In a July 10 piece, Reuters writer Steve Holland thought he saw Obama “dropping” his usual “political decorum” by directly attacking Republicans this month. However, since the day he entered the White House, this President has made a career of sharp jabs, name calling, and political mudslinging.
“President Barack Obama may look back on this week,” Holland insisted, “as the time when he dropped all pretense of political decorum and let all his frustrations with Washington gridlock spill forth.”
Saying that Obama’s “tone was significantly sharper” during his visit to Austin, Texas this week, Holland went on to claim that all of a sudden Obama is employing “slashing rhetoric” which has “surpassed the typically sober review of the status of Washington.”
One wonders where Reuters has been for five years for Obama has employed “slashing rhetoric” since the day he told Republicans that he didn’t have to work with them because “I won.”
Obama has no record of soft rhetoric in Washington. Despite his early claim that he wanted to improve the level of debate in DC, he has spent years calling Republicans names and otherwise claiming they don’t care about people or mean to harm the country.
In fact, in 2008, only a matter of months after making soaring claims about a gentler tone in DC, Obama was calling Republicans racists. He didn’t even make it to the White House before employing name calling as a tactic.
There are plenty of examples between 2008 and today, but Reuters didn’t have to go back years to find Obama’s lack of political decorum and name calling. Even though Holland and Reuters seemed to have missed it, just last year was a banner year for Obama’s bouts of name calling.
Obama started 2013 out with his Second Inaugural Address which was filled with name calling in the guise of decrying name calling.
Also in 2013, Obama called Republicans and his other opponents “deadbeats” for not agreeing to his big spending ways.
In September, Obama called Republicans saboteurs. He also called Republicans “hostage takers” that same month.
Then there was his 2013 accusation that Republicans were “kidnappers.”
But even as Reuters seems to be claiming that Obama has only just now “dropped all pretense” of being civil, the news wire apparently missed that only two weeks ago he was attacking Republicans as liars and obstructionists. Did Reuters miss the president’s widely reported comments only two weeks ago in June?
Of course, Obama is just following along with his party, which has spent his entire presidency calling Republicans racists, murderers, jihadists, arsonists, blackmailers, terrorists, and haters of children.
Whatever the case, Obama has never maintained any “pretense” to political decorum. He has refused to work with Republicans and called them names in the doing since he first began to run for president. Strangely, Reuters seems to have missed Obama’s 7-year-old record.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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