by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n It was sometime early this year that Americans finally learned the rules of proper political discourse \u2014 another dividend from the Obama administration. We can all be grateful for our new bipartisan protocols, which will go something like the following.<\/p>\n It will be considered childish to caricature a stressed president for mangling his words, whether \u201cnucular\u201d or \u201ccorpseman.\u201d If, from time to time, the commander-in-chief flubs up and says something stupid like Bush\u2019s \u201cIs our children learning?\u201d or Obama\u2019s \u201cCinco de Quatro,\u201d we have learned to accept that such slips are hardly reflective of a lack of knowledge. The old \u201cgotcha\u201d game is puerile and, thankfully, is now a thing of the past.<\/p>\n Nor should we ever refer to any elected administration as a \u201cregime\u201d \u2014 that unfortunate habit of the likes of Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews, and various talk-radio hosts. Thank God, we in 2010 all recognize the pernicious effects of such near-treasonous rhetoric.<\/p>\n At last there is a return to civility. If we were confused in recent years as to whether \u201chate\u201d was a permissible word in public discourse \u2014 as in the outburst of Democratic national chairman Howard Dean, \u201cI hate the Republicans and everything they stand for,\u201d or the infamous essay by\u00a0The New Republic<\/em>\u2019s Jonathan Chait that began, \u201cI hate President George W. Bush\u201d \u2014 we now accept that such extreme language in the public arena is not merely uncivil, but is an incitement to real violence. The use of the word \u201chate\u201d at last has become \u201chate speech.\u201d<\/p>\n With Rep. Joe Wilson\u2019s improper outburst to President Obama \u2014 \u201cYou lie!\u201d \u2014 we also\u00a0have at last come to appreciate that those in Congress have a special responsibility not to use incendiary language to defame our government officials. That\u2019s why we now lament Rep. Pete Stark\u2019s slur of George W. Bush from the House floor as a \u201cliar\u201d \u2014 the same Rep. Pete Stark who said of our troops that they had gone \u201cto Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president\u2019s amusement.\u201d<\/p>\n But since 2009 Americans have finally learned that our soldiers are sacrosanct and must not be smeared \u2014 as in Sen. Richard Durbin\u2019s characterization of American military personnel as synonymous with Nazis, Stalinists, or Pol Pot\u2019s murderers; as in the late Sen. Edward Kennedy\u2019s comparison of American troops to Saddam\u2019s lethal jailers; as in Sen. John Kerry\u2019s smear of our soldiers as acting in terrorist fashion. Evocation of Nazi or Brownshirt imagery particularly coarsens the public discourse; it demonizes opponents rather than engage them in real debate. So we can all concur now that Sen. John Glenn, Sen. Robert Byrd, and former vice president Al Gore spoke quite improperly when they compared their president\u2019s governance to that of the Third Reich.<\/p>\n Our military officers deserve special consideration. No senator should ever again accuse a wartime theater commander of telling an untruth (\u201csuspicion of disbelief\u201d). Major newspapers should not extend discounts to pressure groups that defame our officers with cheap slurs such as \u201cGeneral Betray Us.\u201d All that is dangerous rhetoric. Indeed, it risks undermining our noble bipartisan efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n We now know that environmental terrorists of the sort that spike trees, torch forestry equipment, blow up people with letter bombs, or wage anti-globalization urban violence are engaging in the same sort of behavior as are the unhinged militias. Therefore we must all be careful, left and right, in criticizing our government \u2014 lest either another Ted Kaczynski becomes too inflamed by Al Gore\u2019s accusatory furor about environmental desecration, or a Michigan militia member goes over the top after hearing a talk-radio rant about Barack Obama.<\/p>\n Ever since Dwight Eisenhower hit the back nine, critics have snickered at golf-playing presidents \u2014 as if their polo shirts, shades, and splashy caps were revelations of aristocratic disdain for the rest of us, or as if they were engaging in a sort of loafing amid world crises. Not now. We have come to realize that presidents should play golf \u2014 in fact, lots of it \u2014 both for needed relaxation and as a reminder that it is no longer a sport of the elite.<\/p>\n With the appropriate criticism of former vice president Dick Cheney\u2019s public attacks on the Obama anti-terrorist protocols, we have established that vice presidents emeriti, by virtue of the dignity of their positions, should not engage in partisan hits on subsequent administrations. Cheney\u2019s slights remind us why there was once media outrage when former vice president Al Gore said of President Bush, \u201cHe lied to us,\u201d \u201cHe betrayed this country,\u201d \u201cHe played on our fears\u201d \u2014 or when he dismissed Bush\u2019s Internet supporters with the slur of \u201cdigital Brownshirts.\u201d<\/p>\n We have always been worried about presidential braggadocio. Just as we came to realize that George Bush\u2019s \u201cbring \u2019em on\u201d and \u201cdead or alive\u201d were unnecessarily polarizing, so too talk of bringing a gun to a knife fight, or predictions that a supporter would \u201ctear up\u201d a talk-show host, or remarks about \u201cfat cat\u201d bankers are unnecessary presidential provocations.<\/p>\n In other words, with the presidency of Barack Obama, the nation has collectively established at last the proper parameters of political rhetoric and conduct. What was the norm in the past is now recognized as coarse, if not dangerous \u2014 and so won\u2019t be repeated in our future.<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The heated rhetoric of the Bush years gone. A new age has dawned. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online It was sometime early this year that Americans finally learned the rules of proper political discourse \u2014 another dividend from the Obama administration. We can all be grateful for our new bipartisan protocols, which will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[590],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-rf","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8571,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-administrations-chicago-politics\/","url_meta":{"origin":1689,"position":0},"title":"The Obama Administration\u2019s Chicago Politics","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cIf they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.\u201d by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online Barack Obama is the first American president from Chicago. That fact will be the trailblazing Obama\u2019s most lasting legacy. Chicago has long been stereotyped as a city where any-means-necessary politics have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Obama Administration"","block_context":{"text":"Obama Administration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"President Obama delivers a statement on immigration reform, June 30, 2014 Photo by Mark Wilson via Getty Images","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/pic_giant_071514_A-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5947,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/all-leaks-bad-except-some\/","url_meta":{"origin":1689,"position":1},"title":"All Leaks Bad–Except Some","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Before Jay Carney or the president go out again they really need to sit down and get their stories straight: When the IRS apologizes, it is not a matter of \u201cif.\u201d When the president keeps talking about a film maker as a culprit, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8988,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-administration-needs-to-abandon-its-petraeus-obsession\/","url_meta":{"origin":1689,"position":2},"title":"Obama Administration Needs to Abandon Its Petraeus Obsession","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Tribune Media Services In politically driven moods, the ancient Romans often wiped from history all mention of a prior hero or celebrity. They called such erasures damnatio memoriae. The Soviet Union likewise airbrushed away, or \"Trotskyized,\" all the images of any past kingpin who became politically\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"rfr","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/rfr-e1454252522115.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6697,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-credibility-gap\/","url_meta":{"origin":1689,"position":3},"title":"Obama’s Credibility Gap","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The former hope-and-change president no longer gets a pass. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 By 1968, President Lyndon Baines Johnson was finally done in by his \u201ccredibility gap\u201d \u2014 the growing abyss between what he said about, and what was actually happening inside, Vietnam. \u201cModified limited hangout\u201d and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5950,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-second-term-embarrassments-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1689,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Second-Term Embarrassments","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Hope and change\" is looking like the 1973 Nixon White House. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In Barack Obama\u2019s 2008 presidential campaign, he ran to the left of Hillary Clinton as a moral reformer. Obama promised to transcend the old politics and bring a new era of hope-and-change\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9706,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-legacy-of-deceit\/","url_meta":{"origin":1689,"position":5},"title":"Obama\u2019s Legacy of Deceit","author":"Megan Ring","date":"January 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ Defining Ideas In its remaining days in power, the Obama administration suddenly punished Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia for allegedly interfering in the U.S. presidential election. It claimed that Russian or Russian-hired hackers tapped into the records of the Democratic National Committee as well as the correspondence of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Defining Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Defining Ideas","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/defining-ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1690,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}