Respectful

by digby

Chris Matthews just allowed Tom Delay to call Barack Obama a radical, militant Marxist who wants to pack the Supreme Court with communists and is far to the left of Barney Frank — and then chided Debbie Wasserman Schultz when she said that one should consider the source when it’s someone who was forced to leave Washington in disgrace after presiding over the most corrupt congress in history. Apparently what she said was disrespectful.

The right wing is working itself up into an epic frenzy of hate about Obama. And guys like Matthews aren’t exactly drawing any lines by allowing these guys to spew this disgusting swill on national TV which doesn’t bode well for the future. Cable news and talk radio are easily turned into cauldrons of hate for high ratings and big advertising dollars. The right wing noise machine is already working them.

And by the way — if there has ever been a more transparent effort to bully a new president into doing your bidding than declaring that he will never cut taxes on anyone and instead wants to raise them to 90%, I can’t think of one. Luckily Obama doesn’t appear to be subject to schoolyard dares, but it’s pretty clear that the conservatives are staking out ground way way over to the far right so they can keep the goal posts firmly right of center. And knowing the way the village operates, I expect they will have some success. See, there’s Colin Powell on the left and Tom Delay on the right. If Obama stays somewhere in between, he’ll be a great bipartisan president who gets things done.

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