PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

David Frum is well known as a commentator on the right who worked for G.W. Bush when he was in the White House. He has a column today (4.2.11) calling on fellow “conservatives” to stop the lowest attacks against Obama in light of the military style action in Pakistan. Here is a clip from his comments. The rest can be found at CNN.Com

(Referring to those who have attacked Obama, Frum wrote:

“...some have insisted on traveling beyond those valid points. They have called the president "post American." "Third-world dictator." An individual whose behavior could only be interpreted as "Kenyan post-colonial." "thug in chief."

They have tried to present U.S. politics not as a choice between liberal and conservative but as a choice between American and non-American, between real Americans and between a dangerous dark-skinned intruder. They have sought to portray the president as a man who could not be trusted to lead the country because he owed no loyalty to the country, because he did not belong in the country.

After the events of the past 72 hours, those kinds of attacks should be finished now. It's a cleaner world without bin Laden soiling it. And American politics will be cleaner for the expunging of the malicious fantasy of the president's non-Americanness.

Obama has performed the first job of an American president: He has used the power of the nation well to defeat the nation's enemies and defend the nation's people. After an interval for celebration of yesterday's accomplishment, it will be back to politics as usual. But let's hope that this time, the usual will include this difference: that the administration can be criticized as "liberal" without being libeled as "alien."

TERRYREPORT COMMENTS:

I applaud what Frum had to say, as far as it goes. What he does not acknowledge, however, is that the attacks on Obama spring from deep roots within the Republican party and the far right in America. Palin anxiously paints herself and her believers as “real Americans” who know how to shoot a rifle and go hunting, while those who are not so real oppose the killing and eating of animals. (In fact, most people, right, left, in the middle, Democrats and even, yes, socialists, are not vegetarians.)

The Republican right is dedicated to the notion that Democrats and others actually want to sell out their own country in favor of some sort of undefined multi-nationalism, which is one reason they always criticize the United Nations. The right believes, in the main, that the US acting alone with military power anywhere in the world is just fine and dandy.

A major underpinning of the Republican and tea party slams against Democrats is that they are somehow not real American patriots. Thus, trying to raise doubts about Obama’s birthplace fits right into the pattern. It would be great if the right in America would raise their sights and deal more with important issues. From what I read and see, however, virtually all of their political program is aimed at trying to prove that Democrats are, at best, borderline traitors, even when that applies to matters of balancing the budget.

The game Republicans play to get and retain support in the south, west and in more rural areas of the country is to say, in effect: look at those people, they are not like you and they will harm your interests. Having a president with darker skin with, of all things, an African born father plays right into that game. He’s strange. He’s different. He’s scary! To many people, Obama in the White House signals the end of a comfortable world they have known, the world that saw two Bushes serving as president after Ronald Reagan, the friendly right winger from the movies.

This line of attack works because a lot of people are upset with the modern world and the onrush of changes they don’t understand or approve. By the end of Obama’s first  term, the Democrats will have held the presidency for only 16 out of the previous 44 years. The Democrats lost the support of the south by supporting the aspirations of black Americans for full civil rights and participation in our society. The right would like to see their exile from power  return and continue for a long time and whatever method works best will do just fine.

Doug Terry, 5.2.11

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