Margo Howard | 09/16/2009 5:30 pm

Margo Howard: The Origins of Obama Rage?

Our Dear Margo shares what she fears to be the truth behind the growing dissent for President Barack Obama and his policies.

By Margo Howard

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Editor’s Note: A longtime journalist, Margo Howard went into the family business (her mother was the fabled Ann Landers) in the 1990s as Dear Prudence. Her broad experience and understanding of human nature provide answers for the troubled — and entertainment for everyone else. Margo’s advice column, Dear Margo, appears twice a week — on Thursdays and Fridays — on wowOwow.com.

I wrote this a few days ago, but with my editor decided it might be too incendiary. After former President Carter’s interview, however, I decided to join the still-thin chorus expressing this viewpoint. I think Obama and his supporters have been too willing to turn the other cheek – an admirable impulse in normal times. But when the debate becomes as coarse as it has, rebuttal is needed.

I find what is abroad in the land, as Henry James would have said, simply repellent — forget frightening. An elected official hollers out "You lie!" during a presidential address, yahoos are wearing firearms wherever they go, even at events where the president is, not to mention bars … certainly a great place to have a drunk with a pistol. The desperate lunatic fringe, with some help from the Fox guys, have people (well, OK, the gullible, dim ones) believing that old age is reason enough for execution, Obama was born in Kenya, dissenters will be locked up á la the Nazis and the true mission of this administration is to turn us into a Socialist — if not a Communist — country. Even a true-blue conservative author and speechwriter for George W. Bush, David Frum, is concerned about "the wild accusations and paranoid delusions from the fever swamps." The Los Angeles Times called the increasing number of head case Republicans "the party of the paranoid."

Maureen Dowd wrote what I had been thinking: All this insanity is simply the bigots acting out. I am afraid it may really be true that the loudest naysayers cannot stand it that we have a black president. In what psychiatrists would call "displacement," the anger of some at having an African-American leader has been dolled up with scare tactic complaints and projections. They just can’t live with it, so they’re trying to upend it. Divide and conquer. Read it and weep.

1252 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Obama is a liar, a big fat huge liar. Oh and a socialist. Obama is a big fat huge lying socialist. LBJ, Nixon and those others that you mentioned were not socialist.

The fact that anyone would be speechless over Americans disrespecting a lying socialist is the shameful part.

By Lauren Sinclair on 09/19/2009 11:36 pm

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<<The fact that anyone would be speechless over Americans disrespecting a lying socialist is the shameful part.

I am speechless over your ignorance

By Sue G on 09/20/2009 2:00 pm

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Margo, you really hit an all time low with this article. The ones who are screaming racism is dealing from the bottom of the deck.

By elle vee on 09/16/2009 6:18 pm

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I think she hit an all time high. And I suspect her mother is smiling down from heaven.

By Baby Snooks on 09/16/2009 6:26 pm

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Racism has been alive and well for centuries and will continue to thrive in certain venues. Of course, there will be people who do not like the President because he is black. Of course, they attempt to pass that off as patriotism and their weary " my country" rhetoric. That same class of people dang near had a melt down when we elected a Catholic President in 1960.

The talking heads like Beck and Limbaugh don’t give a flying fig about anything but their own deep pockets. The right wing troglodytes conjure up continual nonsense that baffles any reasonable person. If we had a President whose last name was O’Malley , and we could prove he was born in Dublin, Beck or Limbaugh wouldn’t make a freaking sound. Joe Wilson wouldn’t open his ignorant mouth and call him a liar either. Like so many in his party who claim they are multiculturists who welcome diversity, they still still see and and promote divisions in society according to skin color. For them, their own cultural developmental windows will never embrace other races or cultures, but they certainly attempt to mask it at every turn.

By Maggie W on 09/16/2009 6:26 pm

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Don’t forget there are just as many left-wing troglodytes. Raking in the money. And it’s all about the money, honey. Just ask the Clintons.

Reality is we really only have one party at this point in this country. The Republicrats. They hijacked the Republican Party and have hijacked the Democratic Party. They call themselves "centrists" and then divide the party and appeal, curiously, to the extremists. Maybe because they pander to them. And it is, indeed, all about the money.

It is "of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation" rather than "of the people, by the people, for the people."

The majority of the American people at some point will wake up and rid this country of the Republicrats. The Bushes and the Clintons and so many others like them. Who believe firmly in the maxim that to divide is to conquer. Forgetting, however, that a house divided always falls.

But this party, these people, this rhetoric, all of it falls at the feet of the Bushes. And the rabidness they bred in their supposed party. A rabidness that will indeed result in violence in this country. The Bushes in the Republican party. The Clintons in the Democratic Party. Nothing divides better than racism. White versus black.

The Democrats rise up and wave the Constitution. The Republicans rise up and wave their Bibles.

But both are fools. The only Democrats and Republicans left are the fools who believe there are Democrasts and Republicans on the ballot.

But the Democrats want a country for all. The Republicans want a country for a few.

The Democrats do not call for the death of a president. The Republicans do. They did that once before. And that really is where I disassociate myself from Republicans and the Republican Party.

And if it happens, many of them will celebrate it. The way they did on November 22, 1963.

And the Republicrats will celebrate it as well. They way they did on November 22, 1963. Because all they really need is one party. And they have that party, the Republican Party, whether they have the other one or not.

Eisenhower no doubt weeps that no one listened to his warning. No doubt the founding fathers weep as well. No fools they.

By Baby Snooks on 09/16/2009 6:51 pm

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When Tim Wise was asked if race was the elephant in the political room, his answer was , " No. But it is the back ground noise that is getting louder." I do believe that and feel no good can come of what we are seeing unravel before us, thanks to the talking heads like Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh. An ill wind is blowing, and the far right nutters could not be happier.

By Maggie W on 09/16/2009 7:12 pm

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Very thought provoking post, Baby Snooks. Funny, I doubt highly that Eisenhauer or even Nixon would have been ‘conservative’ enough for this particular crowd.

By Carol Palinkas on 09/16/2009 11:29 pm

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Baby Snooks, You are right on target as usual.

I was a child when Eisenhower was president and people joked about all he did was play golf. History has shown - he deserved more credit.

By starry Nite on 09/17/2009 10:44 pm

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And when you have Linmbaugh playing songs like "Barack the Magic Negro" and Beck calling the biracial president a racist with a deep seated hatred of white people, I wonder how anyone can listen to either of them and claim to be insulted over the term ….

By Carol Palinkas on 09/16/2009 7:38 pm

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Exactly right Carol.

By Sandy B on 09/16/2009 8:23 pm

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Racism is alive and well in the US. People love selective memory when it suits them. President Obama has had the most threats against his life, than any Prez preceding him. I read message boards that called his family trash, ghetto, and wondering when his oldest daughter will have her first abortion. I thought the Prez children were off limits! Yes, racism goes both ways. I’ve seen or heard remarks made to Whites, Asians etc People conveniently forget that it was Bush Jr that got us into this mess. Obama was handed a dung sandwich from Day One.

By Ira Bradley on 09/16/2009 6:36 pm

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That’s just wrong! I haven’t heard of anyone saying that and it’s disrespectful! And yes, anyone’s children, especially the Pres. should be totally off limits.

By Jamie Dean on 09/16/2009 6:40 pm

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That’s just wrong! I haven’t heard of anyone saying that and it’s disrespectful! And yes, anyone’s children, especially the Pres. should be totally off limits.

By Jamie Dean on 09/16/2009 6:40 pm