Besides being Commander-in-Chief, the POTUS fills the position of Scapegoat-in-Chief for people who look for villains to blame for their miserable lives. The practice of using people as scapegoats is as old as Mankind, but it is being promoted to a larger audience thanks to the rise of modern information technology.
When it comes to using the POTUS as a scapegoat, the one doing so tends to reserve such an act for a POTUS who isn’t in the same political party as the one doing the scapegoating. At times, the POTUS doesn’t even have a chance to officially enter the Oval Office before the scapegoating begins.
For example, this writer recalls hearing how Rush Limbaugh described the beginning of the presidency of Bill Clinton. Limbaugh (according to this writer’s memory) described the nation as being held hostage, something that Limbaugh looked forward to ending after four years. Limbaugh was scolding President Clinton before the latter had done anything as POTUS.
Likewise, President George W. Bush wasn’t even in D.C. yet when the derangement about him debuted on the national stage. All hell broke loose for him when he dared to ask the SCOTUS to stop Al Gore from violating the U.S. Constitution during the 2000 presidential election. When the SCOTUS did just that, left-wing extremists became hysterical, making the false claim that Bush had stolen the election.
Bush Derangement Syndrome died down for awhile until shortly after 9/11, when those with such derangement began circulating false rumors that Bush somehow knew ahead of time that the 9/11 attacks were going to occur. Even today such derangement shows up with JV pundits making the false claim that 9/11 was an inside job or the false claim that Bush participated in some kind of plot to cover up details pertaining to 9/11.
Bush Derangement Syndrome continued with the false claim that Bush lied about Iraq when he gave his speech promoting military action in Iraq. It didn’t matter that Bush believed what he said, which was based on what President Clinton’s CIA Director told him, a person kept by Bush after Clinton left the Oval Office.
The derangement about Bush kept going when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. It didn’t matter that Bush called Louisiana’s Democrat governor and asked her ahead of time to take actions to help New Orleans that Bush himself was unable to take. Bush was still vilified by people who insisted that he hated black people, as if there were no white people living in New Orleans.
Bush Derangement Syndrome went on after Bush left the Oval Office, with President Obama blaming him for every national problem under the Sun. Granted, Bush wasn’t perfect as POTUS, with Conservatives and Republicans having their own reasons to complain about his policies. Still, any promotion of Bush Derangement Syndrome going on today is childish. America didn’t end because he was in the White House. Liberals and Democrats who are still deranged about him are simply bitter because his presidency hindered their ability to turn the nation into the United Socialist States of America.
As for the current POTUS, Mr. Obama became the victim of Obama Derangement Syndrome before the 2008 presidential election when some of Hillary Clinton’s Democrat supporters began promoting the false claim that Obama was born in Kenya. The deranged attacks on him continued when people bitter about his presidency began promoting the false claim that he is a Muslim.
It doesn’t matter that those two false claims about Obama have been thoroughly debunked by the journalists at the conservative-leaning Fox News Channel, a journalistic organization that irks Mr. Obama because it reports negative things about him. Those false claims continue to be promoted by people who appear to have been drinking the haterade. Will their derangement about him end when he leaves the White House? Don’t bet on it.
Anyway, a deranged attitude toward any POTUS is uncivilized. Will it continue with the election of the next POTUS? That is one bet that is safe to make. So, get out the popcorn (or catcorn if you are a Melmacian), because the show of POTUS Derangement Syndrome isn’t even close to reaching its finale.
