ef="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/osama-bin-laden-killing-gives-obama-quick-but-limited-ratings-boost/2011/05/03/AFhxjegF_story.html?wpisrc=al_national">According to a Washington Post poll, more than three-quarters of all Americans say the president deserves credit for taking down the bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday. But among Republicans only 61 percent think he deserves "at least some credit" and only 17 percent think the Obama administration deserves "a great deal" of credit for bringing bin Laden to justice after a nearly 10-year pursuit.
So, in other words, the Post poll is saying that almost 40 percent of Republicans don't believe Obama deserves any credit for Sunday's military operation. Excuse me? Who do they think ordered this risky operation? Who do they think chose a commando mission to extract proof of bin Laden's demise rather than carpet bombing Abbottabad? Can Obama get any credit for anything?
Looking at other polls, the answer is likely no. In early April, a Fox News poll indicated that 37 percent of Republicans believed that President Obama was not born in the United States. Not to be outdone, a similar CBS/New York Times poll in mid-April found that 45 percent of Republicans believed that Obama is not American born, and a Public Policy Polling result in February showed that 47 percent of Republicans believe that the President was born on foreign soil.
Even in the wake of the release of the President's long-form birth certificate, a new poll by PPP shows that while more Americans believe in the authenticity of Obama's birth in Hawaii, less Republicans do. Thirty two percent of those that identify as being Republican say they don't believe that the President was born in the United States, and another 23 percent say they're unsure. That's more than half! So tell me, what's with this brazen disregard of evidence and facts that now defines the Republican Party?
The GOP is marked by fierce partisanship to the point of mass neurosis. And while a large percentage of Republicans still don't believe that the President has the right to be Commander-in-Chief, a strikingly similar percentage don't believe he deserves credit for acting quickly and decisively in protecting our nation from the world's most infamous terrorist.
Yesterday, even former New York Governor George Pataki and New York Congresswoman Nan Hayworth were unable to mention the President or his national security team in their public statements about the killing of Osama bin Laden. What gives? Is this the next cold dismissal of an American President in the wake of birtherism? Is it the new goal of the Republican party to stick their fingers in their collective ears and yell rather than give credit to our nation's leader just because he's on the other end of the political spectrum?
Some thirty years back, the Republican Party decided that in order to advance an agenda that is mostly unfavorable to the majority of population, they would have to engage in massive, Orwellian propaganda tactics to confuse and split the masses, and one of the ways they do that is denying the legitimacy of their political opponents at any cost.
Republicans enter this state of derangement whenever it suits their purpose. It is the party's goal to obscure the truth in favor of dogma, and it explains why they never let facts get in the way of their conservative creed. When they concede to the facts, it stalls the GOP's progress toward keeping the electorate angry about false grievances of their own creation.
So what Republicans do is lie, rewrite history, deny the obvious, fabricate evidence, and anything else they need to create an alternate version for every single event not breaking their way. And if their alternate reality includes not giving credit to the Obama administration for its very successful record against terrorism (remember, Obama also greenlighted the counteraction to Somali pirate hijacking in 2009), it only helps them sway more weak-minded voters.
The GOP's communications apparatus is set up with obfuscation as its core. Knowing this, Republican politicians and pundits don't even need to know the general talking points on any subject, they only need to deny, refute, dispute, obscure, and ignore the facts. So, the word doesn't have to come down from GOP headquarters for them to omit the deeds of their President; they now do this impulsively, like Pavlov's dogs.
This is where we find the pitiful Congresswoman Hayworth and George Pataki. The Revere America duo thinks that if they don't mention the Obama administration, somehow voters will forget that this major victory in the War on Terror was won with a Democratic president at the helm. Somehow, it is a vulgar political victory for them to deny the circumstances of one of the most memorable moments of our collective history. And it's nothing more than shameful.
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