BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
When you follow politics, it is easy to become consumed by all of the charges and countercharges, accusations, innuendo, name-calling and character assassinations that dominate the headlines.
The challenge is to sort out what in the political theater has broader meaning or a lesson worth learning. President Obama’s insinuation that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is injecting foreign funds into American campaigns offers a little of both.
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
I sent a letter to the President, obviously not for his benefit, but mine, on his repetitive rhetoric about taxing the rich, partly inspired by a letter someone sent me some months ago. This isn’t my exact letter. I edited and updated a bit, but it’s the thought that counts.
Dear Mr. President:
I listened pretty intently to your speech in Cleveland, and I’ve heard you say over and over again you are not going to back down from taxing the wealthy. It seems to be one of the central themes of your Administration: There are victims and villains in America, the lines between them are clearly drawn and you are dedicated to protecting the victims and punishing the villains, among them, the rich.
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
The oil spill catastrophe has set off a new round of finger pointing. Oil company executives were crawling over each other a week ago to place blame on each other.
And, the President is doing what he does extremely well, branding oil company executives as villains and the rest of us as victims of their villainous behavior.
Who knows where the blame will ultimately lie. There will be plenty to go around.
I have no interest in, or sympathy for, British Petroleum. They ought to pay out of the wazzoo.
My concern is with the politics of the blame game, especially during these times when nerves are shot, the public nerves are on edge already and people are just looking for an excuse to get mad. Also of concern is the more profound impact on the civility of our political dialogue.
Throughout the campaign, while candidate Obama was promising to be a healer and a uniter, he was engaged in a sophisticated strategy to divide, to create victims and villains in American politics, identifying for his supporters at whom they should be mad and for whom they should show pity. That is par for the course in political campaigns. But to my surprise, the strategy was intensified after he became President. Over the past two years he has created the false imagery of a society in which you’re either a victim or a villain. In a constant display of high dexterity finger pointing he has made villains of lobbyists, Wall Street firms, doctors, insurance companies, auto executives, talk radio celebrities, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Fox News, bankers, tea partiers, Republicans, conservatives, gun owners, the entire state of Arizona, and now, for a repeat performance, oil company executives.