Tough guy Ed Rollins

By Capt. Fogg

Well, what can we expect Ed Rollins to say when he tries to make a case for Barack Obama's weakness? After all, Rollins can't make much of a case for anything but "toughness" in the Reagan administration he worked for or indeed in the party he's long been part of. Not that he will get specific about Reagans testicularity, because if a Democrat had "cut and run" in Lebanon, Ed would still be howling about his effeminate weakness. But one can't take Ed for anything but a low key polemicist, an Ann Coulter without the filed teeth, a Lower fat Limbaugh with less gas content. It's all theater; all a continuing part of the fear mongering the humiliated GOP has been using to make us feel good about giving up freedom and prosperity and distract us from the abject failure of all its promises.

So Barack Obama wants to be loved, says Mr. Rollins. Horrors!

He wants to be loved passionately and daily,

he writes for CNN.com, as though he could know. As though he learned of the president's inner-most dreams through pillow talk, as though he weren't building yet another straw man, stuffed with pot-pourri and dressed in lace panties:

He wants to be loved by the Democrats on the Hill and even the Republicans who have still not given him any love. [despite many having voted for him]

He wants to be loved by the Europeans who have made a career out of badmouthing U.S. presidents and their policies.

Which is Ed's way of placing the blame for calling them all terrorist supporters of the Axis of Evil because they didn't agree about our false assurances about Iraq on them rather than on George Bush's glaring weakness of character.

The real example of searching for love in all the wrong places was last week's lovefest south of the border when, in effect, he appeared to be hugging Castro, Ortega and Chavez who have spent their lives fighting everything the United States stands for,

continues the puffed up patriot, twirling his baton, wishing you could believe that George Bush's Chavez handshake was fundamentally different than Obama's Chavez handshake, which to a prejudiced eye appeared to be a "love fest," and that these banana republic leaders were, by dint of socialistic ambitions, "fighting against everything the United States stands for." The very nerve of showing basic respect instead of making threats! The very weakness of decency and dignity!

Perhaps they do fight against some of the things we stand for, in their own countries, Like Ronald Reagan's death squads and the feudalism of foreign corporations, but as a threat to the security and way of life of our republic, they can't do the kind of damage that's been done by Rollins' party, nor are all the things we've been standing for, like torture, military aggression, supression of dissent, and bombing the bejusus out of innocent civilians, all that worth defending. I hate to mention it, but Jesus lost his life fighting against many things we've wasted time standing for, nor did he think love was such a terrible and weak thing.

Still, Obama should court respect, says Ed, meaning fear. He should just spit on these spic bastards and tell them in no uncertain terms just how many bombs we could drop on their miserable citizens just for voting against our wishes, like we did in Veet-nam. Fear is what we want, not love: grovelling, abject submission to the will of the American President, through fear.

Now, of course, appealing to the basest sentiments of the public with slander and libel and a smorgasbord of false accusations, as the Republicans have done, is really all about wanting to be loved, only it's more pure by virtue of its dishonesty and hostility.

Consider the torture memos. Obama was weak fo releasing them: weak for allowing the Justice Department to decide who to go after, and worst of all, he looks weak, says Ed, to both the people who wanted to hide the information and the people who are our for Republican blood.

Weak if he does, weak if he doesn't. In fact, the courage to ignore the passion of either mob must be weakness, right?

Weakness is the death knell for a president. With 1,366 days to go before this term is up, Obama's got to get tougher or he will be viewed as a personality who reads well from a teleprompter.

So Ed is already partying like it's 2012, and he's trotting out that shibboleth about telepromters to prove his comfort with the most childish and idiotic of his party's giggling points. Pretty weak, Ed, I'm sorry to have to say it.

But that's what America liked about Kommander Guy Bush and Reagan -- toughness -- reading tough words written for him by arm chair belligerents like Ed. I just wish someone would define the concept well enough to differentiate it from pandering, from intransigence, stupidity, dishonesty, unwillingness to learn -- even to make peace.

I just wish politicos like Ed Rollins could explain to me why it's wrong to expose atrocities rather than be grateful to the perpetrators who have allowed us 1200 some odd days of not being attacked by a dozen or so saboteurs -- and why being so pants-wetting fearful justifies taking our freedom, respect, dignity, and prosperity away while he whimpers about Obama being weak.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)