Glenn Greenwald makes a pretty good case, along with Bob Somerby, that those who think the right wing attacks on Obama are new, or particularly vicious, aren’t remembering the decades of similar, even worse, behavior, led by some of the same characters.

Some argued that Obama’s race has caused the Right’s hostility towards him to be both unique and unprecedentedly intense. That some people react with particular animus towards the first black President is obvious. But there is nothing new about the character of the American Right or their concerted efforts to destroy the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency.

To see that, just look at what that movement’s leading figures said and did during the Clinton years. In 1994, Jesse Helms, then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that “just about every military man” believes Clinton is unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief and then warned/threatened him not to venture onto military bases in the South: “Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He better have a bodyguard.” The Wall St. Journal called for a Special Prosecutor to investigate the possible “murder” of Vince Foster. Clinton was relentlessly accused by leading right-wing voices of being a murderer, a serial rapist, and a drug trafficker. Tens of millions of dollars and barrels of media ink were expended investigating “Whitewater,” a “scandal” which, to this day, virtually nobody can even define. When Clinton tried to kill Osama bin Laden, they accused him of “wagging the dog” — trying to distract the country from the truly important matters at hand (his sex scandal). And, of course, the GOP ultimately impeached him over that sex scandal — in the process issuing a lengthy legal brief with footnotes detailing his sex acts (cigars and sex talk), publicly speculating about (and demanding examinations of) the unique “distinguishing” spots on his penis, and using leading right-wing organs to disseminate innuendo that he had an abandoned, out-of-wedlock child. More intense and constant attacks on a President’s “legitimacy” are difficult to imagine. [links in original]

Greenwald

Is the “ugliness and hatred directed toward Obama” caused by racial hatred? Presumably, some of it is. But as he continues, [Colbert] King [Washington Post columnist] finally enters la-la land, saying this: “the depth of the hostility is extraordinary.”

That statement might seem true, of course—if you arrived on the planet last year.

But similar hostility was aimed at the last Democratic president—and the claims made against that president were just as lunatic as the claims against Obama, if not slightly more so. In the case of Obama, King names a pair of no-name pastors. In the case of Clinton, one of our most famous pastors was aggressively pimping serial murder charges—and being accepted by Colbert King’s cohort as an honored Sunday morning news talker.

By the summer of Clinton’s second year in office, two active attempts were made on his life. One guy even flew a small plane into the White House, apparently trying to kill him. Colbert King doesn’t seem to remember. Might we suggest why that is?

You see, King is part of a media “elite” which enabled—or encouraged—the lunatic claims against Clinton, then Gore. Perhaps for that reason, people like King have airbrushed that decade—and they express their vast surprise when the same thing is done to Obama. Meanwhile, King name-calls two minor crackpot pastors—and forgets to name the powerful players who are vastly more responsible for the lunatic claims against Obama.

King is brave when it comes to naming no-names. Where are the names of the powerful players who have really been driving this lunacy?

Somehow, when it comes to such names, people like King seem to get light-headed. They may feel their knees start to buckle.

There have always been local lunatics like Anderson and Drake in our politics. But the movement went national in the 1980s, when Rush Limbaugh moved to New York. King has criticized Limbaugh a few times—in the last year, that is. But Limbaugh drove the lunatic hatred against the last Democratic president (Hillary Clinton helped kill Vince Foster!)—and King never mentioned his name, not once, during that whole brainless era. (Nexis archives.)

Somerby: Daily Howler

Others disagree.   William Douglas at McClatchy  has interviewed quite a few. 

…some Black Caucus members said that Wilson’s outburst is but the latest in a long string of ugly events rooted in racism, such as last week’s flap over Obama addressing the nation’s schoolchildren, protesters showing up outside Obama events carrying licensed firearms, and “birthers” questioning Obama’s citizenship. Black Caucus members say such incidents are designed to disrespect the office of the president now that a black man holds it.

President Carter thinks it’s race:

“I think it’s based on racism,” Carter said at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. “There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.”
The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

“Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care,” he said. “It’s deeper than that.”

My take: It’s about delegitimation, which is a far cry from disagreement over issues and policies. It’s a repudiation of the foundational democratic notion that disagreements can take place and that power will swing back and forth over the years, allowing adjustments and correctives and innovation. Delegitimization works by supplanting the democratic ideal with the poison of fear and demonization. The opposition is not simply those who have different ideas, but those who are a threat to our beliefs and our livelihoods. As such, nothing can be agreed with. Every difference is an opportunity for further demonization.

Bill Clinton was a “traitor” to his southern roots. Hillary Clinton was an “uppity woman.” Any item will do. Even the lusts so enjoyed by so many Republicans, in the person of Bill Clinton, change character and are used to bludgeon and delegitimize him. Invention and repeated accusation works better than facts because fear and anger are bigger and more powerful horses to ride than reason and proof. Though the derangement beneath the attacks is the same, Obama triggers a few more classical American paranoias than his predecessors: his color of course, his foreign father, his strong wife… soon we will be hearing more about the Jews controlling his insiders circle, his financial team… That suicide in Chicago yesterday? Gotta be a linkage there somewhere. FOX is investigating as we blog….