Things
to question
Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor
of Law, University of Chicago
I've been thinking lately about the persistently vituperative
and insulting attacks on President Obama since 2008. It is, of course,
commonplace in American politics for presidents to be lambasted for their
policies, their programs, their values, and even their personal quirks.
Sometimes the tone crosses the line. John Adams was accused by a political
opponent of "swallowing up" every "consideration of the public
welfare ... in a continual grasp for power." James Madison was demeaned as
"Little Jemmy," because he was short. James Buchanan, who once
declared that workers should get by on a dime a day, came to be mocked as
"Ten Cents Jimmy."
John Tyler, who assumed the presidency after the death of
William Henry Harrison, was ridiculed as "His Accidency." Congressman
Abraham Lincoln castigated President James K. Polk as a "completely
bewildered man." Opponents of Woodrow Wilson's reinstitution of the draft
in World War I accused him of "committing a sin against humanity."
Critics of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal attacked him as an "un-American
radical." Richard Nixon was famously known as "Tricky Dick," and
of course he was not "A Crook." At the height of the Vietnam War,
Lyndon Johnson was excoriated by his opponents as a "Murderer" and a
"War Criminal."
But no president in our nation's history has ever been
castigated, condemned, mocked, insulted, derided, and degraded on a scale even
close to the constantly ugly attacks on President Obama. From the day he
assumed office -- indeed, even before he assumed office -- he was subjected to
unprecedented insults in often the most hateful terms.
He has been accused of being born in Kenya, of being a
"secret Muslim," of being complicit with the Muslim Brotherhood, of
wearing a ring bearing a secret verse from the Koran, of having once been a
Black Panther, of refusing to recite the pledge of allegiance, of seeking to
confiscate all guns, of lying about just about everything he has ever said,
ranging from Benghazi to the Affordable Care Act to immigration, of faking bin
Laden's death, and of funding his campaigns with drug money. It goes on and on
and on. Even the President's family is treated by his political enemies with
disrespect and disdain.
If one browses even respectable websites, one can readily find
bumper stickers, coffee cups, and tee-shirts for sale with such messages as:
"Dump This Turd" (with an image of President Obama); "Coward!
You Left Them To Die in Benghazi" (with an image of President Obama);
"Somewhere in Kenya A Village Is Missing Its Idiot" (with an image of
President Obama); "Islam's Trojan Horse" (with an image of President
Obama); "Pure Evil" (with an image of President Obama); "I'm Not
A Racist: I Hate His White Half Too" (with an image of President Obama);
"He Lies!" (with an image of President Obama); and on and on and on.
Now, don't get me wrong. Every one of these messages is
protected by the First Amendment, and people have a right to express their
views, even in harsh, offensive, cruel, and moronic ways. We the People do not
need to trust or admire our leaders, and we should not treat them with respect
if we don't feel they deserve our respect. But the sheer vituperation directed
at this President goes beyond any rational opposition and is, quite frankly,
mind-boggling.
In part, of course, this might just be a product of our times.
Perhaps the quality of our public discourse has sunk so low that any public
official must now expect such treatment. Perhaps any president elected in 2008
would have been greeted with similar scorn and disdain. But, to be honest, that
seems unlikely.
Of course, there are those who say that this phenomenon is due
in part, perhaps in large part, to the fact that President Obama is
African-American. But surely racism is dead in America today, right?
One fact that might lend some credence to the theory that racism
has something to do with the tenor of the attacks on President Obama is that
only one other president in our history has been the target of similar (though
more subdued) personal attacks.
In his day, this president was castigated by the press and his
political opponents as a "liar," a "despot," a
"usurper," a "thief," a "monster," a
"perjurer," an "ignoramus," a "swindler," a
"tyrant," a "fiend," a "coward," a
"buffoon," a "butcher," a "pirate," a
"devil," and a "king." He was charged with being
"cunning," "thickheaded," "heartless,"
"filthy," and "fanatical." He was accused of behaving
"like a thief in the night," of being "the miserable tool of
traitors and rebels," and of being "adrift on a current of racial
fanaticism." He was labeled by his enemies "Abraham Africanus the
First."
But, of course, race had nothing to do with it then, either.
