Civility?......never mind

[sirs]

When a deranged gunman shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 20 others in January, partisan Democrats leaped at the chance to blame Republican rhetoric for the crime. The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was among the first warning, "You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we're going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it's long past time for the GOP's leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers."

Krugman was just the, excuse the expression, opening salvo. The sanctimonious hand wringing that followed from NPR programs, liberal editorial writers and cable chat shows was continuous. All use of war metaphors was declared out of bounds. There was to be no more talk of primary fights, battleground states, targeted districts or shots across the bow. Perhaps even the word campaign was too tainted.

Markos Moulitsas, Keith Olbermann and other usual suspects rushed to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement -- thereby displaying incivility in the guise of condemning it. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois suggested that comments such as Palin's trope, "Don't retreat; reload," were responsible for Jared Loughner's brutal mass attack. "These sorts of things, I think, invite the kind of toxic rhetoric that can lead unstable people to believe this is an acceptable response." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in the United Arab Emirates at the time of the attack said: "We have extremists in my country. A wonderful, incredibly brave young woman Congress member, Congresswoman Giffords, was just shot by an extremist in our country."

President Obama didn't go as far as many in his party. Instead, he adopted a pose of wounded worry, noting in his Tucson speech, that our "discourse has become so sharply polarized" and wondering whether we could "pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that -- that heals, not in a way that wounds." Later, the president called upon all Americans to "be civil because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other's ideas without questioning each other's love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations."

Within days of the "national conversation" provoked by the Tucson violence, union demonstrators were drawing Hitler moustaches on pictures of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and describing his supporters as "pigs." The civility crowd was unmoved.

It's easy to decry incivility on the part of your opponents -- much harder to call out those on your own side. Peter Wehner, a former Bush administration official and respected conservative commentator, has been critical of Herman Cain (for his comments about Muslims) and Tea Party Nation CEO Judson Phillips (for describing liberalism as a philosophy responsible for a billion deaths), among others. It's harder to cite examples of liberals policing their own ranks. Barbara Walters condemned those who rushed to blame Sarah Palin for the Giffords shooting. But no other examples spring to mind.

Here's a new opportunity. If the Democrats meant even one word of what they said in January about civil discourse -- they can loudly and unequivocally condemn the following:

Rep. Maxine Waters has invited the Tea Party "to go to hell." Fellow Black Caucus member Rep. Andre Carson recently said, "Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens . . . This Tea Party movement would love to see you and me . . . hanging on a tree."

Vice President Biden described the AFL-CIO as the "only thing keeping the barbarians from the gates."

Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa topped them all. Warming up the crowd for an Obama speech, he said "We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They've got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're going to win that war. President Obama: This is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong."

President Obama, are those the kind of "healing" words you had in mind?

[Kramer]

YES WE ALL KNOW THIS ALL TOO WELL.

It's our own fault for giving into them so many times.

[sirs]

President Obama, are those the kind of "healing" words you had in mind?

Apparently, it is

White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked by ABC's Jake Tapper to give a response to Teamsters President James Hoffa's controversial comment at yesterday's union rally in Detroit, Michigan in which President Obama also attended.

Tapper asked for the White House's reaction in light of President Obama calling for civility in political rhetoric after the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

"First of all, those weren't comments by the president," Carney told Tapper. "The President wasn't there. I mean, he wasn't on stage. He didn't speak for another twenty minutes. He didn't hear it."

(WEAK, Mr Carney)

"Mr. Hoffa speaks for himself. He speaks for the labor movement," Carney said about the Teamsters President.

(You weren't being asked if the President said those words, or even agreed with them)

"The president speaks for himself. I speak for the president," he added.

"Were the comments appropriate," Carney was asked.

"Can we move on," Carney responded as he tried to get a question from another reporter.

(Wow.  Pretty transparent)

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So, at least, when the next tragic life is taken by that of a madman, be it via bullet or explosive, we can now blame the Democrats and the "climate of hate" they're creating & perpetuating.  right?

[BT]

tsk tsk

[sirs]

A perfect chaser to yesterday's surreal shot of the Left's selective civility:
 

Step 1 - A union boss screeches about "taking out" some Tea Party "son-of-a-bitches" [sic] at an organized labor political rally in Detroit.  (For bonus humor, watch the very end of the clip, when Hoffa, Jr. punctuates his elegant point by beseeching his supporters to "give America back to America where we belong."  Profound).

Step 2 - The President of the United States delivers a speech from the very same podium, minutes later.

Step 3 - An enterprising journalist asks the White House spokesman if the president condemns the union boss' inflammatory rhetoric.

Step 4 - Said White House spokesman bobs and weaves for two minutes, ultimately refusing to disavow or apologize for the remarks.

Just so we're all on the same page here, according to this White House, President Obama bears zero responsibility for anything that does not literally proceed from his mouth at a rally he attends.  As Tapper establishes in his drill-down, Team Obama is embracing the construct that the incendiary words of surrogates or other speakers at campaign events are not the "principal's" (in this case, Obama's) problem, and that it would be an irrelevant waste of time to ask the principal to repudiate someone else's comments.  Tapper, who's tangled aggressively with Carney before, cagily reminds the White House spokesman that Obama's campaign once adopted a different stance on such matters.  He makes passing reference to a 2008 cycle incident in Ohio, in which a local talk radio host repeatedly invoked Obama's middle name during an on-stage diatribe at a McCain campaign rally:

When conservative talk radio host Bill Cunningham, a supporter of Sen. John McCain, warmed up the crowd before the Arizona senator spoke in Cincinnati today, he assailed Democrat Barack Obama in harsh terms — and repeatedly used his middle name, Hussein.  Immediately after his own speech, McCain apologized and said he condemned Cunningham’s remarks...McCain said he didn’t hear the comments and didn’t know about the remarks before addressing the crowd at Memorial Hall.

The Obama campaign officially accepted the apology in a written press statement.  Based on today's rules, though, anything said at a McCain rally that didn't come from the candidate himself would be unworthy of media scrutiny.  Tapper tries to induce Carney into saying something -- anything -- that might indicate the president disapproves of an influential Obama ally using belligerent language to demonize a large swath of the American populous.  No such luck.  Tapper's questions are distractions from the president's job creation, ahem, "agenda," he's curtly informed.  Just to make sure Carney's point is perfectly clear, Tapper summarizes: "The precedent you're setting for the 2012 election is that the Republican candidates are the ones we need to pay attention to -- and those who introduce them at rallies, they're surrogates, we don't have to pay attention to anything they say?"  Carney declines to correct or clarify Tapper's assertion.

Lesson learned, Perry/Romney/Bachmann campaigns!  Make sure the principal keeps his or her powder dry, and just set everyone else -- even speakers at campaign gatherings -- loose to engage in the truly vulgar attacks.  No apologies will be demanded by the Obama campaign, nor should they be offered, so long as the GOP nominee isn't overtly sligning the mud.  Good to know.

Of course, this is a self-serving standard for the Obama crew to bless, for two reasons:
(1) They know as well as you and I do that theirs will be an intensely personal, negative campaign in 2012.  Obama will float above the fray most of the time, but pretty much everyone else will come out with Ugly Guns a-blazin'.  Why not preemptively claim that none of this not-technically-expressed-by-Obama vitriol should reflect on him as a sitting president and candidate? 
(2) They're also supremely confident -- perhaps reasonably so -- that the media will issue a few requisite tut-tuts for Obama's nasty campaign, but will run ruthless interference for Democrats every time even a slight disturbance or wince-worthy moment plays out at a GOP event.  Remember the dopey (and incorrect) McCain/Palin "hate rally" crisis meme the media spun off of one or two outbursts from random GOP supporters in 2008?  The Obama campaign is counting on similarly negative coverage for Republicans this time around, while trusting that they won't get savaged for the separate set of rules by which they're plotting to play.


UPDATE - Katie pointed out yesterday that DWS also wouldn't condemn Hoffa's inarticulate 'SOB' comment.  Hard to bite the hand that feeds you, isn't it, Democrats?

[sirs]

As you read this 9/11 "memorial" missive to rank-and-file union members, bear in mind that its author -- AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka -- was an honored presidential guest at last night's campaign rally disguised as a "jobs speech."  This is much, much more offensive than Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.'s juvenile "SOB's" slur on Monday.  Without further ado, I present top White House ally Richard Trumka's reflections on the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 (emphasis mine):
 
All of us will remember the horror and anguish we experienced 10 years ago. Whether we lost loved ones ourselves—family members, union brothers and sisters—or felt the shock of a society that lost nearly 3,000 people and was forever changed, we need no reminding.

Instead, I would like to reflect on doors that were opened on Sept. 11, 2001, and what has come of them in the 10 years since. Working men and women rushed through doors to danger and became America’s everyday heroes. Firefighters, construction workers, nurses and EMTs—all kinds of professionals and volunteers—were there not just on the fateful day but some for weeks and months and even years after. And we swore we would never forget.

Doors opened within us to each other. We came together. We flew the flag. We comforted one another. In our grief, we found the best in ourselves. What an overwhelming sense of unity we shared, all across our nation. And it was this unity that allowed us to begin healing and rebuilding. There is no time in my memory of a more proud example of what we can accomplish when we work together. Solidarity, the cornerstone of the union movement, flowed through all of us and carried us through.

So far, so good.  Then, the floodgates open:
 
But other doors opened, too—doors to hate, suspicion of “others” and self-centered greed. Our fear was twisted into something much more dangerous. The unity that had helped us survive faded as divisiveness took root. I look around today in amazement at just how far apart our nation has become—the endless possibilities that came with our unity have all but vanished.

Just 10 years after 9/11, despite our vows, the public servants, construction workers and others who lost their lives or still suffer with the cancerous remnants of the Twin Towers haven’t just been forgotten. They’ve been vilified. The extremist small government posse has turned them into public enemy No. 1, as though teachers and firefighters, EMTs and nurses and union construction workers ruined America’s economy.

In state after state this year—with the heroism of 9/11 less than a decade behind us—politicians targeted the paychecks, benefits and basic rights of these workers in a rabid campaign to shift government support to tax breaks for the wealthy and already profitable corporations.  Wealthy CEOs, anti-government extremist front groups and frothing talk show hosts—from the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks to the Koch brothers, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads group, Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the American Legislative Exchange Council—also pushed open the door to hate.

Make no mistake—setting workers against workers is a highly profitable endeavor. How many times during the vilest state attacks on public workers did we hear the question: “Other people don’t have pensions. Why should he?” Prompting that question required twisting the American psyche—which, by its founding nature, seeks to lift the common good. The appropriate question should have been, “Why doesn’t everybody have a pension?” followed by collective action for retirement security.

We’ve seen the costs of hatred in ill-thought wars, in shameful attacks on immigrants and our LGBT neighbors. We saw it in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.  We saw it in the racism that has found overt and covert expression since Barack Obama began his run for office—from outright declarations of people who said out loud they would never vote for a black man to the ridiculously persistent obsession with our president’s birth certificate. Regardless of his policies or priorities, President Obama is shadowed by the drumbeat of suspicion based on his “other”-ness. And those suspicions are fed and watered constantly by forces that were threatened by his message of “hope and change.”

We’ve seen the cost of greed in the recklessness of financial institutions that created the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression and the devastating jobs crisis that persists today.  But I remember that other door that opened on 9/11—the door to our better selves, to our understanding that we are one and our values require us to care for one another.

That’s what sent 347 firefighters to their death at the Twin Towers 10 years ago. It’s also what sent firefighters to stand with teachers in Wisconsin even though Gov. Scott Walker had exempted them from his attack on public employees. It’s what moves employed people now to demand good jobs for the 26 million Americans who are looking for work. It’s what gives us the courage to take on a crumbling economy and the politicians preaching austerity and ignoring our jobs crisis—to take them on and say, “We are America. We are better than this. And we are one.” Brothers and sisters, friends, I hope you will join me in marking this solemn anniversary by committing to redouble your activism on behalf of America’s everyday working heroes. We will rise or fall together.

This is appalling, and requires no further commentary.  It truly speaks for itself.  My only concern was that it was so cartoonish and vile that it might not be authentic.  I called the AFL-CIO, and a representative told me it "appears to be legitimate."  She said she'd get back to me with final confirmation, but conceded that it's a fair assumption that Trumka is, in fact, the piece's author. 

Egads.