General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI'm confused. Where are the Republics getting this "Incompetence" attack?
I keep seeing it - Obama's incompetent, he's in over his head (Limbaugh). Obama is "retard" (Ann Coulter). He's not that smart. It shows up on Facebook all the time, too.
What are they basing this on? Because they're seeing something I sure as hell DON'T see. The man graduated Harvard Law.
It is Benghazi? Does it predate that? Is it his measured responses to questions? The "uhhhhs..."?
elleng
(131,176 posts)Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)ProudProgressiveNow
(6,129 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Blue Owl
(50,523 posts)n/t
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,879 posts)Also, he's black. How can a black guy possibly be competent?
The Magistrate
(95,256 posts)How could he be up to a white man's job?
madokie
(51,076 posts)TDale313
(7,820 posts)Donchya know. Don't need the sarcasm smilie, do I?
moondust
(20,014 posts)And if Romney should somehow win, a loud narrative on the right going forward, probably covered by the MSM, will be that the minority President was in over his head and the country cannot afford to take that chance again. Thank God Americans woke up in time and got rid of him before it was too late!
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)That's all.
cloudbase
(5,525 posts)their party's chief bullshitter.
Indpndnt
(2,391 posts)They're just evil Pied Pipers and are followed by mindless rats.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)The right has learned from the Rove/WBush school of "say it enough times, and it's true". This is how Biden lost the VP debate. Sure, it may have looked to you and me and millions of others like Biden was kicking that punk's ass all over the stage, but later, it was revealed that Biden was unhinged, over-aggressive, and soundly beaten by Paul Ryan.
We've always been at war with EastAsia.
juliann9494
(10 posts)They know Romney looks like a complete bush. He has become irrelevant so they need to do something.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)tledford
(917 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)When I was in 9th grade, we studied state history; Alabama state history, to be precise. What our books taught us - and this was 1997, mind you - was that during Reconstruction, the "Carpetbaggers" from the north forced black people into state legislatures. We also learned that black people just couldn't do it. They were just inherently incompetent and everything fell apart, so the southern states had to, just had to enact laws to remove these negro politicians and bar others from voting. It was for the good of everyone, we learned from the books.
To her credit, our teacher - a black woman presiding over a mostly-black class in a predominantly black school district - called bullshit, and used the book's "lesson" as an example of source bias.
But this is what a lot of people grew up learning... and maybe many still do. They learn that reconstruction was a failure, and that black people caused the failure through inherent incompetence.
The Republican's "incompetence" attack on Barack Obama has nothing to so at all with his performance and actions. it has to do with them knowing, in the core of their guts, that black people can't govern.
SubgeniusHasSlack
(276 posts)Well spoken analysis.
The change from inherent social racism to enlightenment will continue to be steady but slow.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)And here in Minnesota we never had any of that racist-apology BS in OUR textbooks!
SalviaBlue
(2,918 posts)Thank God for your SANE teacher. I sorta feel sorry for all of people who believe this ignorance.
JI7
(89,276 posts)GumboYaYa
(5,954 posts)maxsolomon
(33,419 posts)Isn't there something they're citing? MCain is using Benghazi:
This president is either engaged in a massive cover-up deceiving the American people or he is so grossly incompetent that he is not qualified to be the commander in chief of our armed forces, McCain said Oct. 30 during a hurricane-relief event in Ohio hosted by this years GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney. Its either one of them.
JI7
(89,276 posts)Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)It's eating him up inside like acid.
Plus, he's a senile old fool who isn't entirely lucid anymore.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Rs will say anything. They think saying something out loud gives it tangibility. They're making this one up out of whole cloth. Forgetting the many attacks made on embassies while Shrub was in office. Take each of those apart and you would find real incompetence.
Still Sensible
(2,870 posts)Unfortunately, it seemed to work with President Carter... not that he was not competent, but a series of events, his style and IMO missteps by people he surrounded himself with, helped create a somewhat widely held perception that was reflected in the 1980 election.
They started down the incompetence path with Big Dawg, but among their minions they got a lot more traction out of the immorality line of attack and played that for all it was worth up to and including impeachment. Not only did they fail to get him out of office, he left the White House with very high public approval ratings.
They have gone back to the incompetence meme since the President won in '08. It was a pretty big part of their anti-Obama campaign that year playing up the junior senator from Illinois inexperience. They thought all along that they could pull the card while attacking the slow recovery and his "failed economic policies." I
really think they have thought making him a one-term President was going to be pretty easy.
They were and are wrong.
SubgeniusHasSlack
(276 posts)as The President's landslide victory moves America forward and washes the teabagiban party away to irrelevance.
The rotund governor from New Jersey sees this all too clearly and is obviously running to be the leader of the slightly less bat guano crazy republickcon remnant that survives the romnocalypse.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Two lies they hope telling enough will make them true in the eyes of voters
ThomThom
(1,486 posts)they know themselves the best
SubgeniusHasSlack
(276 posts)thy name is "republickcon".
ThomThom
(1,486 posts)TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)lindysalsagal
(20,741 posts)The awareness of a 5 year old.
Alekei_Firebird
(320 posts)The stupidity just baffles me
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)These memes have been screamed and beaten to death on hate radio 24/7 since President Obama won the '08 election. The great unhinged created their own narrative of how President Obama was/is everything we used to project (properly) on Dubya. It's grown and manifested to the stupidity and outright paranoia that spews from faux and hate radio...
oswaldactedalone
(3,491 posts)Hate radio is what motivated me to become active in campaigning for Dems. I like the fact that in some small way the vote totals for our guys are higher because I helped get folks to the polls in one way or another.
Multiply that by many and you send a message to those bastards that we'll fight them wherever they want to fight.
Matariki
(18,775 posts)Pure and simple. Projection.
win_in_06
(1,764 posts)JC Watts, Condolezza Rice, Mia Love, Clarence Thomas, et al. So I don't attribute it to race. Rather, ideology.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)These men and women aren't valued by hte right for their ideology or their intellectual output. They are not valued as individuals whith thoughts and opinions of their own - look at how the right-wingers react when Colin Powell or even Condi Rice voice opinions that don't follow the narrative: they're trashed and denigrated because of hteir skin color.
These men and women, heaven help them, might think the Republicans value them. But for most of the party, the sole purpose to their existence is so the Republicans can go "Hey look we have black people too!"
And of course, there's the Bill Cosby argument; "A black person said blacks are lazy freeloaders, so it's okay for all of us white people to say it too!"
Black Republicans exist primarily as "shields" for other Republicans to justify their overt racism.
win_in_06
(1,764 posts)Like them or not, you can't possibly think that. Some people just see the world differently than we do, and that's okay.
maxsolomon
(33,419 posts)and there's seeing the world incorrectly, through lenses of willfull ignorance.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)The GOP values them (such as it is) because it gives the rest of the GOP a cover for their blatant racism.
"No no guys, it's cool; some of my friends are black"
kwolf68
(7,365 posts)For sure, there are plenty of racists and that drives much of the Republican Party thinking, but it doesn't explain it all. John Kerry was destroyed by these people and he was not black.
These people don't hate blacks or Muslims or whoever NEAR as much as someone who simply is Liberal.
Richard D
(8,785 posts)Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)Since everyone you mentioned there is dumber than shit, they project that onto the smart President.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,209 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)We said it about Bush. They just consider it fighting back. They are incompetent when it comes to making a case for their candidate, especially considering that there is no case for their candidate.
progressivebydesign
(19,458 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Srsly. Several fb "friends" have been posting about how Obama is incompetent and a disaster. When I try to pin them down, they are unable to provide a si.gle example. So it amounts to racism, but they won't come out and say it publically.
progressivebydesign
(19,458 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)rustydog
(9,186 posts)That is what Swift-boating Kerry was all about. Bush was a draft-dodger, Kerry a war hero.
They attacked the strong point.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)AtomicKitten
(46,585 posts)Either that or they are fully invested in Karl Rove's strategery of attacking an opponent's strength.
Fla Dem
(23,768 posts)Ann Romney earlier this year at a private fundraiser described Mitt Romney as the "grown-up" the country needs to repair the economy and prevent an economic collapse in the style of Greece.................
"This is a frightening world, and we need a grown-up, and we need someone that understands the economy. So I'm glad Mitt is grown-up to you all."
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/264619-ann-romney-america-needs-a-grown-up-who-understands-the-economy-
Arkana
(24,347 posts)There it is, plain and simple.
A black man cannot possibly execute the office of the Presidency well in their minds, ergo, he's incompetent due to excessive blackness.