[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
Dear Sen. Feingold:
As you know, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board Friday officially certified a recall election for far-right Governor Scott Walker. This was not a close call, as the board found 900,939 valid signatures, far more than the 540,208 minimum needed to force an election.
I know you've said you won't run against Walker, but I am writing to plead with you to change your mind. I would humbly suggest that if the values you stood for in 28 years representing the people of Wisconsin--standing up for the middle class and seeking to prevent undue influence from corporations--were honest and not a campaign ploy (and I fully believe you were genuine), than running for governor in this year's recall election would be vital to protect those values, which Walker has assaulted for the last year.
I admit I fully understand why you would not want to run.
First, after 10 years in the Wisconsin State Senate and 18 years in the U.S. Senate, you have earned the opportunity to explore alternative, less-stressful ways of promoting causes you believe in, especially through heading Progressives United, which is dedicated to "stand[ing] up to the exploding corporate influence in our political system by organizing and amplifying the voices of those who believe that corporations have too much power." You have served your state and your country with distinction. It's understandable that you would like to move on.
Second, I'm sure you feel angry and betrayed by the people of Wisconsin for voting you out of office in 2010. After all, you spent three terms in the U.S. Senate standing up for the values of Wisconsin while not operating as a close-minded partisan, comfortable working with Republicans when appropriate (like McCain-Feingold) and even bucking progressives by often voting to support gun rights because you knew that such a position was consistent with the beliefs of a large number of your constituents (even if progressives like me disagreed with your stance). And your reward was not only to be rejected as part of a "wave" election in 2010, but to have the electorate choose over you a truly unimpressive, far-right ideologue who, as I wrote in October 2010, "has called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," blamed climate change on sunspots, called dismantling Social Security and Medicare a "starting point," and is "open" to abolishing the Federal Reserve." I would be very angry if the people of my state chose a guy like that over me, and I'm sure you are, too.
Third, with the Koch brothers and others dumping millions of dollars into the state to defend Walker, you know that the Democratic nominee will find himself/herself in a tough spot of either making use of the same post-Citizens United issue-ad financing that you abhor or going into the election at a colossal financial disadvantage.
But here's the thing: Despite your valid reasons for staying out of the race, you need to change your mind and run for governor (and do so ASAP). I base this conclusion on two basic principles that should trump your valid concerns:
1. You (and maybe only you) can beat Walker. With Walker's buckets of corporate money and name recognition, along with the hesitancy some voters may have about the recall process (something I discussed in November), it is going to be a tough task to defeat him in the election. To do so will take an exceptional candidate, someone with statewide name recognition, a stellar record of service and the ability to appeal to moderate independents. And as the field is shaping up right now, you are the only person who would fit that description. Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are good executives, but Falk is unknown and has what some in Wisconsin see as the stigma of being from liberal Madison, and Barrett already lost to Walker (and Walker's team has already started blaming him for raising taxes in Milwaukee and presiding over a poor economy, a strategy that worked in 2010, even though Walker himself has been at the helm as Wisconsin has lost jobs and underperformed in the economic recovery compared to the rest of the country).
Recent polls support my take on your electability. In late February, Public Policy Polling had you ahead of Walker 52 percent to 45 percent. None of the eight other potential candidates PPP polled got 50 percent or more. Falk only edged Walker, 48 percent to 47 percent, while Barrett did only slightly better, 49 percent to 46 percent (both within the margin of error).
It seems clear that you would be, by far, the candidate most likely to beat Walker, and you may, in fact, be the only candidate that can be Walker at all. You are certainly the only candidate that has a chance to win without making use of Super PAC money.
Which brings me to the second reason you have to run:
2. This recall election will determine whether Walker continues to damage the lower and middle classes in Wisconsin. As you know well, since Walker's so-called "budget repair bill" passed, gutting collective bargaining for state workers and slashing education budgets across the state (something that has had a devastating effect on Wisconsin school districts), all while cutting taxes for the wealthy, Wisconsin's economy has been in a free fall. Specifically, the state was one of only six to contract during this period, losing tens of thousands of private sector jobs, especially in manufacturing, as neighboring states have gained jobs (especially in manufacturing). The recovery seen in the rest of the country has bypassed Wisconsin.
The center of Walker's 2010 campaign was his promise to create 250,000 jobs, but, once in office, he sacrificed the economic well being of the middle class to enact a far-right-wing wish list of initiatives that had nothing to do with creating jobs, including, in addition to union busting and gutting education spending, new laws to suppress low-income and elderly voters, no-bid privatization of energy interests, and an attack on women's right to choose and access to birth control.
Wisconsin's (non-wealthy) citizens are under siege by a governor uninterested in them. The only way to stop this attack is to vote Walker out of office.
It would certainly be a defendable assertion to argue that nobody has done more than you in the last three decades to protect the Wisconsin middle class and limit the influence of corporations. So if these causes are as important to you as you've always said they are (and I fully believe you do hold these causes dear), than you have to do what is necessary to try and stop Walker, which means running against him.
I think it's pretty clear that you can do more good right now in the Wisconsin governor's mansion than you can at Progressives United. You can drive from power a governor steadfastly pushing policies that damage most Wisconsinites.
As a result, I beg you to reconsider your decision and throw your hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination to oppose Walker in the recall election.
Submitted with nothing but respect and admiration for what you have done in three decades of public service,
Mitchell Bard
Madison, Wisconsin
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Karzai Asks Us to Leave (Most of) Afghanistan, and We Should Listen
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
It's starting to look like the Obama administration is moving toward a decision to get American troops out of Afghanistan at an even faster pace than the drawdowns announced in November. I hope so. At this point, we no longer have any valid interest in maintaining tens of thousands of soldiers in the country.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the administration is considering speeding up its withdrawal timetable. Two days later, Afghan president Hamid Karzai demanded that American troops pull out of the country's villages by 2013, confining themselves to major bases. We should listen to him, only sooner.
While the original foray into Afghanistan was justified (after 9/11), and President Obama's attempt to put things back on track after the Bush administration's incompetent handling of the war in Afghanistan (with its diversion to Iraq) was understandable, two years after the implementation of the president's new strategy, it's time to reassess why we are in Afghanistan, what we can hope to accomplish, and what our next move should be.
The original goal in attacking Afghanistan in 2002 was to topple the Taliban government, which had allowed Al Qaeda to base its terrorist operations out of the country. The 2010 Obama plan was aimed at nation building, providing an infrastructure for a civil government and an Afghan police force and army that could defend the country from the menace and religious extremism of the Taliban (thus, allowing the United States to exit Afghanistan).
In 2012, after ten years in Afghanistan (longer than the Soviets in the 1970s), it seems to me we've done all we can do there, and it's time to bring most of our troops home. None of the reasons proffered for a continued major presence make sense anymore.
Fighting terrorism. Thanks to the Obama administration's escalation of attacks on Al Qaeda, including drone attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the terrorist organization has been left leaderless, weakened and dispersed, top intelligence leaders testified to Congress in February. And the killing of Osama bin Laden was carried out not by the might of conventional army divisions, but through the specialized work of intelligence professionals and small, elite military groups (like SEAL Team Six).
Simply put, we don't need tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and other terrorists. It's not the way the world operates in 2012. The real dangers are elsewhere. And we can address the dangers that remain there more efficiently, with only a handful of soldiers in Afghanistan.
Nation building. Possibly the most compelling argument to stay is to protect the Afghan people from the extremism of the Taliban. But report after report from Afghanistan, including two New York Times Magazine pieces roughly 20 months apart (June 2010 and February 2012), tell similar stories of the challenges facing U.S. troops in trying to build Afghan institutions to offer an alternative to the Taliban. The Taliban know they can outwait us. They know that eventually American troops will have to pull out. They have areas in which they can retreat, knowing American soldiers cannot chase after them. And they have the resolve to forge ahead. The biggest problem is that the Afghan people know this, too. They are afraid to support the Afghan government, knowing full well that the Taliban can seek retribution.
But the inability to nation build (assuming that the Afghan army and police cannot fight off the Taliban once we leave, something we won't know until we're gone) is not just about the Taliban threat. It may be time that we recognize that a majority of the Afghan people may not want to live in a Western-style free democracy.
Even if we could, somehow, remove the Taliban as a dangerous force, Afghan culture is not always in sync with Western values, especially equality for women. The country's record on rights for women, and not just acts by the Taliban, but by the government and families acting on their own and for their tribes, is abysmal. Imprisoning women for being raped, honor killings, attacks on girls for attending schools, and acid attacks are emblematic of the problem.
A culture that so freely mistreats half its population may not be ready for democracy. We can't impose our way of life on people that don't want it. And I think it's time we stop sacrificing the lives of our soldiers to try and do it. Unfortunately, there are many places in the world where governments and groups persecute portions of their populations (based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, tribe, etc.). We can protest, use diplomacy, employ sanctions and otherwise try to fight these abuses. But we can't send the military to all these places to try and protect those being persecuted. So the reprehensible way Afghanistan treats its women can't be the primary justification for keeping American soldiers in the country.
Protecting an ally. For what kind of government in Afghanistan are American soldiers risking (and, too often, giving) their lives? Not one that is worth their sacrifices (and that of their families). Karzai's government is corrupt, with accusations that he fixed his 2009 re-election questioning its legitimacy. And it is not as if he has been a loyal ally to the United States, as he has openly courted Iran as an ally (and taken money from the country) and surrounded himself with anti-American advisers.
At this point, it's hard to argue that the Karzai regime is one worth fighting for.
In the end, over the last two years, we as a country did everything we were capable of to give the Afghan people the chance to choose a path of democracy and equality. Whether we waited too long, or the country's ancient tribal culture and misogynic traditions were too deep and ingrained to overcome, we seemed to have reached the limit of how far we could move Afghan society away from its less free traditions. The bottom line is that staying longer is not going to make a difference.
Our goals when we invaded Afghanistan, and when President Obama reinvigorated efforts in Afghanistan in 2010, are no longer served by the continuing presence of a large number of troops in the country.
Over the last ten years, we toppled the Taliban. We built up the Afghan army and police force. We built up the country's infrastructure. We accomplished a lot (although we wasted opportunities while in Iraq, but we can't turn back the clock).
What happens next is up to the Afghan people, not us. The country's president has asked us to leave. If he doesn't want us there, we shouldn't be there. In fact, we should beat Karzai's timetable and get most of our troops out of Afghanistan as soon as is safe and practical.
It's starting to look like the Obama administration is moving toward a decision to get American troops out of Afghanistan at an even faster pace than the drawdowns announced in November. I hope so. At this point, we no longer have any valid interest in maintaining tens of thousands of soldiers in the country.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the administration is considering speeding up its withdrawal timetable. Two days later, Afghan president Hamid Karzai demanded that American troops pull out of the country's villages by 2013, confining themselves to major bases. We should listen to him, only sooner.
While the original foray into Afghanistan was justified (after 9/11), and President Obama's attempt to put things back on track after the Bush administration's incompetent handling of the war in Afghanistan (with its diversion to Iraq) was understandable, two years after the implementation of the president's new strategy, it's time to reassess why we are in Afghanistan, what we can hope to accomplish, and what our next move should be.
The original goal in attacking Afghanistan in 2002 was to topple the Taliban government, which had allowed Al Qaeda to base its terrorist operations out of the country. The 2010 Obama plan was aimed at nation building, providing an infrastructure for a civil government and an Afghan police force and army that could defend the country from the menace and religious extremism of the Taliban (thus, allowing the United States to exit Afghanistan).
In 2012, after ten years in Afghanistan (longer than the Soviets in the 1970s), it seems to me we've done all we can do there, and it's time to bring most of our troops home. None of the reasons proffered for a continued major presence make sense anymore.
Fighting terrorism. Thanks to the Obama administration's escalation of attacks on Al Qaeda, including drone attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the terrorist organization has been left leaderless, weakened and dispersed, top intelligence leaders testified to Congress in February. And the killing of Osama bin Laden was carried out not by the might of conventional army divisions, but through the specialized work of intelligence professionals and small, elite military groups (like SEAL Team Six).
Simply put, we don't need tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and other terrorists. It's not the way the world operates in 2012. The real dangers are elsewhere. And we can address the dangers that remain there more efficiently, with only a handful of soldiers in Afghanistan.
Nation building. Possibly the most compelling argument to stay is to protect the Afghan people from the extremism of the Taliban. But report after report from Afghanistan, including two New York Times Magazine pieces roughly 20 months apart (June 2010 and February 2012), tell similar stories of the challenges facing U.S. troops in trying to build Afghan institutions to offer an alternative to the Taliban. The Taliban know they can outwait us. They know that eventually American troops will have to pull out. They have areas in which they can retreat, knowing American soldiers cannot chase after them. And they have the resolve to forge ahead. The biggest problem is that the Afghan people know this, too. They are afraid to support the Afghan government, knowing full well that the Taliban can seek retribution.
But the inability to nation build (assuming that the Afghan army and police cannot fight off the Taliban once we leave, something we won't know until we're gone) is not just about the Taliban threat. It may be time that we recognize that a majority of the Afghan people may not want to live in a Western-style free democracy.
Even if we could, somehow, remove the Taliban as a dangerous force, Afghan culture is not always in sync with Western values, especially equality for women. The country's record on rights for women, and not just acts by the Taliban, but by the government and families acting on their own and for their tribes, is abysmal. Imprisoning women for being raped, honor killings, attacks on girls for attending schools, and acid attacks are emblematic of the problem.
A culture that so freely mistreats half its population may not be ready for democracy. We can't impose our way of life on people that don't want it. And I think it's time we stop sacrificing the lives of our soldiers to try and do it. Unfortunately, there are many places in the world where governments and groups persecute portions of their populations (based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, tribe, etc.). We can protest, use diplomacy, employ sanctions and otherwise try to fight these abuses. But we can't send the military to all these places to try and protect those being persecuted. So the reprehensible way Afghanistan treats its women can't be the primary justification for keeping American soldiers in the country.
Protecting an ally. For what kind of government in Afghanistan are American soldiers risking (and, too often, giving) their lives? Not one that is worth their sacrifices (and that of their families). Karzai's government is corrupt, with accusations that he fixed his 2009 re-election questioning its legitimacy. And it is not as if he has been a loyal ally to the United States, as he has openly courted Iran as an ally (and taken money from the country) and surrounded himself with anti-American advisers.
At this point, it's hard to argue that the Karzai regime is one worth fighting for.
In the end, over the last two years, we as a country did everything we were capable of to give the Afghan people the chance to choose a path of democracy and equality. Whether we waited too long, or the country's ancient tribal culture and misogynic traditions were too deep and ingrained to overcome, we seemed to have reached the limit of how far we could move Afghan society away from its less free traditions. The bottom line is that staying longer is not going to make a difference.
Our goals when we invaded Afghanistan, and when President Obama reinvigorated efforts in Afghanistan in 2010, are no longer served by the continuing presence of a large number of troops in the country.
Over the last ten years, we toppled the Taliban. We built up the Afghan army and police force. We built up the country's infrastructure. We accomplished a lot (although we wasted opportunities while in Iraq, but we can't turn back the clock).
What happens next is up to the Afghan people, not us. The country's president has asked us to leave. If he doesn't want us there, we shouldn't be there. In fact, we should beat Karzai's timetable and get most of our troops out of Afghanistan as soon as is safe and practical.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
GOP Construction of a Fictional "Obama" Has Taken a Turn to the Absurd
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
Bill Maher, in relaying his last "New Rule" on the Jan. 27 episode of "Real Time," returned to an argument about the GOP presidential race that he has advanced regularly:
"You know, Republicans have created this completely fictional president. His name is Barack X. And he's an Islamo-socialist revolutionary who is coming for your guns, raising your taxes, slashing the military, apologizing to other countries, and taking his cues from Europe, or worse yet, Saul Alinsky! And this is how politics has changed. You used to have to run against an actual candidate. But, now, you just recreate him inside the bubble and run against your new fictional candidate."
(You can watch the clip of the whole "New Rule" here or read the transcript here.)
Maher isn't really exaggerating. Contrary to the fictional stories told by Republicans, the president has cut taxes (taxes are lower under Obama than they were under Ronald Reagan, and the tax burden on Americans is the lowest it's been since 1950), raised the military budget, been more aggressive in fighting Islamist militants than his predecessor (bin Laden and numerous dead Taliban and al-Qaida leaders would attest to this fact if they could, as well as all those hit by increased drone attacks, not to mention--although they're not Islamists--Qadafi and all the Somali pirates who have met their demise on the business end of American military hardware), and has not proposed or supported any anti-gun legislation (instead, signing a bill that included a Republican amendment allowing guns in national parks).
Andrew Sullivan did a great job in January of laying out the Obama created by the GOP and then showing how the facts spoil the Republican fiction.
And, to be clear, we're not just talking about fringe right-wing attention-seekers making stuff up about Obama. The GOP presidential frontrunner (is he still?), Mitt Romney, accused Obama of "putting free enterprise on trial" and delusionally claimed:
"President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others."
Apparently, extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy makes you an opponent of free enterprise, and continuing the bailout of the banks makes you a proponent of wealth redistribution.
(And if Rick Santorum is now the front-runner, which I don't buy, well, he makes Romney look clear-eyed regarding the president. According to Santorum, Obama wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, has "overt hostility to faith," has failed to fight "militant socialism," defunded abstinence-only programs because he wants "people to be in poverty," etc.)
But even as commentators start to note the GOP effort to create a fictional Barack Obama, it looks like Republicans have decided to double down on the stupid. That is, they have strayed from plausible lies (lies that, to the uninformed, could feel true) to absurd ones.
For example, on Tuesday, Sean Hannity made the ridiculous comment that Osama bin Laden's death "wouldn't have happened if he [Obama] had his way."
Really think about what he said for a second. When SEAL Team Six went into Pakistan to take out bin Laden, who gave the order? Here's a hint: He has an oval-shaped office in the White House. If Obama didn't want bin Laden killed, bin Laden would still be alive.
(Oh, and you'll notice the president didn't ask for Pakistan's permission to breach its borders, nor did he offer any apologies for doing so.)
By now, the story of the bin Laden mission is well known. Success was not assured. The president weighed all of the information at his disposal, which had been accumulated from years of bin Laden surveillance since his inauguration, and he took a calculated risk to approve the mission. According to Vice President Biden, when the president's senior advisers made their final recommendations, nobody (with the exception of CIA Director Leon Panetta) gave an unqualified yes. Most waffled. Biden offered a solid no. But the president opted to go forward.
If the mission had failed, Hannity would have surely placed the blame on Obama for making a reckless decision. But it worked. And now he's saying the president didn't want it to happen?
To throw a little more absurd syrup on top of the bat-s%#t-crazy sundae, remember that Obama didn't just succeed in getting bin Laden; he made it a priority, unlike his predecessor, who said, "I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."
In short, Hannity says the president who prioritized finding bin Laden and made the difficult and risky decision to take out the al-Qaida leader (something the previous president couldn't be bothered with) didn't really want to kill him.
This is the level of absurdity to which the right has sunk in creating a fake Barack Obama.
Maybe this is all a good sign. Maybe, despite gains in the 2010 midterms (when the Republicans successfully created a fake health care law: Death panels! Care for illegal immigrants! They're taking your Medicare!), the GOP doesn't think it can beat the real Obama in November. Or maybe Republicans are worried by the numerous instances of buyer's remorse since November 2010, with successful candidate and statute recalls in Wisconsin, Ohio and Maine, as well as recent polls showing the GOP in trouble in Ohio and Obama doing relatively well in the battleground states.
Whatever the reason, the American people may be easily fooled at times, but nobody outside of the right-wing echo chamber will believe that Barack Obama didn't want to kill bin Laden. (That's even less believable than the idea that the guy who opted to fight in Vietnam and was awarded three purple hearts was a coward, while the guy who pulled strings to get into the National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam was a courageous leader, right?)
The Republican construction of a fake Barack Obama has gone off the rails. I hope the GOP keeps it up, as it only helps Obama's chances in November.
Bill Maher, in relaying his last "New Rule" on the Jan. 27 episode of "Real Time," returned to an argument about the GOP presidential race that he has advanced regularly:
"You know, Republicans have created this completely fictional president. His name is Barack X. And he's an Islamo-socialist revolutionary who is coming for your guns, raising your taxes, slashing the military, apologizing to other countries, and taking his cues from Europe, or worse yet, Saul Alinsky! And this is how politics has changed. You used to have to run against an actual candidate. But, now, you just recreate him inside the bubble and run against your new fictional candidate."
(You can watch the clip of the whole "New Rule" here or read the transcript here.)
Maher isn't really exaggerating. Contrary to the fictional stories told by Republicans, the president has cut taxes (taxes are lower under Obama than they were under Ronald Reagan, and the tax burden on Americans is the lowest it's been since 1950), raised the military budget, been more aggressive in fighting Islamist militants than his predecessor (bin Laden and numerous dead Taliban and al-Qaida leaders would attest to this fact if they could, as well as all those hit by increased drone attacks, not to mention--although they're not Islamists--Qadafi and all the Somali pirates who have met their demise on the business end of American military hardware), and has not proposed or supported any anti-gun legislation (instead, signing a bill that included a Republican amendment allowing guns in national parks).
Andrew Sullivan did a great job in January of laying out the Obama created by the GOP and then showing how the facts spoil the Republican fiction.
And, to be clear, we're not just talking about fringe right-wing attention-seekers making stuff up about Obama. The GOP presidential frontrunner (is he still?), Mitt Romney, accused Obama of "putting free enterprise on trial" and delusionally claimed:
"President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others."
Apparently, extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy makes you an opponent of free enterprise, and continuing the bailout of the banks makes you a proponent of wealth redistribution.
(And if Rick Santorum is now the front-runner, which I don't buy, well, he makes Romney look clear-eyed regarding the president. According to Santorum, Obama wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, has "overt hostility to faith," has failed to fight "militant socialism," defunded abstinence-only programs because he wants "people to be in poverty," etc.)
But even as commentators start to note the GOP effort to create a fictional Barack Obama, it looks like Republicans have decided to double down on the stupid. That is, they have strayed from plausible lies (lies that, to the uninformed, could feel true) to absurd ones.
For example, on Tuesday, Sean Hannity made the ridiculous comment that Osama bin Laden's death "wouldn't have happened if he [Obama] had his way."
Really think about what he said for a second. When SEAL Team Six went into Pakistan to take out bin Laden, who gave the order? Here's a hint: He has an oval-shaped office in the White House. If Obama didn't want bin Laden killed, bin Laden would still be alive.
(Oh, and you'll notice the president didn't ask for Pakistan's permission to breach its borders, nor did he offer any apologies for doing so.)
By now, the story of the bin Laden mission is well known. Success was not assured. The president weighed all of the information at his disposal, which had been accumulated from years of bin Laden surveillance since his inauguration, and he took a calculated risk to approve the mission. According to Vice President Biden, when the president's senior advisers made their final recommendations, nobody (with the exception of CIA Director Leon Panetta) gave an unqualified yes. Most waffled. Biden offered a solid no. But the president opted to go forward.
If the mission had failed, Hannity would have surely placed the blame on Obama for making a reckless decision. But it worked. And now he's saying the president didn't want it to happen?
To throw a little more absurd syrup on top of the bat-s%#t-crazy sundae, remember that Obama didn't just succeed in getting bin Laden; he made it a priority, unlike his predecessor, who said, "I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."
In short, Hannity says the president who prioritized finding bin Laden and made the difficult and risky decision to take out the al-Qaida leader (something the previous president couldn't be bothered with) didn't really want to kill him.
This is the level of absurdity to which the right has sunk in creating a fake Barack Obama.
Maybe this is all a good sign. Maybe, despite gains in the 2010 midterms (when the Republicans successfully created a fake health care law: Death panels! Care for illegal immigrants! They're taking your Medicare!), the GOP doesn't think it can beat the real Obama in November. Or maybe Republicans are worried by the numerous instances of buyer's remorse since November 2010, with successful candidate and statute recalls in Wisconsin, Ohio and Maine, as well as recent polls showing the GOP in trouble in Ohio and Obama doing relatively well in the battleground states.
Whatever the reason, the American people may be easily fooled at times, but nobody outside of the right-wing echo chamber will believe that Barack Obama didn't want to kill bin Laden. (That's even less believable than the idea that the guy who opted to fight in Vietnam and was awarded three purple hearts was a coward, while the guy who pulled strings to get into the National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam was a courageous leader, right?)
The Republican construction of a fake Barack Obama has gone off the rails. I hope the GOP keeps it up, as it only helps Obama's chances in November.
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