Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Why Obama's Bounce Will Last

I have a proposal. I will stipulate that George W. Bush is single-handedly responsible for the death of Osama Bin Laden if Sarah Palin and her like-minded conservative colleagues will stipulate that he is also single-handedly responsible for the economic calamity of the past few years. Fair enough?

Jesus H. Christ. Really, people? We can't even pull together on this simple moment of national relief? Don't you realize that you'd look better if you could, for a single, solitary moment, set aside the all-consuming hatred you have for the President of the United States enough to just offer an unconditional congratulations and maybe even an iota of gratitude? Hell...that's probably asking too much. I'd settle for a statement that simply thanks the troops. Instead, you've gone out of your way to pull credit away from Obama and heap it onto Bush. By the way, when you insinuate that Bush "set up" the kill, as Sarah Palin did today, you're also contributing evidence to the theory that he had all of the necessary information all along but failed to act on it because, ultimately, it was good politics to have Osama out there. Cheney's military-industrial cronies certainly weren't complaining about your failure to capture or kill him, were they?

If Bush had been in office when Bin Laden was killed, Karl Rove would have had the body stuffed and mounted on the front of the reelection bus and would have pulled over on every main street in America so that Bush could have his picture taken pissing on the corpse. While I think that Obama is being incredibly classy about this, he has no choice but to take a victory lap. The Right has been calling him a foreign-born, anti-American socialist for the last two years. He's earned the right to stuff this down their throats.

I think that this will, in fact, be a turning point. I predict that a good portion of his popularity "bounce" will last. Here's why: A certain segment of the population has been skeptical of Obama all along. These are the people who held their noses and voted for him simply because they couldn't imagine letting Sarah Palin anywhere near the White House. They're good, intelligent people with only vestigial traces of xenophobia and racial discomfort. For the past two years, their sub-conscious fears have been stoked by the non-stop deluge of bile streaming from the Right. Their judgment has been clouded.

This event will snap them out of that haze. This will provide the clarity they've been looking for. There is suddenly a razor-sharp distinction between the petulant histrionics of the GOP and the wonkish maturity of the Obama administration. While the GOP has been busy spewing a stream of baseless, interchangeable, pejoratives at the President, the President has been busy taking care of business. The difference is suddenly crystal clear.

More importantly, this will allow them to feel firm in the conviction they've had all along - that Obama is an American through and through. They can see this now. They're smart enough. They no longer have to give a shit what their redneck neighbor Dell and obnoxious uncle Larry think. They no longer have to feel insecure objecting to that sort of ignorant insanity. Obama gave the order to put a bullet in Osama's head. Hell, even if the conspiracy theories turned out to be true, the man just earned his bona fides by taking down the most notorious villain in U.S. history. If they didn't want him on our team before, they sure do now.

Those people will no longer be susceptible to the dog-whistle politics of today's GOP. They'll finally be able to focus on the real issues and block out all of the peripheral nonsense that isn't going to put food on their tables. They won't always agree with Obama. They might not even vote for him again, but if they don't, it will be because a sensible and sane Republican stepped up and waged a dignified campaign worthy of their vote. The odds of that happening make me feel pretty good about Obama's 2012 prospects.