My parents had eight children, five of whom grew to maturity.  Only one of them was troubled by vindictiveness to a degree of unpleasant hatred.  If a major league hitter knocked out four balls out of five, it would be considered a phenomenon.
Now consider this: I was in the American Army for a few months beyond what we often called a hitch, that is, three years.  I fervently wanted the war to be over with us on the winning side, but all things considered I did not hate the Japanese, the Italians, or the Germans.
If you are a careful reader of Ezra’s Essays, you may discover that some years after the war, Howard Davis and I were wandering down a street in Munich when our thirst demanded that we have a beer.  During this encounter, we ran into a German soldier who only a few years earlier would have tried to kill me.  Similarly Howard and I would have been inclined to kill this German soldier, but that was years ago.  The point that is obvious here is that a good many of us, including myself and Howard, are not afflicted by the sin of hate.  For better or worse, I am not a hater.  And I do not like to be around people who are haters.
In 2003, George W. Bush ordered the invasion of the sovereign territory of Iraq.  We had absolutely no reason for invading that country.  I came as close to hatred as I can come.  In pursuing the ends of that war, it was disclosed that Richard Cheney was the mover and shaker of the battle cries.  I dislike Cheney almost to the point of my feelings about Antonin Scalia, the man who inflicted George W. Bush and Richard Cheney upon the American public.  As for Bush himself, I thought of him as a complete dunce.  He did not inspire my dislike of him to approach the level of hatred as did Antonin Scalia and Dick Cheney.  I suppose the burden of this thought is that even complete dunces such as George W. Bush would influence those haters like Dick Cheney to get this country into impossible situations.
And so it is that as time has progressed, I find myself watching the current so-called debates among the Presidential hopefuls on the Republican side.  There have been perhaps six or seven such debates and I come away with the unshakable belief this is a collection of abject haters.
They hate everything that Barack Obama has done.  And now, when Newt Gingrich pokes his head out above the rest of them, they have extended their hatred towards good old Newt.  If good old Herman Cain were back in the race, I suspect that if he maintained an advantage, their hatred would go to the pizza king.  Simply put, the Republican aspirants for Barack Obama’s job seem to me to be a collection of haters.
Curiously, one of the lead haters is a female who uses the name of Michele Bachmann.
Only Michele has introduced a bill in Congress, where she is a Representative, to ban the so-called “Obamacare,” which is really the health bill, and secondly, Mrs. Bachmann wishes to repeal the Dodd-Frank bill that would save investors in banks and the stock market from being thoroughly cheated.  No one has raised an objection to Mrs. Bachmann’s militancy so I suspect that they are all in favor of it.  The thrust seems to be that anything that thwarts Barack Obama is commendable.  And the more hateful it is, the better they seem to like it.
Even a Republican such as Mitt Romney is on record as saying that he would, on his first day in office, repeal health care.  The fact of the matter is that the bill that passed into law in the last year or so was copied from a bill that applied to the citizens of Massachusetts.  So in effect, Mitt Romney clearly demanded that his own legislation be outlawed.  This can only be explained by Romney’s sheer hatred of Barack Obama.
Then we have the example of Rick Perry, the grand and glorious governor of the great and glorious state of Texas, who is on record as saying that if Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, ever showed up in Texas, he would be treated “pretty ugly.” This is a threat against a senior public official.  I believe that it is actionable, if the Attorney General were to decide to do something about it.  But Mr. Holder, the Attorney General, is not only a gentleman but he has no desire to engage in things of dubious prosecutorial value.
 
And so at this point, we will have the first election to pick a candidate from these hopefuls, which will take place in the great state of Iowa.  Iowa is a lovely state which is being profaned by the antics of the Republican hopefuls to replace Barack Obama.
I understand that in a primary fight, excesses will be taken.  But in the contest involving the Republican primaries of this year, it seems to me that it is marked primarily by abject hatred with the provision that the hatred be directed towards Mr. Barack Obama.
Now consider this.  The leader of the Republicans in the United States Senate has said on multiple occasions that his primary purpose is to run Barack Obama out after he completes one term.  Mitch McConnell is not there to lead the Republican forces in honest debate.  He is there solely for the sake of supporting whatever Obama proposes.  And if I were the President – which I am not – I would charge Mitch McConnell with dereliction of duty, which is a treasonous offense.  Mr. Holder, the Attorney General, is not inclined to do so.
The fact is that in the first two years of the Obama administration, he saved the American automobile companies from becoming extinct.  Obama has guided us through troubling times starting in 2008 which kept us from having a depression rivaling that of 1929.  In addition, he got rid of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which was a plague on the American military forces.  Beyond all of that, it was in Barack Obama’s administration that Osama bin Laden and some 22 others in the hierarchy of the Al-Qaeda operation were killed.  But all of those accomplishments are for naught.  The Republican Party in this day is consumed by hatred.  I regret to reach that conclusion.  It is inevitable.
Even Senator Lugar from Indiana, who used to be considered the most reasonable of men, has been taken in by the hatred that is endemic in the Republican Party.  Most of us have thought that Lugar was a man with honor but apparently, with hatred being in the ascendancy, this is not the case.
But now let me tell you exactly where this climate of hatred could lead.  It will lead toward some poor bastard with a long-range rifle led by the National Rifle Association, attempting to take Barack Obama out of the picture.  The fact that he has a wife who is an accomplished person and two small daughters is secondary.  This climate of hatred will lead toward taking Barack Obama out of the American political scene with no questions asked.  He will be dead.  At that point, the gaseous elephant in the room will have belched and will have passed his gas.  But the Republican aspirants for Barack Obama’s job will say, “Who, me?”  The fact is that this climate of hatred will inspire some nut to do what he thinks is his patriotic duty and kill Mr. Obama.
This is in the great American tradition of killing our presidents or would-be presidents, and leaders.  It started with Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, his brother, and it includes Martin Luther King.  Is this in the best tradition of American political discourse?  Of course not.  But that is where this climate of hatred espoused by the people seeking to replace Mr. Obama will lead.
Southerners dominate the Republican Party – Shelby and Sessions from Alabama, two senators from South Carolina and the two from Mississippi.  And of course there is Haley Barbour who has a dominant hand in Republican affairs.  Now given that background, there is one more fact to relate here.  Barack Obama is a black man.  Actually he is not a black man so much as he is a mulatto.  But I am sure that according to the southerners, one drop of black blood colors all the rest.  Do you think that the factor of race has anything to do with the outrage that Republicans now feel?  My own feeling is that racial hatred has much to do with the Republican feeling about Barack Obama.
I had hoped never to have to deal with this subject, but the facts dictate otherwise.  I truly regret the circumstance and what it means for the United States.
I am not given much to prayer.  But in this case I must say that I will pray for the republic.
 
E. E. CARR
December 18, 2011
Essay 605
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Kevin’s commentary: over a year later we’re still going strong on the “Obama hasn’t been assassinated” front. And we’re still in a situation where the GOP is much better at rallying itself to what it dislikes than it is at rallying around any policy of its own. I guess that’s what you get when your party is an unholy marriage of greed, religion, and ignorance (looking at you, 1%, Evangelicals, and the Tea Party) that utterly lacks positive common ground. They can only agree on their dislike of the Obama administration and it is losing them elections. I’m fine with this.