Between the Lines
President Obama: “The worst president ever” Are you kidding me?
The hyperbole around election time has reached a fever pitch as Republican candidates for the mid-term elections focus on attacking the source of the Democratic Party revival. Aiming at the low poll numbers of President Barack Obama, ideologues are now trying to frame the Obama presidency as change the country can no longer afford.
President Obama’s popularity ratings, whether you believe them or not, are tied to the fortunes of a slow rebounding economy and the ethics investigations of a few members of the party. Anything the president (or his family) does has come under severe scrutiny. The president’s stand (as waffling as it is) on the New York “ground zero” situation has him being framed as “un-American.” His vacation travels are viewed as elitist and out of touch with “average” Americans’ reality, and his “job performance” as unsatisfactory to a majority of the nation.
It seems Americans have grown tired of hearing excuses about why their lives haven’t changed, and predicaments that have nothing to do with him (namely the Gulf oil spill) are now all his fault.
The disrespect for the Obama Presidency has been subtle (for the most part) until now. Today, every little weenie running for office criticizes the president to get some attention for their campaign.
In Arizona, 3rd District Republican candidate for Congress, Ben Quayle, who’s received little support from his own party decides he’s now a presidential historian and offers the most ridiculous critique of the job President Obama is doing. It wouldn’t be worth the mention, if it wasn’t such a perfect example of Republican radicalism that seeks to undermine the Obama Presidency.
Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle (yes, that Quayle ... that of the “potatoe” fame), called Obama “the worst president ever.”
Who’s to say where history will rank Obama’s Presidency, but cleaning up a huge pile of elephant dump that left the nation in cardiac arrest has to rank somewhere above the guy, who left it for him. Guess this latest version of a dumb Quayle has been under a rock the last eight years, and probably was too young to remember the one-term presidential fiasco of an administration his father contributed to from 1988 to 1992.
Worse than Bush I or Bush II? You’ve got to be kidding me. When stupid becomes intergenerational, you really have to wonder what’s in a name and what happens should stupid ever resurrect itself. I think we’re about to see, as the return of anti-intellectualism is gaining traction in the public discourse.
As much as you want to be objective about the job Obama is doing, even if you don’t agree with everything he says or does, the circumstances under which he inherited the presidency would be cause to reject judging him too early. But “baby Quayle”—who was 11 years old when his dad’s boss went back on a campaign promise of “read my lips, no new taxes,” because the senior Bush couldn’t sustain what he called “voodoo economics” of the eight-year Reagan administration—thinks that his generation will inherit a “weakened country.”
That’s an interesting analysis coming from someone whose lineage is steeped in the mindset that stripped the nation of any sensible resolution to economic collapse. His daddy was part and parcel of the “tax cartels” that put the country in an economic tailspin. The problem with the Republicans, particularly this new generation of Republicans, is they don’t remember their own recent history—running the country which they did for 22 of the past 32 years.
Quayle is running a campaign ad that begs the question, “What is happening to America.” It’s a question he should ask his daddy. Quayle’s candidacy is filled with antiquated “Reaganisms” like “family values” and is every bit filled with the trickery of projected false imageries for which Republicans are known.
Most notably, Quayle sends out a campaign mailer where he poses with children, giving the illusion that the youngsters in the photo are his own. Ben Quayle has no children and had to later admit that was a misleading mailer.
Quayle is just the latest example of gadfly candidates and pundits seeking to capitalize on Obama’s low poll ratings and to disrespect the president using false and unsubstantiated claims. Quayle’s campaign may resonate with the anti-Obama population, but simply is not a credible assertion, given that America has a documented history of bad presidents whose tenures weren’t as complicated as Obama’s.
Generally such criticism is reserved for the end of a presidency. But the anti-intellectuals can’t wait to see how Obama history plays out. They’re submitting the report card with a final grade before the class is over, and the evaluations are being made by many in no position to say, much less judge.
It’s just consistent with the mindset of people who want to pile on at a time when Obama’s legacy is in formation.
No one is saying Obama can’t be criticized. But offer legitimate criticism, not false witness that adds to the noise box for the sake of trying to gain some political advantage.
Stupid is as stupid does, and Ben Quayle is showing early that he’s a chip off the old block, offering irrational analysis to get and bring attention to where there is none.
The worse ever? Give me a break ... no, I’ll give you one better. Don’t give me a Quayle trying to rate anybody’s presidency, unless it’s a honest assessment of the legacy to which he is tied. Anything else is just a joke.
But this is what we can expect to see for the next two years as the opposition party lambastes Obama. Every time they do it, you can only ask, are these fools kidding me? Ben Quayle is just the latest sailor on a new ship of fools.
Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D., is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of the upcoming book, “Real Eyez: Race, Reality and Politics in 21st Century Popular Culture.” He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com.
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