yup.

digby today:

I actually suspect that many in the Obama White House believed the hype about changing Washington, which was always patent nonsense. Perhaps the more cynical among them felt that his race actually protected him from the kind of low level character attacks that the right usually employs. But they didn't get it. The right doesn't need to resort to low level character attacks on Obama because he's black. It's baked in.

So they can just call him Hitler, even though it makes no sense, and gin up the most outlandish conspiracy theories and their crazies are on board without anything having to be said. The conservative base, and a good number of people whose committment to progress of any kind is pretty thin on a good day, can easily be prodded into providing the kind of entertaining sideshow the media just love. Et voila --- teabagging.

If these Democrats had spent less time gossiping about what Clinton really did with Monica or handwringing about Gore's "lies" and more time analyzing how those spectacles unfolded, they wouldn't be caught flat footed today. But they didn't because they blamed Clinton for being "weak" and Gore for being "inauthentic" as if those were the real problems. I'm sure it made them feel very confident that it couldn't happen to them.

But, of course, it can, because it's not a function of the individual Democrats who are the targets of these jihads but rather the nature of the opposition. Until they finally grok that-- and after impeachment, stolen elections and Cheney it's mind-boggling that they still haven't done that-- this will keep happening.


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