It was the president’s supposed bi-partisanship in the face of Republican partisan hostility that made Hertzberg think of the non-violent Indian leader in a column in the New Yorker’s current issue. For good measure, the New Yorker editor claimed to see a parallel—in the way Pres. Obama has reacted to Rush Limbaugh—to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s interaction with . . . Bull Connor [though Hertzberg was careful to state he was not claiming Obama is MLK or that Rush is Connor]
Hertzberg was a guest on today’s Morning Joe. Scarborough began by struggling through a reading of the passage of the New Yorker column making the Gandhi comparison.
Hertzberg tried to make the case that the inclusion of tax cuts in the stimulus plan is proof of Pres. Obama’s partisanship. Scarborough pointed out that most Republicans repudiated the $80 billion in so-called tax cuts that, under the guise of increased Earned Income Tax Credits, really amounted to welfare to people who pay no federal income taxes. In Joe’s view, Barack Obama’s bi-partisanship amounted to “a cocktail party and an invitation to the Super Bowl.”
Concluded Joe: “I have been saying that people have been calling Barack Obama the Christ-child of American politics. I may have to change that to Gandhi now.”
One Comment
Sasha and Malia had better hope Barack is not like Gandhi, an appalling old fraud who preened his “humility” before the world while psychologically brutalizing his children and niece. Because sex is, essentially, dirty in the Gahndian worldview, he repeatedly refused his childrens’ pleas for permission to marry. He also subjected a nearly grown niece to something very like incest by forcing her to sleep with him naked so he could demonstrate his mastery over the temptations of the flesh. Also, Gandhi limited his political stunts to interactions with Britain, a country steeped in western civilization and liable to religious and psychological blackmail.