Who are the Hatemongers?

This is a doctored picture of my niece in Northern California doing a honk-and-wave in support of Proposition 8.



The guy standing next to her clearly was on the other side of the issue. With a smile on her face, Stallion’s Niece said to the “Jesus Didn’t Teach Hate” guy, “I have a lot of respect for you.” To which the “Jesus Didn’t Teach Hate” guy responded, “I ain’t got none for you.” So then, in typical hateful fashion, my niece said, “That’s okay.”

Question: What’s wrong with this picture? (Besides the fact that my niece doesn’t look like Yul Brynner in real life.)

Al Franken is currently in the process of stealing a Senate seat, yet long before he was a candidate for office, he walked up to Karl Rove at a White House Correspondent’s Dinner and said, curtly, “I’m Al Franken. I hate you and you hate me.” To which Rove responded, “But I don’t hate you.”

Question: Which of those two men has a reputation in the media for being a hatemonger, and which one deserves that label?

In his October 20th “Special Comment,” gasbag Keith Olbermann decried “Republican smears without end” and accused John McCain of allowing his campaign to “devolve into hatred.” Almost exactly a year earlier, the same guy opened his show with the question, “Why does President Bush hate American kids?” Indeed, one of Olbermann’s most consistent themes is “right-wingers … instinctive hatred.” This, of course, comes in conjunction with Mr. Olbermann’s less-than-charitable disagreements with our president, whom he has told to “shut the hell up.”

Question: Does Olbermann have a problem mistaking invective for argument, or does President Bush really hate American kids?

My Esteemed Colleague, gloating shamelessly over Obama’s win, says that our nation has “begun to heal,” because the Republicans were defeated. “Good riddance and may those orcs and orukai never come back!!” he says. Labeling anyone who could have once voted for “the National Buffoon and his Constipated Puppetmaster” as “stupid idiots,” he then exults that “Hope is alive and well in this land again!”

Question: How does calling your ideological opponents “orcs” and “stupid idiots” contribute to a hate-free atmosphere of healing and hope?

Michael Moore, who has built a lucrative career on the false premise that our sitting president is a terrorist and a mass murderer, wrote an open letter to America after Obama’s win, in which he celebrated the victory as a “triumph of decency over personal attack” and condescendingly urged his supporters to “not treat the Republicans in your life the way they have treated you the past eight years.”

Question: Is it possible to name a reputable Republican who has treated the opposition as hatefully as Moore has treated us?

I hope you see where I’m going with this.

Plenty of people on both sides of the political spectrum are too eager to assign base motives to those with whom they disagree. But the kind of sanctimonious self-righteousness that accompanies Lefty hatred has no equal on my side of the aisle. How can hatemongers like Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore presume to lecture me on decency and fair play? How do advocates of tolerance and love justify smearing political adversaries as monsters and demons? How am I supposed to feel united with anyone who thinks I’m too stupid or too evil to live?

One of the most appealing things about Barack Obama, in my estimation, is that he appears to be a fundamentally decent man. Here’s hoping that those who support him will follow his example and abandon the vitriol that has fueled their movement lo these many years.

Hope and change have to mean more than just hating George Bush.