At around noon on Sunday, the world stopped turning for me. I was listening to the Senate debate on CSPAN on my phone and what I heard made me stop everything and just listen. I’ve watched the video twice since then and listened twice without the visual. I recommend you listen without the visual first, and focus on his words.
What Senator Whitehouse did in his few minutes on the Senate floor was set aside posturing, set aside the health care issue as an issue for a moment, and address the toxicity which is our political atmosphere today.
Beginning with Richard Hofstadter’s essay on “The Paranoid Style in American Politics“, Whitehouse declared the spirit of the Senate to be a place where “those malignant and vindictive passions which rage in the bosoms of contending parties struggling for power.”
The malignant and vindictive passions that have descended on the Senate are busily creating just such a political climate. Far from appealing to the better angels of our nature, too many colleagues are embarked on a desperate, no-holds-barred mission of propaganda, falsehood, obstruction and fear.
He goes on…
History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrels have rolled through taunting crowds. Broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner waving secret lists. Those malignant movements rightly earned what Lord Acton called “the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict upon wrong.”
And then backs up with specifics:
Congress itself is not immune. Many of us felt President Bush was less than truthful, yet not one of us yelled out, “You lie!” at a president at a joint session of Congress. Through panics and depressions, through world wars and civil wars, no one ever has — never — until President Obama delivered his first address. [NOTE: His tone here was intense and dark]
And this September, 179 Republicans in the House voted to support their heckler comrade, and here in the Senate, this month, one of our Republican colleagues regretted, “Why didn’t I say that?”
I could go on and on with this speech. It was riveting, full of imagery, and poetry and truth. Bare, naked, ugly truth. But Senator Whitehouse delivers it more powerfully than I. Just go here and listen. (I can’t embed the video)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I know that Senator Whitehouse was only elected in 2006, so he wasn’t there when Bush was booed and heckled during the 2005 State of the Union speech. Of course, he may be right that no one said “You lie,” but it’s hard to pick out exactly what anyone is saying because there were so many people yelling at Bush.
Of course, Senator Whitehouse also appears to not know that there were no State of the Union speeches given by the president during or following the Civil War, since the “speech” was merely a report read by a clerk–not the president–until 1913. And it wasn’t until 1947 that there was any video of the address. Of course there are rare addresses to the joint session, but very few have been televised. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, it’s just rhetorical exaggeration (ie, convenient making up of facts).
I see Senator Whitehouse and Representative Grayson both criticizing a behavior that they themselves are employing to great personal gain. Neither have accomplished diddly squat, but are now regular faces on MSNBC because of their hostile rhetoric. This is just a posturing game. All three of these cats are more popular than ever because they can hurl insults across the aisle.
Hi, I found your link on Twitter. I am ashamed for how the politics is done in the US today. Chicago style is a mild way to say it. Last nights vote is a prime example, one of many.