The hunting of the president resumes

[meegbear]

Questions are raised. Connections are drawn. Conspiracies are theorized. Guilt is imputed, implied, asserted and very widely associated. And more of the same feckless fingerpointing is exactly what Barack Obama should expect from the Republicans, the right-wing propaganda machine and their enablers in the mainstream media -- even after Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has met whatever fate he deserves.

From the kooky obsession with his place of birth on WorldNetDaily to insinuations about his Chicago pedigree by the Associated Press, all of the attacks launched lately on Barack Obama give off the same familiar smell. Even a quick sniff is enough to bring back memories from a decade ago, when no perfidious accusation against Bill or Hillary Clinton was too crazy to deserve attention.

The madness that was eventually classified under the quasi-clinical rubric of "Whitewater" began, in no small degree, with the dubious idea that Arkansas, the Clintons' home state, was a peculiarly corrupt place -- and that any politician from Arkansas by definition was suspect (but only if he or she happened to be a Democrat).

Many of the familiar figures and institutions that should be permanently discredited by their roles in the Clinton drama have emerged again to smear Obama. Newsmax, the big right-wing Web site founded by Richard Mellon Scaife, sugar daddy of the Arkansas Project, dispatches daily news alerts with blaring headlines: "Obama Birth Certificate Battle Not Over" and "Obama, Blagojevich Tied to Same 'Godfather.'" Rush Limbaugh, who has never stopped hinting that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster, no matter how many investigations concluded that Foster's death was a tragic suicide, now wonders how Obama could be unaware of "all this stuff swirling around him."

Such are the "questions" darkening the great forensic brains of the right. "Did Barack Obama's transition team know this was going on? Heck, did Barack Obama himself know this was going on?" demands radio talker Neal Boortz. And asking a question is tantamount to winning a conviction, or at least an indictment, according to the perverse norms of discourse established during the last Democratic administration -- or what my friend and coauthor Gene Lyons calls "the Clinton rules."

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/12/12/obama/index.html

[Christian30]

1. Absolutely...

This is why it's critical that Obama maintain his volunteer network and that we stay involved. I have a friend who was working on a progressive radio show. Once OB was elected, they switched their format from news/opinion to entertainment because there was no reason to stay political. This is where the left goes wrong every time.