Shrug

Maybe this guy said or did something besides holding his stupid sign up for all to see...

A man who was holding a sign reading "Death to Obama" Wednesday outside a town hall meeting on health care reform in Hagerstown, Md., has been turned over to the Secret Service.

Washington County Sheriff's Capt. Peter Lazich said the sign also read, "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids."

...because as repugnant as that sort of speech is, just a couple of years ago I'm pretty sure that this gentleman was not "detained", and if he had been the ACLU would have been storming his holding cell:

(Photo Credit Zombietime)

My point here is not to defend the first chucklehead, particularly because he brought Obama's children into it. And perhaps he said or did something else beyond holding his ugly sign that prompted the police to detain him. But there seems to be some rather selective memories these days among the more juvenile members of the body politic when it comes to protest images and speech. Pardon my cynicism, but where were all of these people, so upset today about the tone of political speech, when this sort of thing was used by their own side against Bush/Cheney?

I think Hitler/Nazi imagery is inappropriate to use against President Obama, and the same for calling for his death, just like any president. I think the vast majority of Americans, including the vast majority of protesters today, feel the same way. People tolerate it only because we believe in free speech, just like when Bush was in office.

Mainstream Democrats never owned the more outlandish speech from their side during the Bush years, though I think they were cynically happy to let it go on without reproach. What they are trying to do today is create a narrative where mainstream conservatives/libertarians do own the most outlandish speech being seen. Well, we don't, and the effort to try to make us own the extremists just pisses us off even more.

I am tempted to just flat out say, "Hey, all of this stuff is wrong. Just stop it." But you know, it's going to take the leadership of the Democratic Party to get me to do that. If they want to improve the tone of politics they need to come out with some forceful words that ask all people to eschew all extreme political rhetoric in some way that people will remember down the road, and not just when a Democrat is president. President Obama is just the orator to do something like that, but I don't think he will.

And so I mostly shrug.

More: Zombie also has a helpful Bush as Hitler retrospective, for those who may be newly outraged at the invoking of Nazis in our political discourse.