Flu welcomed by some critics; Obama did it,

May 2, 8:41 PMTampa Politics ExaminerJim Stillman

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I have written about the patently paranoid commentators on radio and television who see images of black mysterious helicopters, devious plots to turn the United States into a (take your choice) communist/fascist/socialist/atheist society.

The Right’s (and, as always, I do not include thoughtful critics of the political and social views with which I agree) agenda has been to destroy Barack Obama’s presidency from the start.  There have been clear and unambiguous examples of this during the past week and I respectfully offer them for discussion.

The flu is seized by the Right.

The outbreak of a new strain of a flu virus, the H1N1, gave many on the Right a way to justify their paranoia and, incidentally go about misinforming the public. Because the flu virus may have originated in Mexico, the story provided an excuse to engage in some good-old fashioned immigrant-bashing and renew calls for greater, if impractical border security. The story also provided right-wing media figures with more fuel for their fear-mongering about the Obama administration.

Even the naming of the virus was used as an excuse to bash the President!  As I had noted previously, the flu strain had been originally referred to as the “swine flu”; the administration called for moving away from that language because it was contributing to baseless fears that the virus had to do with pork consumption and, by extension, all United States meat products, evidencing international concern about importing them. Notwithstanding that explanation and assurances, several bar-b-que restaurants in the Tampa area have reported substantial drops in customers because of concern that the flu can be spread by eating ribs.

For example, on CNN, Lou Dobbs turned the nomenclature issue as one of “political correctness”.  People in Israel and in the Muslim population objected to the word “swine”, Mexicans objected to the alternative, “Mexican flu” so the Obama people use the “H1N1” term. Dobbs characterized those who do so as “idiots” and “out of their cotton pickin’ minds”. Including, presumably CNN’s own medical expert, Sanjay Gupta.

Radio guy Neal Boortz opined that the flu virus was intentionally created by al Qaeda or another Muslim terrorist group as part of its terror-attacks on the United States, adding, “What better was”, he said, “to sneak a virus into this country than to give it Mexicans?”

Michael Savage expanded on the theme. "There is certainly the possibility that our dear friends in the Middle East cooked this up in a laboratory somewhere in a cave and brought it to Mexico knowing that our incompetent government would not protect us from this epidemic because of our open-border policies After all, terrorists are perfectly aware that Mexicans "are the perfect mules for bringing this virus into America."

Typically, the Leader of the Pack, Rush, has outdone even his usual nonsense!  Rush said,

"All of this is by design. It's designed to get people to respond to government orders. ... It is designed to expand the role and power of government and schools, and the media just falls right in line with it”

If only the Democrats were so inventive and efficient!

The perversion of news and the intentional misleading reports and suggestions are not a new phenomenon.  I have previously remarked on the ways the Bill Clinton presidency was pulled off course and distracted by continuing rumors and innuendo, attacks from the Right and, ultimately, the appointment of a Special Prosecutor and impeachment.  None of the accusations of fraud, larceny, even murder, got beyond the laughable stage; President Clinton’s consensual sex with women other than his wife (not that uncommon in the halls of Congress) gave the conspirators ammunition.

Those same interests are determined to destroy Barack Obama – even if in the course of that destruction, this country is harmed.

 "The dirty little secret ... is that every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so. I am willing to say it."

: "I want the stimulus package to fail. ... I want everything he's doing to fail."

Finally, in talking with the Republican National Committee’s Michael Steele, Rush criticized for Steele’s lack of Rush’s excesses:

 "Why do you claim that you are leading the Republican Party when you are obsessed with seeing to it the President Obama succeeds?"

While most commentators and thoughtful members of the media marked the “First 100 days”: of the Barack Obama presidency as an occasion for comparing campaign promises and results, many in the media, primarily in FNC used the occasion as a time to omit the truth and to create or pursue adverse comments.  Much of the criticism from the right is simply unfair or outright untrue.

I’ll go into detail and focus on Big Daddy.  I hope that the Ditto-Heads are listening,