I was working on year-end reports and printing W-2s for Outpost employees as I listened to the State of the Union speech. That left me in no mood to feel kindly toward the federal government, but I thought it was a pretty good speech anyway.
Apparently, the airborne talkers thought so, too. At least they felt threatened enough by it to open all barrels and keep them firing all day long Thursday. Not even a, “Well, the man can read a teleprompter” sort of crack. Every single sentence was up for attack.
Almost the first words out of Limbaugh’s mouth were that the speech could have been given by Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro. So we’re in the middle of two wars, and the commander in chief is making his constitutionally required report to Congress, and the nation’s leading talk-show host puts the president squarely in the enemy camp. Once again, Limbaugh shames his party.
I switched over to Fred Thompson, where one of those perfectly cloned, pre-programmed, rubber-stamp guest hosts was filling in. A caller was telling him that the speech sounded like it could have come from Hugo Chavez. The host didn’t even have to glance at his talking points before enthusiastically agreeing.
Hannity was shouting down anyone who tried to defend Obama, or who even just said Hannity should give the guy a break. In his opening sentences, Glenn Beck called Obama both a liar and a revolutionary. At least Beck has an excuse: He’s crazy.
Even after the daylong assault, I still thought it was a pretty good speech. And I liked Obama even better after his Q and A on Friday with House Republicans, especially his point that Republicans back themselves into a corner when they demonize the opposition.
He’s right, of course, and that’s one reason why I have long suspected that Hannity may secretly be on the take from the Obama administration. Obama can just ignore the rants of Limbaugh and Hannity since they oppose him 100 percent of the time and always will, no matter what he does.
It’s tougher for Republicans. Voters keep saying they are sick of partisan infighting, but how can Republicans reach across the aisle to work with someone they have spent the last year branding as an arrogant Marxist with fascistic tendencies and a deep desire to destroy America? Isn’t there even one Republican who will stand up to the right-wing crazies?
But the wackiest take was from Dennis Miller. When a caller took him to task for being too hard on the president, he defended himself by saying he had given the guy eight or nine months, but wrote Obama off after he began making fun of “yokels.” My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I have absolutely no recollection of Obama ever doing any such thing. Can anybody help me out? All I can think of was the “clinging to guns and religion” comment, which, of course, came well before the election and which, in any case, was not meant as a joke.
Only Chris Matthews came close to drawing as much heat as Obama did on Thursday. He got beat up for his weird post-speech comment that he had forgotten for an hour that Obama was black. It was a brain-dead thing to say, but it also was Chris Matthews. Why bother with it? Especially since it’s almost 100 percent certain that Matthews meant not harm; he was just being dumb.
But even Matthews could never be this dumb.
