 2008 that the administration admitted that America had been in a recession as early as 2007. Even as they knew the Potemkin Village economy was collapsing all around them, G. W. Bush proclaimed in the fall of 2008 that we were just hitting a "rough patch" while his Mortimer Snerd would-be successor, John McCain, driveled, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." Then, in one final insult to America, Bush bailed out his constituents, those he once referred to as the "haves and have mores" to the tune of $700 billion.
 
Democrats have been Johnny-Come-Lately to the media war of words as a counterpart to Fox News channel. Now, MSNBC has their own blusterers and protagonists such as Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, and Hardball's Chris Matthews (who actually holds both parties' feet to the fire for their dishonest congressional shenanigans).
 
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber in their book, Banana Republicans, laid out the aggressive strategy that Republicans treat politics as war. They are absolutely correct. In 2008, Republicans never thought they would be faced with an adversary who was as up to the task of fighting fire with fire, sword for sword, word for word on a playing field which the Republicans previously believed was impenetrable and one which they thought they had sole ownership.
 
I think George W. Bush presciently (unwittingly) stated it best when he challenged the Iraqi insurgents with his "Bring 'em on!" taunt in the summer of 2003. They did bring 'em on and almost seven years later the United States still has 130,000 U.S. military based in Iraq as the detritus of the most failed presidency in our history. As his final insult to the American people he unilaterally, without congressional input, established the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that puts every move our military makes under the entire authority and control of the anti-Semitic Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, Bush's Islamic Shiite puppet regime.
 
For those wishing to enjoy the viewing of another presidential library, I understand plans are in the making to establish the George W. Bush Baghdad Museum of Fine Farts. Outside the entrance to the marble atrium a statue of Bush, bent over with his face between his legs, mooning the world, will be placed on a pedestal with the inscription: "They Told Me To Bring 'Em On and I Brung 'Em On!"
 
I'm reminded of a poem by Shelley, Ozymandias, an ancient imperious Potentate whose vainglory so quickly turned to dust.
 
Over 100,000 dead (official count) Iraqi men, women and children, over 4,470 U.S. military in body bags, and over 34,000 wounded U.S. military, many dismembered and disabled for life and a $2-trillion cost to the American people (and still climbing) are a testament to a legacy to Bush-Cheney and his Republicans warmongers that historians will be writing about for decades.
 
If there is a word to describe the arrogance, hubris or enormity of the prevarications by this pernicious chapter in our nation, I can think of only one: ineffable.
 
Barack Obama spoke at Texas A&M, honored and respected by George H.W. Bush, as an American president who is carrying the terrible burden of two wars, a struggling economy and an unaffordable to most Americans a health care system in complete shambles, yet he is stepping up to the challenge that eluded the previous administration: the promise to, ''…solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.''

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
 
Richard A. Stitt
Austin, TX

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