An Address to the Right: On the Stalinist Anti-American Muslim Cleric from Kenya (President Obama)

Note: Originally written July 2012

For eight long years, my fellow conservatives and I lamented the treatment of President Bush by his political opposition. We were filled with righteous indignation at every equation of President Bush to fascism. We rankled at every shoe thrown, every raging grandmother whisked away by security whilst screaming her heart out about war crimes.  Our visages paled in utter disbelief when Americans, no different than myself save political convictions, openly joked about assassinations, beatings, and public shamings of the President.

But no, we did not stop at mere outrage. We held up the bruised arms of our President for monuments. We dutifully dug in the trenches in service of the Office so as to use the fill dirt to build a moral high ground. And upon that massive pile of earth we sat, chiding our friends, and rightfully so, for their incivility. Our common contention was that the Left had twisted itself in the convolutions of its own ideology, blinded by hatred of a President who sincerely wished the best for the country irrespective of politics.

Alas, we did not stop at outrage or political homilies about civility. Many of us, myself included, pricked our fingers and swore to treat the next President, regardless of party, with more respect than our opposition. Did not our mound of dirt filled high from these abuses demand it? Did it not freely escape our lips that President Bush was treated worse than any President since Lincoln? We would be better.

Now we are nearly three and a half years into a Presidency with whom we markedly disagree. Those who know me are fully aware of how blisteringly critical I am of this President’s actions, in policies foreign, domestic, and economic.  I am not one to shun partisanship, nor do I seek undue comfort in bashing my party for the sake of bashing it.

But I have not once failed to give this President the respect that is due his Office.

Now consider your actions. Consider the Birtherism, the calls for impeachment, the effigies, the accusations of Islamic (or Islamist) faith. Recall the henny-pennies of the Fall of the Republic, the notion duly believed that this President is a half step in the mire of dictatorship. Think on every time you spit out his name with bile, without the title of President that YOU OWE HIM to give as a citizen of this country. Remind me of the colour draining from my face every time I am told straight-faced that he is not your President. And to drown me in the fullness of misery, engulf me in the waves of supposedly mainstream and respected outlets of the Right that engage in this behavior. It isn’t just Alex Jones anymore; it’s Alan West.  The Birchers have come home to roost, and we stand unguarded and unwilling to stop these battalions of tomfoolery.

Is our memory so short, our political eyesight so myopic, that we have forgotten what it was like to be the indirect (or direct) object of their hatred? Have we excused the excesses of our fringe elements as minor distractions, when we saw the Daily Kos’ vitriol as the veritable bellwether of attacks against the President?  When we saw a Left so acidic, so acrimonious as we watched them besmirch the Office of the Presidency time and time again? Or perhaps we see no difference in placing a hammer-and-sickle next to this President and condemning a bedraggled leftist scribbling a swastika on his sign with a different face years before?

My brothers, do not confuse my anger for disavowal of our cause. In an age where political hypocrisy is not an El Dorado but ubiquitous as a fly, I ask but this: that we who spoke with such forcefulness on respect for the President give this President at least an ounce of respect more than the previous President was given by his opposition.  How many conservatives can tell me, straight-faced and without a hint of mendacity, that you have conducted yourselves any better?