blogging for the first time from my new place: a little one-room schoolhouse in adams county, pa.
obviously i am less of an obama fan than most of the people around me, even the disillusioned, perhaps, though i did vote for him. i hope that i have a chance to vote for paul this year, as i did in 1988. for example, i oppose an individual mandate to buy health insurance. but i have to say that these repubs are jacking up the rhetoric to insane levels, and that this level of rancor is itself destructive. so watching the tea party congressman wilson on msnbc: 'i truly believe that he is destroying the country.' gingrich (typically): 'sometimes when you listen to obama talk, you wonder what country he can possibly be talking to.' this is vicious hyperbole and it just cannot help anyone accomplish anything except (they must think this) getting elected. i would say that it shows clearly that the people who speak it don't have the truth or the best interests of america uppermost in their minds. also i don't actually remember this level of rhetoric before, as brutal as some of these campaigns have been. soon it will be 'execute obama for treason'; already it amounts to that. i'm pining for the palin era, when things were remarkably civil: "how's that hopey changey thing working out for ya?" suddenly it looks painfully nice.