Why this rancour?

 

 

Old timers used to say that the only thing that separates Britain from its trans-Atlantic cousin was probably the language they speak and the way they respectively treated their head of the states. Last week, Americans did away with the latter one.

Any one having the faintest of idea about the way British Parliament works – or has worked till now – know that Tories can do everything to deride Prime Minister especially if he is from another political party. But last week, their American cousins, the Republicans, finally decided to take a leaf out of their manual.

To anyone who had an opportunity to witness Obama’s last week’s explanation speech in the Congress to introduce his healthcare proposals it was pretty evident that the President was sincere in his genuine appeal for bipartisanship; while most of his opponents were behaving like kids.

Republican House Representatives in particular and Right-wingers in general displayed utter disrespect for Obama as well as for the office he holds.

The “You lie!” outburst by Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina was only the most flagrant exhibit of derision. And while the Right-wingers were on for it, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, who holds the post of minority whip in the House, was seen ridiculously fiddling with his BlackBerry, with such calmness on his face that was not witnessed since Buddha attained Nirvana two and a half millenniums ago.

His fellow Republicans cut an equally sorry picture if not more by brandishing draft copies of their own so-called restructuring plan, which, critics swear, isn’t actually a plan at all. “It is preposterous that when they had a chance to introduce their version of health-scheme, they were more interested in Iraq and now that a detailed and well-researched plan has been introduced by Obama, they (Republicans) want to have their way,” said Adam Serwer, an expert with The American Prospect, while talking to TSI.

But the question arises, why Obama? After all the Congress didn’t jeer Lyndon Johnson when he sounded miserably out of sync during America’s expedition to Vietnam. Even Richard Nixon – a man who hated all and was reciprocated with the same intensity by others – during sounded utterly naïve during Watergate was never jeered. Above all the Congress didn’t even show that sort of belligerence toward George W Bush, who, indeed lied about the intelligence that his administration relied on to validate an illegal war that has cost in access of 4,300 American lives and that of million others. So why this rancour against Obama?

Serwer has an answer. “Presidential polls so offended the GOP that the Americans have to now endure the collateral damage. The Republicans who were severely castigated by the voters for the letdowns of the Bush regime were the Right-wing moderates in the largely evenly contested districts. Those who were ultra-Right won from the sturdily Republican districts easily. Naturally, moderates in the Right started copying these ultra-Right yahoos,” he concludes.

It has left the moderate Right voters worried. But is it really such a deviation? What Joe Wilson did – though dumb and immature – was barely some serious threat to America or even a significant deviation from benchmark Right-wing political conduct.

In fact, moderate Republicans like David Frum or Andrew Sullivan might cry hoarse but Rush Limbaugh didn’t just magically emerge in the last few months. He – with the likes of James Dobson, Bill Kristol and Pat Robertson – has been the agenda setters of the GOP for decades. And they are here to stay for long.

Any confusion on that was washed the same weekend when tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of DC in the biggest manifestation hitherto of the fuming anti-Obama emotion being whipped up among the Right.

Bearing flags saying “Don’t tread on me!” and “I’m not your ATM”, they descended from all corners of America to condemn what they consider is the regime’s stride towards socialism. But as they say, in the Republican lines, particularly in the House, pragmatists are little and ideologues are legion.