Defending Ourselves from Insulting Elitists is 'The New Incivility'

So late last night, I stumbled onto Joe Scarborough’s column on Politico, calling for a “higher level of debate.”

There, he built a condo in Jon Stewart’s butt, saluting the comedian’s attempt to challenge “extremists of all stripes.” He swoons, “I’m just naive enough to believe that Stewart’s rally might make a difference,” overlooking the fact that the sanity rally was a preemptive gesture, meant to undermine a conservative comeback.

The rally would not have happened, after all, if the shellacking was on the other foot.

Whatever: Joe just earned himself another Daily Show invite.

Anyway, last night I tweeted that, in 14 hours, Obama will call for end to partisanship. And, on cue, he did: in defeat – calling for a renewed civility.

Which I’m for, I guess.

But Obama needs to see the difference between incivility and legitimate anxiety. The incivility really began when people questioned him. Remember, it wasn’t the tea party calling the media morons and idiots. It was the opposite, when those old folks started showing up at town halls, speaking truth to Obama.

Look, people get mad when they sense something underhanded. We inherently distrust people and policies that rise to levels of success, without earning it. It started with the health care bill – something no one read, but our government passed. And when its critics became the actual targets of bile – that was the real incivility.

Here were the Democrat talking points:

• If you’re against the health care bill, you want children to die.
• If you’re against cap and trade, you want the earth to die.
• If you disagree with Obama, you must be racist.

So, yeah – civility is great and working together is peachy. But as a baby-hating, earth-killing bigot – aren’t I kind of hopeless?

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist, homophobic babyphobe.

Tonight:

John Gibson!

Angela McGlowan!

John Devore!

my mom