Washington – I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing.
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I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.
And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish nationalist as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.
Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.
What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.
Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.
Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.
Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it.
And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.
Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.
The American political system was, as the saying goes, “designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots.” But a cocktail of political and technological trends have converged in the last decade that are making it possible for the idiots of all political stripes to overwhelm and paralyze the genius of our system.
Those factors are: the wild excess of money in politics; the gerrymandering of political districts, making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle; a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world. Finally, on top of it all, we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship, all the time among our leading politicians.
I would argue that together these changes add up to a difference of degree that is a difference in kind — a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest.
We can’t change this overnight, but what we can change, and must change, is people crossing the line between criticizing the president and tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable.
whats about free press mr freidman. all of a sudden when it doesnt work for you free press doesnt exist. typical of liberals.
Why won’t anybody on the right stand up to the sickos preaching violence against the president? The Republicans don’t seem to care that the whackos have taken over the party.
The mood was no less ugly when Bush was president. Name calling and death threats were common during the Iraq war and regarding Guantanamo. Why am I not surprised that liberals were not distraught about the possibility that Bush or Cheney might be assassinated. Another example of the liberal press bias.
As long as this simple mind (Friedman) is talking about another simpleton in his own country, Israel can breathe safely.
Thank you Tom for writing this. We don’t debate ideas anymore; we demonize the other side and personalize every issue, we can’t recognize a good idea if we didn’t think of it nor can we give credit to the other side….ever. We run endless loops on our media of the Gates incident and yet spend little time educating the public about the possible solutions to the health care crisis facing us….an issue that could bankrupt us. I am so disgusted with the performance of 24/7 cable and the talking heads from either side looking for red meat to feed their base and increase sales of their books. When will it end? When will we come to our senses as a country?
While of course this is just plain wrong to do to any president or any human being for that matter, I do find it noteworthy that no one spoke up about President Bush being vilified to the point of someone throwing shoes at him and people laughing…?!
interesting article,but i fear there is slight confusion between healthy opposition and spewing outright hatred.The majority of what is happening in American politics right now is the basis for one thing and that is the underlying insecurity that the Obama administration is demonstrating.he has shown in a very short time how he is heavily risking the whole countrys’ security all the name of “peace”.Therefore i think the nations sentiment is genuine and correct.
#1 that “simple mind” has 3 Pulitzer prizes. Your response makes his point
It’s amazing that no one remembers that Mr. Bush’s critics were roundly criticized. Right-wing commentators were outraged by “Bush-bashing” and let us all know about it. People criticized Bush, people criticized the people who were criticizing Bush, and a good time was had by all denouncing each other for denouncing or failing to denounce the president.
So don’t paint Mr. Bush as a defenseless victim – he probably wouldn’t appreciate being thought of that way. The previous administration gave as good as it got. But what I didn’t hear was death threats. There were plenty of “Impeach the so-and-so” calls, but advocating assassination was not considered respectable. Now, it seems some people are competing to say the most hateful – and dangerous – things possible.
Do we really want a US president to be assassinated again? Do we really want to demote outselves to the level of barbarians?
Tom Friedman is absolutely right that money has corrupted politics.
Corporations now run this country and people are being placated by their cult-like identification with what they perceive to be the winning “team”.
You are being duped. It is all a rouse. There is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties.
Bush bailed out the banks because they paid for his campaign. Obama has done nothing to regulate them because they also paid for his campaign.
Bush spent billions on his “prescription drug benefit” program and nobody called him a socialist. The pharmaceutical companies were pleased.
Obama made the mistake of thinking he could push through his “socialist” insurance program. The Insurance lobby would have none of it.
Its about time people wake up. Bush and Obama are just the pinatas for people to bash in place of the real culprit. Big Pharma, Big Agra, Wall Street etc run this country and they are all too happy to watch you get all “outraged” over the sitting puppet in office in place of redirecting your anger at them.
one of his argument to support his idea is that people are calling him a closet socialist!!!!!!!!!! look at the hypocrisy of Thomas Freedman trying to make a compelling case out of this.
The far left in America confesses to having socialist leanings. They admit, and proudly so that they have socialist leanings, however they stop short of calling themselves socialists due to the bad history of that “experiment” And if so, what is the urgency in Mr Freedman’s tone, “They call him a closet socialist”!!?!?
Remember Bush made to resemble Alfred E. Neuman, or the picture of Reagan with the monkey from ” Bedtime for Bozo”? Where were you then Thomas Friedman when Republican presidents were being delegitamized and dissed by the left?
I’m sure that the administration will use these threats as an excuse to pass laws limiting our freedom of speech. Of course when Bush wanted to eavesdrop on terrorists he was equally ridiculed.
I’m sick that anyone who criticizes the President is a being called a racist, demonizer, inciter, and other hateful words. There is legitimate opposition to the health plan, and those voices are being drowned out.
Where was this jerk friedman when they said all this stuff about Bush?
Does anyone remember the shoe incident with President Bush. I didn’t see Tommy Friedman worrying about President Bush’s saftey.
What a hypocrite.
For some reason I get the feeling that Tom’s rachmonos is only directed at liberal minded individuals.
As a yid Tom should have rachmonos for all peoples safety. Not only those that he agrees with politically.
This was going on all during the Bush years but where was this idiot Friedman then??? Oh, I forgot, it was Bush they were talking about so it was ok. Suddenly Obama becomes The Anointed One and this is a big deal?? I WOULD NEVER CONDONE ANYTHING OF THE SORT but it seems like a two way street to me Mr Friedman.
For anyone to lay the blame with any Republican or Conservative for that matter is completely irresponsible.
Furthermore, I would even suggest that Mr Friedman be questioned by the Secret Service for incitement.
The shabak killed rabin, everyone knows that since kennedy its impossible to kill a head of state unless its a inside job, so there’s nothing to worry about.
There were posters with pictures of Bush and a gun to his head calling for his assassination. I just googled the words, “assassinate Bush” and looked for images. You will get sick. These were the posters on display then, and I don’t believe any of the sympathetic people on the Left were crying how awful it is.
Besides, this tactic is directly from Rules for Radicals. I take offense of being called a “right wing fringe” because I question things. It all falls back to Hilary. When the left is indignant and outraged, that is patriotism. When the Right does it, we are nut jobs and fringe element who are going to kill someone.
Take a minute and compare figures. 2 million right wing wackos /sarcasm/ met in Washington, marched, protested, and left. Take a look at the pictures of the Mall after they left. It was pretty clean, not destroyed. No one was arrested. Then look at the pictures of how the Mall looked after Jan 20. And look at the protests at the G20 in PA. How many arrests were there? How many buildings got damaged, and windows broken, and things were destroyed? Just because the Left behaves like animals doesn’t always mean those on the Right do. 2010 can’t come soon enough. It will be judgment day for some in Washington, with the rest following in 2012.
Obama is the best thing that happened to America. We have more food stamps, medicaid, newly printed money, more jobs that pay 8.00 an hour unlike Bush where the pay was 7.75 an hour.
Obama is going to save us and under his administration we will all become rich and we won’t have to work anymore. Obama will even give us free health insurance and save us 14,000 a year with getting rid of Oxford. I love Obama.
Got to get a beer now. bye.
I agree with all those who point out the Bush bashing of the past eight years. Why wasn’t Mr. Friedman concerned then? What about the movie “Death of a President” which depicts George W. Bush getting shot in the head?
Mr. Friedman, you have not been studying history.
Politics is a dirty business, and has been so for hundreds of years.
The rhetoric has not changed much over time. There have been many that called for assassination as a legitimate change of power structure.
Study some politics of the US 19th century. This is old news.
the writer doesnt seem to care that Obama is creating a situation where the Arabs are shooting rockets at Israel and some Jews may get killed, but shivers so much that chas v’shulom Obama the king might…., so you have to change the climate to make sure that Obama is safe ?
Thomas Friedman is a vicious liar, and always has been. This article is, as usual, full of lies and slander, part of a deliberate attempt to whip up a witch hunt against the right. We should not put up with it, and we should certainly not let it pass without comment. Political violence is an inherent part of the political left, it is inherent in their ideology, and they mean to rule by force and intimidation, as they always do.
Some specific points:
1. Rabin *was* a traitor. But the posters Friedman complains of were created by the government agent Avishai Raviv; nobody on the right ever had anything to do with them. Similarly the posters depicting Obama as a nazi are now known to have been created by followers of the Democrat Lyndon LaRouche, not by anybody on the right.
2. The Facebook poll will almost certainly turn out to have been created by someone on the left. But in any event, when Friedman calls for the Secret Service to “put the jerk in jail and throw away the key” he betrays his own lawlessness and disloyalty to the constitution. If they ever find the person responsible they will not be able to do anything to him because he committed no crime.
3. The Whitewater scandal was hardly bogus. Over 40 people were convicted over it, including a sitting governor; unfortunately the main culprits, Bill and Hillary Clinton, got away, since they were careful not to leave any hard evidence, and nobody could be found who would testify against them. But make no mistake, the circumstantial evidence made it clear to every reasonable observer what had been going on in Arkansas. The Clintons were corrupt up to their slimy gills; they were raking in the bribes, and everyone knew it.
WHH
Mr. Friedman, if you are reading this your cries of a disillusioned america, and wagging fingers at those innocent or guilty does not remove you from assuming responsibility for what is written. Rabin and Obama share nothing in common, neither in actuality nor in their respective reflections amongst their society and constituency. Rabin made his way up the political ladder in Israel by being a good soldier and following orders. Who among us forgets the tragedy of the Alta Luna? An assassin shot these people down, a lone assassin, a good soldier who followed orders, and shot civilians escaping their sinking boat, escaping from the nazi horrors, in cold blood as they attempted to save themselves. An assassin who was no better than the nazis and without a thought executed many people that fateful day in cold blood, not soldiers but civilians. Jewish civilians, fellow brothers. Excuse me Mr Friedman but does G-d forget? do you forget, or just for the convenience of your own liberalism refuse to acknowledge this hideous deed? Blood cries out from the ground for justice, and you throw away truth just for your own convenience. We are disgusted, and moderately amused by your outrageous liberties.
IF Obama is assassinated like Rabin it will be by the left like Rabin was murdered by the left, and some deranged patsy from the right will be blamed. IF Obama is assassinated it will be by those who pull his strings for 2 reasons, #1 because he did not deliver what he promised and as an excuse to declare marshall law to suppress all freedoms.
More money is spent on protecting Obama than was spent as a total on the last 3 presidents, so no one from the right would have the slightest chance of getting to him, it would have to be an inside job! Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn are well versed in terrorist tactics to orchestrate that!
This bitter hateful Individual named Freidman never uttered as much as a whispering sound when bush was so viciously vilified and cursed minute after minute by all leftists including our own Senators Congressman and Media elite. The PURE HATRED that the media (including Friedman) were constantly spewing against President Bush was UNHEARD OF EVER BEFORE IN AMERICA’S HISTORY!!!
But never a PEEP from this phony Friedman or anyone else for that matter. These same jerks that are screaming like lunatics now were THOSE SAME people which were praying for president push to drop dead or even worse …. Be assassinated.
Go to hell Friedman….
Why is it that when the right-wing is mentioned, it’s always accompanied with “fringe” or “extereme” etc. and at worst it’s “the liberal left”????
hey libs. in the israeli palestinian conflict you say “we have to understand what’s the underlying reason” well what’s the underlying reason here? he’s trying to kill us all! soo just please shove it.
crying all the time trying to sound like the nirdaf too many times. now totty wants to know why it’s like that. “Did you start or did he”
libs trying to get away with some more “quickly shove it” thing. (important to get this legislation assap) by crying victim.
Lets pick which one of them it is.
I am amused at how the exact same propaganda disguised as outrage surfaces after every election. Not an expert, but hasn’t this always happened when presidents are elected? Isn’t the democratic election of a president designed to transition power via the coup de ballot? A coup de ballot is still a coup in every sense. There will always be a dissatisfied minority, and being the we have free speech, they will say very foolish things to express that dissatisfaction. Personally, I feared the bicycle riding anarchists who opposed Bush II far more than back woods extremists simply because of their level of education and affluence.
Hey Man, Regan was the only recent president of the U.S.A who received an assassins bullet, and nearly died from it too. Are you going to be fair and call it a conspiracy caused by an ill wind amongst his opponents, of which their were many, although probably mostly from your side? Do you smell Climate change? How much did they pay you to write that?
The real reason why Rabin was killed was because the Israeli secret service wanted him Killed and so they “innocently” “blinked” and did not watch him so well for a movement so that a “standard lunatic” can do what all lunatics always try to do.
Every president gets thousands of threats BUT the secret service makes sure not to talk about it and never discloses this fact so as not to encourage additional copy-cats.
But if the secret service is really interested in the opposit of protection, while someone else will be blamed for doing the dirty work, then they deliberately leak this stuff to the press to deliberately encourage more and more potential copy-cats.
The only reason to suspect that there is any real danger is not because of all the crazies who want to do what all crazies always want to do to every president.
The REAL scary thing is the fact that the secret service has shown an ongoing PATTERN of constant repetitive disclosures about Obama’s safety and THIS is what is troubling because it’s almost like the secret service WANTS it to happen. Otherwise the secret service to do their job and keep these things “SECRET” as their name suggests.
Now Garrison Keilor wants to kill off all Republicans, but of course that’s not hate speech because he’s a Democrat. Yeah, we’ll hear the excuse that he’s a comedian and we shouldn’t take him seriously, but you know and I know that if a Republican had dared say that about Democrats, even in jest, he’d be pilloried.