Great piece by Jonathan Chait at the New Republic on President Obama's repeated calls for "civility." This is but an excerpt, read the entire thing.
Obama began his speech by quoting a letter from a kindergartner, who asked, “Are people being nice?” Sadly, the president continued, they are not. “We’ve got politicians calling each other all sorts of unflattering names,” lamented Obama. “Pundits and talking heads shout at each other.”Note how the President, yet again, feels the need to debase Democrats when criticizing Republicans. At some point he needs to learn that it's not all the same, and that there is a real problem - that he has a real problem - with the Republican party.
Obama singled out Fox News. But, of course, the problem with Fox is not that it features pundits who shout at each other. The problem is that it’s a propaganda organ masquerading as a news outlet. The pundits on Fox don’t shout at each other, they bask in mutual agreement. When shouting does occur, it’s usually a one-sided affair in which some hapless liberal is invited on the air to be shouted down. It’s appropriate that Obama cites a child in his indictment of Fox News. To chastise Rupert Murdoch’s brand of pseudo-journalism for its lack of niceness is literally to embrace childlike reasoning.
Obama proceeded to castigate the political culture for “demonizing” opponents. Then his logic went badly awry:
Throwing around phrases like “socialists” and “Soviet-style takeover” and “fascist” and “right-wing nut”—that may grab headlines, but it also has the effect of comparing our government, our political opponents, to authoritarian, even murderous regimes.
Is it uncivil to accuse your opponents of being socialist or of planning a “Soviet-style takeover”? Presumably, Obama would have no problem levying such a charge against, say, Lenin in 1917. It’s not an inherently uncivil accusation. It’s appropriateness depends on whether it’s actually true.
