Crazy

Josh Marshall: Mainstreaming the Crazy

TPM Reader SG's Lament ...

This "outrage" over Obama speaking to schoolchildren is the last straw. The Swiftboating -- and that's what this is -- of Obama must be dealt with.

For months we've had a great time laughing and ridiculing the GOP as they've spewed one ridiculous outrage after another at Obama. We've treated each successive charge as more absurd and laughable than the last, responding only with derisive sarcasm. We howled with laughter at teabaggers after the stimulus only to have them brandish guns and become players at townhalls. We rolled our eyes at Palin's Death Panels, only to have month long national discussion over whether Obama wants to kill grandma and now veterans. Now we're going to discuss whether it's "appropriate" for the President to speak to schoolchildren? Really?

Enough is enough. Images of Obama as Hitler are now commonplace and, seemingly, unremarkable. It has become customary and usual for senior GOP officials to make outrageous, disparaging ad hominem remarks about the President. The crazy is becoming mainstream. Obama is in a real, tangible way now being delegitimized as a person and a leader.

So my question is, when is the White House, the Democratic infrastructure and the progressive press/blogosphere going to stop laughing and start pushing back on this? Clearly, laughter and ridicule is not a sufficient response and is not working.