Confidence of a Conservative

So, Republican, are you over it yet? Barack Obama soundly defeated John McCain nearly six months ago. He's been in the Oval Office for a full ten weeks. He's submitted his first budget, held his first news conference, made his first visit to the troops in Iraq. Still the right-wing din has yet to subside.

This president's every move, every word, is grist for the mill - which is fine. Political discourse is the keystone of our freedom and always has been. The stuttering, apocalyptic gaggle of talk-show hosts has to earn their pay like everybody else. Every stable requires men with shovels.

On a personal level, though, many people are still very angry and upset about their fortunes trending forward. The latest polls indicate that barely 20 percent of Americans now trust the GOP to solve our nation's economic woes. As a wise man once said, childrens do learn.

This means that the confidence of conservatives has sunk even below the levels they felt in the closing days of the Bush administration. This statistical impotence is easily explained by a vast body of evidence; what exactly did they achieve in all the time they held power?

That doesn't explain the anger, though, the rage that so many on the right still harbor toward our new president or any other Democrat they can think of. For said explanation, one need only turn on one's radio. The airwaves are full of stock derision if not outright hostility.

That's not really a surprise to anyone who has ever listened to more than one segment of talk-radio. Every other monologue (parroted by caller after caller) is laced with incendiary diatribes and wild-eyed rhetoric, most of which boils down to "liberals are destroying America".

Their other most favorite thing to say is that "Obama is dangerous". That's a strong word, alarming, meant to elicit an emotional response... Like the man's going to start a war, or wiretap the citizenry, or something.

Some would say the unending assault on our highest government officials, elected as they were by a clear majority to put this country back together, constitutes an obscenity. We may not be able to define it, but we know it when we see it. Or hear it.

Delivered day after day, such language does not constitute dissent; it is the equivalent of hollering fire! in a crowded theater. Fighting words are designed to keep conservatives from cooling off already. Whipping them into a frenzy seems designed (or at least destined) to send the mentally weak over the edge. It's nothing new.

Such is not protected free speech. Should some deranged conservative, unable to control himself (or herself), take these people just a bit too seriously... Well, obviously, someone ought to be held responsible as an accessory. Let the punishment fit the crime.

pH 4.o8.o9