To the Editor:
Re “How We Got Here,” by Ross Douthat (column, Nov. 1):
Though the timing of President Obama’s health care reforms could have been better, pinning our current political woes on this or any of his actions ignores the vicious, irrational attacks the president has endured since even before his inauguration.
The right wing, desperate and determined to regain power, went into campaign mode almost immediately after losing the 2008 election. Weeks before Mr. Obama took the oath, its media machine blasted him for every down day of the then tumbling stock market; it searched for his birth certificate on the up days.
Republican strategists quickly sought to redefine their party; they were now conservatives. Then along came Rick Santelli and his rant about paying for your neighbor’s “extra bathroom.” It was just enough of an opening for right-wing strategists to further their overhaul of a deservedly defeated party.
But even if the market didn’t continue tumbling, even if Mr. Santelli hadn’t been noticed, even if the job market were better, the right had set its GPS for the warpath and was going to get us here no matter what.
Bill Catalano
Wood-Ridge, N.J., Nov. 1, 2010
Note from KBJ: Vicious, irrational attacks? The letter writer must be referring to the aftermath of the 2000 election, in which George W. Bush got neither support nor respect from progressives. He was successful in spite of his opposition, not because of it. Barack Obama, by comparison, has been treated with kid gloves. Don't you love the progressive double standard? Smear conservatives, and then complain about how awful conservatives are to progressives.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 