The College Fix

The health of the American public discourse suffered a powerful blow yesterday as a new salvo of eliminationist rhetoric was fired from the depths of the far-right fringe. Take a look at these odious remarks:

We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face… They got a war, they got a war with us, and there’s only going to be one winner… Let’s take these sons of bitches out and take America back to where we belong.

Which hate-spewing conservative maniac referred to their political opponents as “sons of bitches” and implored listeners to “take them out”? Was it Bachmann? Palin? Perhaps Beck?

Wrong. Actually, this was Teamsters president and union activist Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. speaking to workers at a Labor Day rally in Detroit. Thankfully, President Obama also spoke at the event, and took the opportunity to condemn Hoffa’s lack of civility:

The problem is that this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. It prevents learning…

Oops, wrong again. While the preceding statement was indeed Obama’s, it was made back in May 2010 during his commencement address to the University of Michigan’s graduating class (of which I was a member). But if ever a Michigan audience needed a reminder about keeping a civil tone, it was yesterday. Hoffa even gave the president a perfect opportunity to do so when he said to the crowd:

President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of bitches out and take America back to where we belong.

Obama, however, had nothing to say on the subject, though he did mention Hoffa on a list of people he was “proud” of.

I will close with a quote from liberal intellectual Paul Krugman, who explicitly (and wrongly) blamed the Tucson shooting on the overheated rhetoric of the right. Back in January, one day after the tragedy, Krugman wrote:

It’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.

Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

Let’s see if any prominent leftists decide to ostracize Hoffa. The president sure didn’t.

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