The Exact Same Crap

Rick Moran from Right Wing Nuthouse has a post up where he takes issue with many on the right. It almost exactly mirrors my own thoughts when I read various right-wing blogs -- especially the comment sections.

It got to the point last week, after reading the usual nonsense from many conservatives about how Obama is deliberately trying to “destroy” the country, or is a Marxist, or wants to be a dictator, or is favoring Muslims in the Middle East because he actually is one, or is plotting to cancel the elections in November, or wasn’t born here/not a naturalized citizen/Hawaiian official says he was born in Kenya/yadayadayadayada…that I nearly screamed ... Conspiracies, falsehoods, batshit crazy observations, wildly off base dot connecting, Cloward-Piven, Rules for Radicals — a never ending flood of idiocy, illogic, unreasoning hatred, and just plain ignorance from people who tell me I am insufficiently passionate in my opposition to Obama and the liberals and am therefore on their side.

As he says,

It’s like the previous 8 years of putting up with the exact same crap from liberals about George Bush never happened. ... Bush the dictator. Bush trying to destroy the country. Bush policies formulated only to help cronies. Don’t these people remember how we laughed at that kind of stupidity? And now, it looks like I have to put up with the same damn ignorant tripe for another 8 years.

Just in case anyone thinks he's exaggerating, I went to one of the latest posts on Hot Air, one of the largest conservative blogs, and looked at the comments under a post on the oil spill. (Hot Air posts are rational, but some of the commenters are not).  Here's what I found right near the top: 

"Obama doesn’t WANT to do the job. He doesn’t want the spill cleaned. Even some in the media know that, but they can’t say it because you can’t prove motive." AND "The President doesn’t WANT to do the job. He likes to inflict MISERY on the Gulf Coast Subjects. AND "Giggles thought he could use the spill to push cap-and-trade and badly overshot the mark. And he’s too stupid and arrogant to realize that his inaction is only perpetuating the disaster, while he still thinks he can blame “Biiiiiiiiiiig Oooooooooooil” and “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH” for all of this while passing cap-and-trade."

That's right, Obama is deliberately prolonging the oil spill to hurt the Gulf Coast, or to push cap and trade. That's the conspiracy theory these idiots are pushing. But I'm just cherry picking comments from a couple of nuts, you say. Well, here's an actual post at Right Wing News, another major blog on the right. "Is President Obama Trying To Kill The Gulf State Economies?" A small excerpt,

It sure seems like President Obama despises Republican states ... President Obama doesn't seem like the President of all the people...just some of them.

How does that differ from "President Bush doesn't care about black people"? Kanye West's stupidity in the wake of Katrina was rightly derided as ludicrous by conservatives, but now some are doing exactly the same thing, whining that President Obama doesn't care about Republican states.

Like Rick Moran, after having to endure eight years of insane conspiracy theories and assorted other Bush Derangement Syndrome symptoms from the left, I find it extremely annoying that many on the right are now behaving in the same fashion. It is neither necessary or useful to impute bad motives to political opponents without evidence -- and conspiracy theory fantasies do not count as evidence. Just because Obama is an incompetent executive who has badly fumbled his handling of the oil spill does not imply that he is deliberately trying to wreck the Gulf State economies. There is a huge difference between incompetence, poor job performance, and a deliberate attempt to harm the nation. It's sad that even needs to be pointed out to many on the right, after eight years of pointing it out to much of the left.