Alec Jacobs, Staff Writer
Ideology: Conservative Republican | Writing from: George Washington University
I can’t express how tired I am of hearing conversations in which conservatives aren’t allowed to question anything Obama does without being told by liberals that “it’s too soon to criticize.” Not only is this absurd, it’s hypocritical: this comes from the same people (liberal bloggers, liberal pundits, and average liberal Americans) who were criticizing George W. Bush immediately after he took office. Conversations like the following have become almost standard in discussions about the Obama presidency:
CONSERVATIVE: Boy, President Obama is doing a terrible job with regard to [insert any failed Obama policy/action/misstep here. Examples include the stimulus bill, the public option, choosing Joe Biden as his running mate, etc. The list goes on.]!
LIBERAL: Hey man, it’s only been [insert the amount of time Obama has been President, whether it’s five days or eight months]! You can’t fairly judge him based on [again, amount of time he has been president]. You need to wait out his first term and see how it goes, kind of like how we did with George W. Bush, who we treated fairly and respectfully and who we never booed during a joint session of Congress!
CONSERVATIVE: Wait, you guys—
LIBERAL: [Sense someone about to challenge his opinion] Gotta run!
How long do conservatives have to wait before speaking up about the president’s policies without liberals crying foul, and saying that it hasn’t been a long enough time to judge? This is an actual question that I want to propose to those reading this. Do conservatives wait a year? The rest of his term? Several years after his first (and only) term is over, so that there has been a proper reflection period?
Maureen Dowd, liberal extraordinaire and New York Times columnist, didn’t hesitate before slamming Bush and blaming him for everything she saw wrong with America. Here’s a column from April 1, 2001, in which she venomously describes President Bush as “The Asbestos President,” less than three months after his inauguration. This was far from the first column she wrote criticizing Bush (those started almost immediately, not counting the ones written during the campaign), but this part stood out to me most:
“With the guidance of his regents, the Duke of Halliburton and Cardinal Rumsfeld, W. has set off the specter of a mushroom cloud of carcinogens and carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power and ”China Syndrome” fears, rapacious drilling and retrenchment on women’s rights, the missile shield, spy tensions and the cold war.”
If Bush had actually accomplished a “retrenchment on women’s rights,” along with everything else Dowd mentioned, this might have been a critique worth hearing, but he didn’t. Dowd was out to criticize Bush just to have a topic for her column. At least when conservatives have criticized Obama, they criticize things he’s actually done, unlike Dowd, who sees nothing wrong with blaming a “retrenchment on women’s rights” on Bush after two months in office.
Let’s look at what conservatives have criticized President Obama for actually accomplishing, or trying to accomplish, in his first eight months as president. Just to name a few key things, he has spent or has announced plans to spend trillions of dollars, which is a number unfathomable to any of us. He has been pushing an unpopular health care plan and widely opposed “cap and trade” legislation. These initiatives are the antithesis of conservatism and are things conservatives should be able to criticize. Conservatives are going to oppose liberal policies whether the left likes it or not, regardless of how long it’s been since Obama, or any liberal President, has taken office.
However, this isn’t just about Obama’s policies, but rather the hypocrisy of the left. Liberals criticized George W. Bush immediately after his term began for things he was incapable of accomplishing in just over two short months, and they’re okay with those criticisms. Conservatives raise legitimate concerns over things Obama has actually done in his first eight months in office, and that’s unacceptable to liberals. Will this double standard never end?
you do realize TARP was passed under Bush right? The bailout wasn’t only an Obama thing.
Where did I mention TARP? And what does that have to do with this article?
Although I do agree with you, Alec, and enjoy most of your columns, I wish that you would do a piece with an in-depth rundown of the “failed policies” to which you refer. It’d be a great reference point for the not-so-few people who refuse to kiss the ass of our bureaucracy, no matter what political party the leader is in.
Im just saying alot of conservatives( at least the ones I’ve talked to at BU) lump TARP in with the stimulus bill and I want to make sure your not doing the same thing and that people who read this understand there is a difference.
That being said, you state “At least when conservatives have criticized Obama, they criticize things he’s actually done”. I pray(acutally i don’t cause im an agnostic but w/e) your not referring to Palin’s “death panel” scare tactics, Rush’s insistence that Obama is a racists socialist, Beck’s paranoid scribblings on a chalk board about OLIGARH(http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200908270038) which would be funny it wasn’t so scary, Buchmann’s calls for investigations into “un-american” members of the administration etc etc etc.
Also I find it a gross generalization when you say “Liberals criticized George W. Bush immediately after his term began for things he was incapable of accomplishing in just over two short months, and they’re okay with those criticisms. Conservatives raise legitimate concerns over things Obama has actually done in his first eight months in office, and that’s unacceptable to liberals” While SOME liberals attacked Bush after he took office similar numbers of conservatives lined up to attack Obama even before his inauguration(see RUSH- I hope he fails comment).
Ill admit some conservatives have raised legitimate concerns about how involved government should but you make it sound as if every sound bite coming from the RNC and conservative leaders is a well thought out, valid argument. I would bet a lot of money that we’ve seen more paranoia and baseless accusations from the right in the last 8 months then Bush had in his first 8 months. Also unlike 8 years ago we see mass protests that have at their core some credible disagreements with the way government is run but is also tinged with alot of hate, bigotry, and misinformation(birthers, deathers, people bringing their guns to townhalls).
This is not about the substance of anyone’s criticisms, Clark. It is about the fact that liberals say we aren’t allowed to criticize Obama when they did the same thing to Bush.
I’m not even saying liberals shouldn’t have criticized Bush. All I want is for there to be some fairness.
And Charline, I try to mix up the articles I write so that some are lighter and more enjoyable to read (I hope) but skim the surface and some are more about policy. If you look through older articles of mine, you’ll find some about specific Obama policies I disagree with, and you should also be able to find articles written by other writers about things like health care and the stimulus bill with which I agree, and so didn’t see a need to write over again. But thanks for your comment!
Sometimes you read an article and you say to yourself “I’m going to have to read that again.” Needless to say, this wasn’t such a piece.
The premise of the whole article strikes me as silly: you seem to be angry that you can’t criticize the president, and you show this anger by criticizing him. And what’s with the whinny tone? Come on, play the world’s smallest violin, why don’t you. You need someone’s permission to criticize them? If that’s the case then I gladly don’t give it.
Really, Alec, to which “liberals” are you referring? Neither I, nor any liberal I’ve met, has had a problem criticizing the President, unlike certain conservatives under the Bush presidency (apparently, I hate America because I disagreed with the President, oops). You say things like “liberals do x” or “liberals think y”, but you never really provide any real citations for those claims, nor can you ever really establish that ALL (or even most or some) liberals believe, think, or act however you claim we do.
Furthermore, I’d like to point out that just because Maureen Dowd wrote a column criticizing George W. Bush shortly after he took office doesn’t mean that all “liberals” even agree with her. If you bothered to look at some opinion polls, you’d notice that though support for Bush was not particularly high among Democrats right after the election, it was nonetheless above 50% and that, furthermore, support for Bush surged after the events of 9/11.
I find it quite frankly offensive that in every column you categorize everyone to your left as a “liberal” and then foist your views of what we have to say on us, when in reality the vast majority of us don’t even have those views, and when you actually do provide an accurate presentation of what those views are you make copious use of reductio ad absurdum. You seem to enjoy painting every single liberal as some sort of caricature, and then you have the balls to call for “fairness”? Puh-leeze.
In conclusion, I’ll just leave you with this thought: your fictional dialogue between a “conservative” and a “liberal” (by far more outrageous and distorted than pretty much anything that has happened in reality, I am sure) and one column from Maureen Dowd does not prove your point. The fact that you can cite something that a liberal wrote in the New York Times once does not mean that all “liberal bloggers, liberal pundits, and average liberal Americans” feel the same way that she does.
And let’s not forget the fact that while Democrats may have criticized George W. Bush early on, Republicans have been doing much of the same for a long time now. The criticisms of Obama began far before he even took office, and frequently aren’t even fair — apparently he’s “pro-death panel,” a “Muslim extremist secretly from Nigeria who wants to kill us all,” “Hitler re-incarnate” and a “socialist”. When conservatives are ready to move beyond comparing the President of the United States to the man responsible for exterminating large parts of my family, let me know.
It’s pretty ironic that you do the same thing you whine about me doing in your comment to me.
“When conservatives are ready to move beyond comparing the President of the United States to the man responsible for exterminating large parts of my family, let me know.”
Hm. I’ve never compared Obama to Hitler. Nor has any conservative I know personally.
Liberals are grouped with liberals, conservatives are grouped with conservatives. It happens on a daily basis. Nobody will ever be able to prove that every single liberal feels one way. Most liberals feel the same way on many things, same with the other side.
And you seem to have also missed the crux of my argument. I did not insinuate that Democrats shouldn’t have criticized Bush before he was elected or early on. I said that we should be allowed to do the same with Obama. Just two days ago, a commenter on another post said something along the lines of how it’s only been eight months, so we don’t really know how he’s doing yet, which sparked this column, though it certainly isn’t the first time I’ve heard this.
Also, a lesson on quotes: they’re used when quoting somebody. If you can find sometime when anyone has ever used the phrase “Muslim extremist secretly from Nigeria who wants to kill us all” to describe Obama, do share.
Obviously you’ve never been to one of the teabagger protests.
I agree with Noah, especially with what he says in the second paragraph of his most recent post. Your us and them mentality is not only obscenely backwards and neurotic, but frankly, just plain disgusting.
As I read your articles, I can’t help but think to myself: this is a writer who in no way has “A Fresh Perspective”, for your perspective consistently reinforces a division of this nation’s people, uselessly instigates disrespect and animosity, and ultimately lends nothing towards political progress or improvement.
“Backwards,” “neurotic,” and “disgusting” are hardly appropriate words.
But the “fresh perspective” deal is not supposed to mean that everyone on this blog wants bipartisanship and to work with the other side, etc., etc. It’s more that this generation has our ideas about politics as well as previous generations.
Instead of commenting on other articles to say what you disagree with, you do nothing to advance progress by saying that what I write is “disgusting” without actually engaging in some kind of debate.
Art,
I guess your analysis was wrong, you clearly do need to read the article again.
The point was: liberals have said it’s too soon to judge the president and that we shouldn’t criticize him yet. Meanwhile, they criticized Bush early in his term and didn’t see a problem with it. I have no problem with them criticizing Bush early on, but we should be able to criticize Obama early on as well.
Liberals didn’t bash bush to the scale the the conservatives are bashing obama. Maureen Dowd, who is not the liberal queen wrote and article that you disagree with. that does not mean every single liberal in the nation was out to get bush and rip on his administration. The conservatives on the other hand attacked Obama even before he got into the white house. Of course you have the right to disagree and protest what our president and government is doing but many leaders in your party are been ratching up the fear and anxiety with baseless accusation and scare tactics(its probably the republicans favorite play in the playbook). There are conservatives out there who are raising legitimate concerns but don’t try and tell me on anyone else who can think that this is hypocrisy. Most people frankly didn;t care about Bush and his admin until after 9/11. After all the 2000 election was mostly about which candidate you would rather have a beer with. Liberals were not out in mass at protests carrying borderline inappropriate signs( bury obamacare wit kennedy, etc) until after Bush started his war in Iraq. Frankly idk how you can possibly compare the first 8 months of Bush to Obama because we live in drastically different times in a highly bi-partisian atmosphere, in a world experience economic turmoil and the threat of terrorism. 8 years ago we were running a surplus, most people didn’t know who bin laden was(which we’ve come to regret) and most people really didn’t care and times were good.
sorry for the grammar mistakes im still a little high from hempfest
No, 2000 was not a totally different time.
I dont know what country you were living in, but people accused Bush of “stealing” the election. Remember all that? People not only cared about Bush, they called him stupid and criticized his policies just as conservatives are criticizing Obama now.
“Most people frankly didn;t care about Bush and his admin until after 9/11.”
That is absolutely ridiculous. Can you show any kind of evidence, even if it’s ONE liberal pundit, who has said anything similar to that? People cared, come on.
And what doesn’t everyone understand about me using Maureen Dowd as an example? Do I have to quote every liberal in the country that was alive in 2000-2001? Sentiment was highly against Bush from the Left from the moment he was elected. I use Dowd as an EXAMPLE.
And is the hempfest comment supposed to lend some kind of credence to your argument? Because it does exactly the opposite.
Alec, it’s not that we “don’t understand” (are you trying to be condescending? Is that supposed to lend some kind of credence to your argument? Because it does exactly the opposite.) your comments about Maureen Dowd — we just reject it as an accurate representation of sentiment amongst Democrats, liberals, or “the left” (they’re not the same thing, by the way, so please don’t use them interchangeably).
While you may think that you job of proving you point has ended that you’ve managed to scrounge up one column written in 2001, those of us who don’t take everything you say on faith are looking for something that resembles actual evidence to back up your points, and it’s not our job to find it.
So, yes, congratulations, you have an example. Now prove there’s a rule. If you can.
What kind of proof are you looking for? Do I have to post all of Dowd’s columns? A statement from every liberal pundit? I’m going on what I’ve seen, just as you’re going on what you’ve seen. I guess it’s different. If you’re really wondering whether I’m just lying or whether I’m writing the truth, you’ll look into it. But your interest is to refute anything I say.
And I have not used Democrats, liberals, and the Left interchangeably. Just “liberals” and “the Left” which are the same. You were the one who brought up Democrats in a comment.
Alec you have a legitimate point but the tone of your article is full of generalizations. Of course liberal pundits are going to bash bush. They get paid to do it from papers like the New York Times as does the wall street journal with its conservative columnists. Liberals go on MSNBC and conservatives of FOX. The difference is in 2000 there were not mass protests that were partially inspired by fear and misinformation. Show me similar articles about liberals in 2000 and before 9/11, going to mass protests and displaying their blatant, willful ignorance (birthers, deathers, etc).
Alec, how about next time you give us an example of a prominent liberal figure doing what you claim they do, rather than making up a conversation? If it’s so “standard” it shouldn’t be that hard.
Here’s a liberal writer/blogger from the Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/26/8334/2493/571/666591
He seems to share my view that Obama should be criticized early, but also acknowledges that he’s heard the “it’s too early to judge” argument right off the bat:
“I keep seeing this argument and it blows my mind. Yes, it’s early. No, people should not panic. He’s made centrist and conservative (Gates) choices in appointments so far. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s fair to criticize these choices. ”
He makes clear that he has heard liberals use the “it’s too soon” argument, but he disagrees. I doubt he was hearing conservatives say it was too soon…
From a Politico article (http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=14A56161-18FE-70B2-A8A464273788ECC7):
“There are signs of a struggle within the left wing of the Democratic Party about whether it’s just too soon to criticize Obama — and if there’s really anything to complain about just yet.”
A third post, this one from an average American liberal and published on AssociatedContent.com, which enables ordinary people to be published on the Internet: (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1685818/too_early_to_criticize_obama.html?cat=9)
“It wasn’t a month before the critics were out in force criticizing Obama. He scarcely had time to move into the White House before the media pundits and naysayers began to find anything and everything to talk about and criticize. But isn’t it a little early since executives usually get six months.”
Alec, how about some polls? Statistics? Something representative of “the Liberals” and “the Left” (Again, two different things. You just manage to conflate them because you are looking at it from the other side of Rick Santorum).
I’m not sure why this is difficult for you. Furthermore, I’m still waiting for you to produce evidence that Democrats, liberals, or “the Left” refuses to listen to arguments against Obama, or even claims that, no, you can’t criticize Obama because it’s only been eight months. Quite frankly, that’s a minority viewpoint to the extreme, especially considering that it was many conservatives who were shouting liberals down for not supporting Bush and calling us “anti-American”. Now that Obama is president, I wonder if these same people think that people who don’t support him are “anti-American”; probably not, since they’re likely partisan hypocrites.
Alec, I guess my point is that you’re relying on “average American liberals” to make your point for you — you can get one or two Americans to say anything. The fact is that no major figure in Democratic politics has said Obama is immune from criticism for any amount of time. The story you linked to from Politico only ponders whether /Democrats/ can criticize Obama publicly, not opposition figures.
I knew that if I provided more examples, they’d still only represent those peoples’ individual views.
I didn’t say anywhere that this is an argument made by Democratic officials (though, since you asked, here’s a post from the NYT about Steny Hoyer saying that it’s too early to judge merits/faults of the stimulus bill, an Obama policy: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/democrat-leaders-cautious-about-talk-of-stimulus-sequel/)
I said it was made by bloggers, pundits, and ordinary people.
Just some more links for everyone’s viewing pleasure:
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52O68U20090325
http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/to-early-to-judge-on-obama
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/adrian-hamilton/adrian-hamilton-its-too-early-to-start-losing-faith-in-president-obama-1366583.html
The comments to this article is proving the validity of the statement… “To anger a Conservative – LIE to him… To anger a LIBERAL – Tell him the TRUTH”
Yes, 8 months is not an acceptable period to judge Obama’s administration. I knew within six months he was worse than Carter, his Secretary of Racism.
You see, when liberals use race as a talking point, the game is up, they have nothing..
Alec, the comments prove that no matter the logic of the arguement, liberals only believe in free speech if they agree with what you are saying. Otherwise they just want you to SHUT UP.
They hurl insults rather than facts. However, in the end, B.O. will fail even in their eyes. When you elevate someone to the level of Messiah, there is only one way to go from there. And it ain’t “up”.
To all those attacking Alec’s argument:
To deny that Liberals (Democrats, if you will, Noah) criticized Bush early is to deny obvious fact, and something that a quick google search will reveal.
To attack Alec for using Maureen Dowd, a hyper-famous liberal opinion columnist for one of the largest newspapers in the world, is a juvenile nit-pick. Would you have preferred another? Using Dowd made sense, since she is throwing the same sort of fire-starting criticism that many conservative columnists now aim at Obama.
Since it is Peggy Noonan, Michele Malkin and others who are getting attacked for going after Obama “too early” – the logic behind using Dowd is quite understandable.
If that wasn’t enough for you, Alec has provided many more links and articles since, furthering his case.
You just need to admit that Alec has a point and has provided ample evidence for it – you don’t need to agree with the implications of that point, but to continue to challenge his logic is silly.
I don’t know with what sort of liberals you’re keeping company, but I, very much a liberal, and all of my liberal friends, were quite happy to criticize Obama right out of the gate.
The criticisms of him from the right that are being objected to are the nonsensical ones: he’s a socialist, he’s a communist, he’s a Muslim, he’s not even American. Each of those claims is ridiculous, and conservatives who feel genuine reality-based grievances are done a grave disservice by them, as are we all.
Bush did in fact lose the 2000 election, so it was not merely sour grapes that he was called on it.
I agree that the more nonsensical claims are just that: nonsensical.
But when the stimulus is objected to or someone claims the stimulus hasn’t worked as Obama said it was going to, and Steny Hoyer comes out and says that not enough time has passed to judge Obama or his policies, I find that annoying. Points/policies like these (I mention a few of them in the article) should be up for criticism.
No one is denying conservatives have the right to criticize Obama. I’m not objecting to that at all and for any liberal to say you can’t protest the government is bs. however, I just don’t think that last 8 months is the same as Bush’s first 8 months 8 years ago. Most of us were 10 and 11 and maybe 12 so watching and reading the news wasn’t exactly what we did every night but as far as i can recall I don’t remember any equivalent of birthers, deathers etc which are inflaming a good portion of the passions at recent conservative protests. I know you’ve called them nonsensical Alec so bravo but they still are part of the conservative movement and when you have prominent members of your party repeating the blatant lies and scare tactics(Palin with death panals, Republican members of congress wanting to see obamas birth certificate etc) the validity of your entire movement is called into question.
Show me the mass hysteria and protests 8 years ago against Bush and his administration(and the birther, deather equivalent of high ranking Democratic leaders, not just prominent liberals like Dowd) and Ill admit your article is 100% awesome and correct.
“No one is denying conservatives have the right to criticize Obama.”
I’ve posted five links where people are doing just that. I have proven time and time again that liberals from all different levels have said that it’s too early to judge Obama.
But again, you are completely missing the point. It doesn’t matter what Bush’s first eight months were like. Liberals criticized him early and often, and conservatives should be able to do the same with Obama without being told “it’s too soon.”
This has nothing to do with the aggressiveness or magnitude of the protests against Obama. That is another article, Clark.
But I’ll oblige: truthers are WAY more crazy than birthers, and I’m pretty sure the truther movement sprung up about eight months and three weeks after Bush took office?
Truther’s have no backing from any member of congress. Birthers on the other hand have congressmen who won’t stand up for obama and even some who subtly question his birth certificate.
Wrong.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/5854
Dennis Kucinich: “…our plan is to tell the truth about 9/11″
While you certainly draw attention to some valid hypocrisies I suppose, I don’t really get what they prove. This article and this ridiculously long debate about who said what, what liberals/conservatives REALLY think, and who’s better seem only to illuminate the problems of partisanship, rather than actually draw attention to valid issues.
Alec: What difference does it make if people criticize you for criticizing? They’re just complaining to put you on the defensive and give your substantive ideas less credence. No one is not ALLOWING you to not criticize… your articles aren’t censored. They’re just complaining.
And liberals who responded: What difference does it make if he’s right, or if liberals criticized in the past, or didn’t? I’m positive that their was no party uniformity anyway. Some did, some didn’t. This is a country where the right to criticize everything is protected and celebrated. So be it.
Debates like the one following this article (35 comments!) have nothing to do with the issues, and they create an environment of partisan hostility that inhibits constructive policies from ever being written. Since our entire political structure is set up to win, and to prove that our party is the most correct, sane, smart, etc, we talk about the hypocritical nature of the other party, spend ridiculous time forcing senators to apologize for shouting, and spend time and energy degrading the characters of liberals and conservatives alike.
Let’s bring our different ideas to the table to actually get better health care, fix the economy, encourage green industry, etc. and work for the people.
correction: No one is not ALLOWING you to criticize – as in no one is forbidding criticism.
(ignore double negative, not intentional)
“Alec: What difference does it make if people criticize you for criticizing? They’re just complaining to put you on the defensive and give your substantive ideas less credence. No one is not ALLOWING you to not criticize… your articles aren’t censored. They’re just complaining.”
I think that that’s exactly the problem. Rather than address the issues, the critics of criticism say only that it’s too soon, making debate on the issues impossible.
“as far as i can recall I don’t remember any equivalent of birthers, deathers etc which are inflaming a good portion of the passions at recent conservative protests.”
Yeah, because no bumper stickers that said “Let’s not elect him again in 2004″ didn’t end up on any cars or anything.