by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
It was certainly uncouth of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., to scream out “You lie” at his commander-in-chief in the middle of Barack Obama’s recent healthcare speech before a joint session of Congress.<\/p>\n
And others who keep insisting that the president doesn’t have an authentic U.S. birth certificate clearly come off as unhinged \u2014 much like just-resigned White House green-jobs czar Van Jones does for having signed his name to a petition stating that the Bush administration may have allowed the 9\/11 murders of 3,000 people to happen.<\/p>\n
During his speech the other night, the president calmly called for a new civility \u2014 although he had just accused his opponents of dissimulation in their attack on his healthcare plan, while himself presenting many dubious suppositions as fact.<\/p>\n
Over the last three decades, we saw vicious attacks on Ronald Reagan and on Bill Clinton, and their tough replies in turn. But recently the vicious rhetoric has escalated far beyond anything in the past. The smears seem reminiscent more of the brawling on the eve of the Civil War, or the nastiness during the 1960s that took decades to heal.<\/p>\n
No one knows what the rules of engagement are now. Republicans have not forgotten that Democratic legislators loudly booed Bush during his 2005 \u201cState of the Union.\u201d Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, not long ago boasted, “I hate Republicans!” Around the same time, the\u00a0New Republic<\/em>published an article entitled “Why I hate George W. Bush.”<\/p>\n Major politicians like former Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W-Va., and former Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, have compared George W. Bush or his supporters to Nazis or the brown shirts. A major publishing house released a novel about killing President Bush; a movie won a prize at the Toronto Film Festival with the same theme. Bush Derangement Syndrome was no joke.<\/p>\n What exactly has gone wrong?<\/p>\n A number of things. For years, liberals were out of power. They became increasingly shrill in their frustration at George W. Bush \u2014 who seemed to set them off like no other Republican in memory.<\/p>\n Now that Democrats control both the Congress and the presidency, they are once more the establishment. Yet suddenly they have become angered that some conservatives, in tit-for-tat fashion, would dare resort to some of the crassness that was used to defame Bush \u2014 when any means were felt necessary to achieve the noble ends of opposing his policies.<\/p>\n Commentary, of course, has changed. The need for constant controversy on 24\/7 cable television, nonstop blogging and ratings-driven talk radio ensure first thoughts are aired \u2014 before more sober second ones can rein in the emotion. News is entertainment. Anger sells. Slurs, not reflection, win ratings.<\/p>\n Many political hit men and talking heads are also baby boomers. They cut their teeth on coarse, anything-goes Vietnam War protests. These aging children of protest still haven’t quite figured out that they are now supposed to be sober seniors teaching younger generations the vital rules of decorum. Instead, our teachers themselves still need to be taught manners.<\/p>\n Another cause of the new rudeness is that the country is fragmenting. Almost every issue is dissected by its effect not on the American people as a whole, but rather on a particular constituency defined by race, class or gender. The louder and more melodramatic the accusation, the more attention and federal money follow.<\/p>\n Yet, just as even the gory gladiators at Rome, in their blood-soaked arena, followed a few rules, perhaps we can at least do the same:<\/p>\n Don’t call anyone a Nazi or brown shirt. Avoid shouting down a public official. Remember that there usually aren’t clear good and bad political choices, just bad and worse ones. Don’t get outraged at a slur against your team, if you once made the same sort of one against the opposition.<\/p>\n And, most of all, remember that while we’re shouting at each other, the country is at war and piling up debt at the rate of $2 trillion a year \u2014 while plenty of rivals and enemies abroad are smiling as never before.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services It was certainly uncouth of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., to scream out “You lie” at his commander-in-chief in the middle of Barack Obama’s recent healthcare speech before a joint session of Congress.<\/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":[652],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-AA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4075,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/civility-for-thee\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":0},"title":"Civility for Thee","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online An evil psychopath, Jared Lee Loughner \u2014 a man with no discernible ideology or political affiliation, and declared by those who know him to be both unhinged and unacquainted with contemporary media \u2014 shot a US congresswoman, murdered a federal judge, and killed\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":3104,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/fantasies-present-and-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":1},"title":"Fantasies, Present and Future","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Paradoxical President The Obama administration has offered a number of recent fantasies. Here are a few examples. a) Despite owning the presidency, the House and a filibuster-proof Senate between 2009-10, the president could not introduce an immigration bill, in the manner he rammed through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1511,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-new-take-on-partisanship\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":2},"title":"Obama’s New Take on Partisanship","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online One of President Obama\u2019s strangest complaints is that there are too many in Congress who act, well, like former senator Obama. In his recent speech on the question of comprehensive immigration reform, President Obama once again blasted Republican political opportunism that opposes his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2010"","block_context":{"text":"July 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/july-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1756,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-it-go-easy-or-go-for-broke-mr-president\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":3},"title":"Is It Go Easy or Go for Broke, Mr. President?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services After the bloodletting over the healthcare bill, President Obama is now at a crossroads. Not one opposition member voted for his healthcare reform. That, along with tawdry buyoffs for fence-sitting members of the Senate and a reconciliation process that avoids another Senate vote\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2010"","block_context":{"text":"March 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/march-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1743,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/more-bottled-piety\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":4},"title":"More Bottled Piety","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner This week\u2019s talking point is the sudden danger of new right-wing violence, and the inflammatory push-back against healthcare. I\u2019m sorry, but all this concern is a day late and a dollar short. The subtext is really one of class \u2014 right-wing radio talk-show hosts,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2010"","block_context":{"text":"April 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/april-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1853,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-usual-straw-men\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":5},"title":"The Usual Straw Men","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Cap-and-trade, statist healthcare, and an end to \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d for thee. And for thou, Obama the tax cutter, Obama the gas-and-oil driller, Obama the budget freezer, Obama the anti-lobbyist reformer, Obama the bipartisan healer? This half-hearted pivoting was quite transparent: Obama made\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2010"","block_context":{"text":"February 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/february-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268"}],"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=2268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2269,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions\/2269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}