Then and Now, Now and Then
During the Bush Administration, it was either Barbara Lee or Maxine Waters who invited Cindy Sheehan to the State of the Union Address. She was barred. The reason was pretty much to avoid the display that was just enacted by Joseph Wilson. On any number of occasions, at Bush election campaign gatherings and through “Medicare Reform” meetings, people with anti-war t shirts or Kerry / Edwards bumper stickers were barred, questioned by officials. Further, Bush’s town hall meetings were screened far beyond the paranoid conjecture that Obama has for him. Further, Obama’s gatherings have been met by protesters — off stage at friendly church grounds — brandishing guns, a display which is taxing on secret service attention and resources as they fumble around the 400 percent increase of death threats.
I get the sense of the surreal with some “movement conservative” commentary throwing the charge of hypocrisy in remembering the Bush years. Take the matter of Joe Wilson. This has been met with “revelations” and discoveries of, for instance, Pete Stark saying mean things about the president. He said Bush is a liar, you see, and therefor how can we say that Wilson was off base for calling Obama a liar? “Wow. You don’t say?” Where the equivalence is here, I don’t know.
What happened at Bush’s SOTU addresses? A few occasions of booing. Other manners that effectively display one’s displeasure include, for instance, Ted Kennedy shaking his head furiously. And then there was that moment where he was perhaps dozing off, perhaps not. The camera loves those to pick those things out. Perhaps Wilson’s problem was that he had to up the ante in order to get some name and face recognition? Also workable, in group dynamics,m is the old run of the mill partisan dividing sit up versus sit at various presidential applause lines. This is more interesting with divided government where it’s immediately apparent without camera roll over — the Speaker versus the Vice President, and was also interesting during the Clinton years when he gave the Republicans almost as many stand-up moments versus the Democrats as he did his Democratic party — the rules of “Triangulation”.
There is a continuum at work here. I can forsee that moment where it will be de riguour policy to heckle and heckle. Though, I can’t quite see the shoe throw as being standard just yet.
There is something that has become a reoccuring bit on The Daily Show. It is reoccuring not as any attachment to a running joke, but because of the repetitiveness of our politics. Last week’s rendition had footage of the 9/12 tea-party rally with Sean Hannity speaking from out of the Bush Administration years, commenting on how “they’re calling the president every name in the book” and on and on. It’s a strange one, indeed. A mindset of manichean qualities, defining “Americanism”. Incidentally, I probably shouldn’t comment on Nancy Pelosi’s words — not having had a look see myself — but around there might be her weakest point (it has been in the past)– the spirit of McCarthy and the spirit of Calhourn are just as much a part of the American fabric as anything else.