{"id":5457,"date":"2014-05-05T13:34:40","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T13:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=5457"},"modified":"2014-05-05T13:34:40","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T13:34:40","slug":"some-critics-are-unfair-but-not-all-of-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5457","title":{"rendered":"Some critics are unfair, but not all of them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Peter Beinert, writing for Atlantic Monthly, makes a fascinating case in defense of those who are highly critical of President Obama.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, some of the criticism is race-based &#8230; but not all of it, not by a long shot. The article attached here is worth reading.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2014\/05\/radical-republican-opposition-is-not-new\/361536\/<\/p>\n<p>He takes U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson to task for making some outrageous claims about how Barack Obama has been singled out merely because of his race. Here&#8217;s what Beinert writes: \u201cI never saw George Bush treated like this. I never saw Bill Clinton treated like this with such disrespect,\u201d Thompson told a radio show. \u201cThat Mitch McConnell would have the audacity to tell the president of the United States \u2026 that \u2018I don\u2019t care what you come up with we\u2019re going to be against it.\u2019 Now if that\u2019s not a racist statement I don\u2019t know what is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Beinert notes that Thompson then said that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas doesn&#8217;t like being black, which on its face is a preposterous notion.<\/p>\n<p>Obama&#8217;s critics have been harsh. Have they been any more strident than those who went after, say, Preident Bill Clinton? Hardly.<\/p>\n<p>Beinert makes some interesting comparisons between the two presidents&#8217; critics. My all-time &#8220;favorite&#8221; criticism of Bill Clinton came from the late preacher Jerry Falwell, who sponsored a video called &#8220;The Clinton Chronicles&#8221; that suggested &#8212; no, it actually accused &#8212; that Bill and Hillary Clinton orchestrated the <em>murder<\/em> of long-time friend and adviser Vince Foster, who committed suicide early in the Clinton presidency.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s also point out here that Beinert is a left-leaning journalist who generally is friendly toward policies advocated by progressive politicians.<\/p>\n<p>He is right to calm down those who suggest things such as those brought forward by Rep. Thompson that all criticism of President Obama is race-based and is uniquely harsh.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Clinton surely would disagree.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Beinert, writing for Atlantic Monthly, makes a fascinating case in defense of those who are highly critical of President Obama. Yes, some of the criticism is race-based &#8230; but not all of it, not by a long shot. The article attached here is worth reading. http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2014\/05\/radical-republican-opposition-is-not-new\/361536\/ He takes U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson to task &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5457\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Some critics are unfair, but not all of them<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[540,631,2445,3575,5117],"class_list":["post-5457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-bill-clinton","tag-jerry-falwell","tag-peter-beinert","tag-vince-foster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}