(Today’s installment of Notable Quotables is dedicated especially to those of you who accuse me of bias against Donald Trump. You have called me and those who offer their comments traitors, haters, socialists and even communists, which I find rather ironic given Trump’s infatuation with Putin. Today’s Notable Quotable is provided to show that bias and hatred is not limited to the so-called “Never Trumpers.”):
“So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, ‘Okay, I’ll send you a response…I hope he fails.”
“I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: ‘Limbaugh: I hope Obama fails.’ Somebody’s gotta say it.”
—Rush Limbaugh, recent recipient of the Congressional Medal of Freedom (a symbol of patriotism and devotion to American ideals, ostensibly awarded for “especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors”), on Barack Obama becoming president, Jan. 16, 2009.
(And before Fairness, Outlaw or Zoe jump in, let’s be perfectly clear: No one here has ever once said he or she wanted Trump to fail. Not once.)
Louisiana Voice 
Now why would a normal person say on Jan. 16, 2009, in the midst of the Great Recession, that he hopes Obama fails? Would someone explain that kind of illogical thinking to me? But never mind, It’s Trump’s friend Limbaugh, which explains it perfectly.
CJG, I believe he said he hoped Obama’s policies failed. The policies were tried and proven to be failures and huge waste of public money ie. “Stimulus Plan”. A trillion dollar giveaway to Obama donors but no jobs, no shovel ready projects. A huge waste of out dollars.I seem to recall the wunderkind Bill Maher recently saying he was praying for a recession as that would hurt Trump politically. Several CNN people have said the same. Do you condemn ?
At the first of Trump’s “rule & reign”, I actually had hopes that with the quality of professional, expert advisers and a willingness to actually learn and govern well, that Trump would or could become a decent president. Everyone deserves a chance….however, Trump has squandered and crushed the tiniest hope on my part that he is willing or even able to become a decent human being, let alone a decent president. His debilitating dysfunctional malignant narcissism, with sociopath tendencies make it impossible for him to be anything other than a danger to America. I realize that his followers simply do not see his faults and shortcomings and this is even more disturbing than his obvious handicaps. Without their loyal, blind support, Trump would be unable to openly flaunt his control of our DOJ, Military, FBI, etc. With their help and the complete collusion of this Republican Congress, except for Romney, he has already become more of an American Dictator than probably even he thought possible. We are in dangerous territory and I am dumbfounded as to why so many Americans do not see the approaching “cliff”…Therein lies most of our problem!
Well said, Edith. You have stated the problem we are in perfectly. The lemmings who will gladly go over the cliff for trump are those who blindly follow R no matter what and demonize D no matter what, paying absolutely no attention to which party enhances their lives and which makes their lives more difficult. Unfortunately, we all have to pay for the political choices they make. And they will take US down, and not even recognize the loss of personal freedom and self determination (as long as they can keep their guns which could become a dicey proposition in a truly authoritarian milieu).
Edith, I do not believe you can itemize a single dictatorial act on behalf of the President. He is challenged every step of the way by regional courts (Liberal 9th circuit), New York District Attorney (democrat), and of course Nancy and Chuck (a pair of inept legislators if there ever were). If he controlled the FBI as you assert, they would not have spied on his campaign, they would not have made the flagrant arrest of Roger Stone, People like McCabe, Comey, Rosenstein would not have lied before FISA courts and Congress. . Control the military ? He is the first President in quite some time to not have dragged us into needless conflicts abroad, and he has funded military to levels not seen for a while.
His “debilitating dysfunctional malignant narcissism, with sociopath tendencies” ?? Are you a qualified Psychologist or
Psychiatrist to make such an allegation or judgement ? Simply say you do not care for nor respect him. That is more accurate and honest. I am not sure I would care to have him as a friend either, but I am not looking for a friend, but a leader who will serve our country, and he has accomplished a lot more than his past few predecessors so I am not certain what you call a decent President. Vote for Bernie, or Bloomberg, or Biden if you choose. I believe the bulk of America will disagree with your vote.
Well stated, Ms. Herring.
You note that no one on your site has ever wanted President Trump to fail…strange that you would note this after so many posts slamming the President on so many levels. Regardless, what you fail to expound upon is that you also have offered the President no support. What about a record level GNP? What about record low unemployment…especially in the African American community? What about a record for high consumer confidence ( as noted by the recent Christmas buying push by the Middle Class ) ?
This country has not floundered under President Trump, but rather it has flourished economically under less oppressive regulation and open market policies. The President has been skewered for his brash optics and incessant tweets ( and yes, even those of us that see his.policies as beneficial disdain those elements ), but many voters embrace even those harsh elements as a manifest of a more open government.
Those current primaries being held which support Sanders ( and others ) which move our nation hard to the left leave many voters with disdain for the process itself…yet the media ( and other outlets like your own ) continue to bathe them with encouragement and support for their socialist and communal properties.
Do you really want Sanders over Trump? Do you hate the President’s policies so badly that you would support a…communist? If Sanders wins out through Super Tuesday you will have a firm choice…capitalism or socialism.
Perhaps we should wait to see which candidate secures the Democratic nod before we get our dander up for November. Please remember, like him or not, President Trump is not pushing to raise taxes, force compliance on any global directive, or push people onto any Medicare for All initiative. He simply wants a our nation to flourish…and so far, he has begun to accomplish that.
When or where did Tom ever mention a choice for the Democratic nominee? Oh that’s right, he didn’t.
I believe Outlaw’s point was whom do you prefer to have in the White House as the current crop of democrats are hard left politicians who are long on promises but very deceptive on how they will (or why) accomplish their stated goals; Free day care, pay off all student loans, raise minimum wage to $15/hour, Medicaid to all, shut down private insurance, minimum living wage to all Americans, no borders, non-citizens to have benefits of citizens, house homeless, fund minority business efforts, fund minority colleges, voting rights to anyone within our borders, no voter id, eliminate arrests for misdemeanor crime, legalize all drug use, free abortion on demand (have I missed any ?). Is this the America you guys really want ?
The “current crop” of candidates is not all hard left.
Zoe, with all due respect to you and your views (you do have the right to your views AND the right to express them), the America Trump has and is giving us most certainly is NOT the America I want for me and my children. By his actions, he has shown beyond any doubt that he would take away your right to express your views should you happen to ever disagree with him. He will and has used his office to enrich himself and he has repeatedly lied about any and everything. I understand your concern about the all the promises being bandied about by the Democratic candidates but they are just that; promises. Are you at all concerned about the ACTIONS of Trump? Are you so blindly loyal that you cannot see what this man is doing to destabilize not just this country but the entire planet? I’m not concerned about a bunch of promises that will be discarded after an elections. All politicians in both parties do that. But I am very concerned about a mentally unbalanced president who is so unpredictable that the entire world anticipates with pure dread the next tweet.
I will acknowledge that the economy has done well during Trump’s first 3 years but I do not credit him with that. The economy was already doing quite well under Obama, thank you very much, and has simply continued. Black unemployment may be lower, but i challenge you to point to a single thing Trump has done to bring that about. Trump cares absolutely nothing about the nation flourishing; he just wants Trump to flourish. He is blinding supporters like you with his tweets and his lies (more than 15,000 since taking office). i am not supporting Sanders but get this through your thick head: socialism is NOT the same as communism. Study your high school civics books and learn that. We already have socialism with the bailout of Wall Street in 2008, the bailout of the farmers last year (thanks to Trump and his trade war with China). Then, there is social security, medicare, community block grants (which fund sewer and water systems, street improvements, law enforcement, fire protection and other services for your city/parish). So, quityerbitching about socialism. You’re already a willing participant, whether you know it or not. But ONCE AND FOR ALL, it’s not the same as socialism any more than a Democrat is a Republican or a Methodist is a Catholic.
Obama led an insurgency against the US. Thank God he failed.
Fairness2014. Please describe the insurgency that Obama led against the United States? In detail, if you will.
Insurgency?! What the hell do you think Trump is doing? And the Trumpers say we have something called TDS. Wow.
I find it interesting that any critics of Trump are labeled traitors, etc when one of the founding principles of our great nation is “freedom of speech,”. Nevertheless, those of opposing views are villified for expressing them. For example, the dismissal of federal appointees and employees for responding truthfully to lawful subpoena in the president’s trial. That is not a priinciple of democracy. The desired use of DOJ to prosecute “enemies” of the president while intervening favorably on behalf of the presidents friends and associates is not a principle of democracy.
While many may support and cheer these actions, what happens when these attitudes and actions filter down to the states s local levels. Don’t say it can’t happen here as we thought the purges, etc could never happen anywhere at all That’s the way that democracy slides into dictatorship and it may well be too late when we actually recognize the situation.
Do we really want the end of democracy? I don’t want my children and grandchildren to live in an unstable environment where daily life depends on the whims of whomever is in power. Because your preferred party is in power now, we don’t know what the norms will be 15-20 + years down the road if we say it’s ok now.
Democracy is a tenuous state of affairs dependent on the rule of law and agreement on certain norms and principles, if that’s lost, can it be recovered? Do you really think the powerful forces in this country that see no value in democracy for the masses care about you when it is a choice of more money and more power for themselves? Think again.
So don’t applaud the present state of politics. When our freedoms slip away one by one, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
Whew !! Tom, you certainly can provoke conversation, and discourse is a good thing, I believe.
To Jessup, the economy WAS NOT doing quite well under Obama and you can go online and see HIM saying as much and also saying we should get used to less. Was economy improving ? Yes, but we were having the slowest recovery in history under Obama’s direction., Look it up.
As for the “promises” being made by democrat hopefuls which you casually dismiss; the promises are their intentions, regardless of whether or not they can accomplish them (requires congressional support).
I need zero lessons on the difference between “socialism and communism”. What we are experiencing in this country is a grave expansion of governmental power and the intrusion into health care, which is private to a large degree(medicaid notwithstanding) and a significant part of our economy, is indeed socialism (control the means of production). Government owned housing is another step ie..property is owned by government. I realize we already have some socialistic programs. Do I approve ? Not necessarily, but like all of these, once begun, people become DEPENDENT on them.The underlying issue is that people look to the government for solutions rather then themselves. America was built on self determination, which you of course understand. We are becoming less so every year, which is no excuse to continue down this road, which of course leads to socialism ans I am NOT a willing participant. I am not hardheaded either. It is called “reasoning” I believe, and I can change my mind if properly convinced in a rational manner because I know that I am not always “right”.
To Denarys, I certainly have not labeled you a “traitor”. Your example is however, inaccurate;Trump has a RIGHT to Executive Privilege and has used it as has ALL previous Presidents. Based on rights like Doctor-patient or lawyer- client privilege, those are accepted practice. Trump had every right to dismiss his employees (they were all appointees) for any or no reason.They all voiced opinion and ZERO facts as none had first hand information (admitted under oath). Unlike Obama, Trump fired none when he took office and kept many Obama appointees. Obama FIRED all before he took office, as a matter of fact (they all rec’d letters to clean out desks and leave before Obama was sworn in). You should do a little research first because Obama did what you accuse Trump of. Trump made a dumb move IMO by keeping these people, trusting that they would be loyal to him but were, in fact, not.Hopefully, those norms will be a change in direction for USA; not a nation that gives handouts to our enemies. Not a nation that defended other nations, free of charge, Not a nation of whiners. Not a nation of government dependents. Not a nation with No laws. Not a nation with no sovereign status (no borders). a nation that respects its; own Constitution. A nation with non-partisan judges (no Sotomayers). That would be a start. So, what kind of nation do you want ?
To Fredster; If these candidates are not all hard left in your opinion, what on earth do you call hard left ? Which of them is remotely moderate ?