There has been a lot of media talk in recent months about the nature of much of the criticism that Obama has received from the public and the conservative blogosphere. Some voice concern that the passion and volume of the anger toward him and his administration is unprecedented and unbecoming to the office of the Presidency. Chris Matthews once again repeated this point today, with the recent survey that 31% of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim. He also showed a recent tabloid cover that promoted pictorial “proof” that Obama was a Muslim. Chris acted perplexed about why there was so much looniness being expressed out there among the wacky right-wing.
I’ll give him this much. Yes, there are quite a few angry people out there who say a lot of odd and ugly stuff about Obama. The thing that I have to laugh at is the way this tone is such a revelation to so many liberal talking heads and bloggers!
It’s like the years 2000 to 2008 never happened!
A Rasmussen poll in 2007 (2007, mind you!), showed that 35% of Democrats believe that President Bush knew about the specific 9/11 attack and choose not to stop it.
A number of tabloids and partisan bloggers pushed the theory that Bush had become mentally unstable and began drinking again. Kitty Kelly put out a book that described Bush using cocaine at Camp David during his father’s term in office. A Chicago-based artist exhibited an Artistamp painting of Bush with a gun pointed at his head. A British film-maker created a documentary-style movie depicting the assassination of Bush (and won an award at a Toronto film festival). You can go to the blog at zombietime and see some truly heinous protest signs, t-shirts and bumper stickers.
I could go on further, but I think you get my point.
Some also may say that death threats against Obama spiked as high as 400 percent higher than the average amount around the spring of 2009, but a Newsweek article in November of that year indicated the the threats had since lowered to the same levels of the Clinton and Bush years. It may have risen again over the last year, but I’ve seen no data to confirm it.
Anyway, my main point is that part of this polling regarding conspiracies involving Obama and Bush can be attributed to one thing. And it is basic Psychology 101. The halo effect. A person with one perceived trait, good or bad, is assumed to have a range of other such good or bad traits. People may not even be sure it is true, but if it is a negative halo, they refuse to give the person the benefit of any doubt. Dislike of either President can often translate to other negative perceptions across the board.
I will say this too: Eugene Robinson (also on Hardball) did admit one thing that I’ve felt that Obama flubbed a long time ago. He has never picked a church to attend in the D.C. area. Even if it is mainly for show, the media clip of a President leaving church and shaking the minister’s hand has become a fairly standard and “comforting” (for lack of a better word) scene for many Americans. As Eugene says (and I agree), some (not all) of this “Is he a Christian” stuff could have been tamped down early on.
Many of you may say “who cares”, but an astute politician should.