"They Don't Like It Up Them"

Everyone enjoys dishing it out. If you are in power it is great fun tarring your opponents as negative and unpatriotic. But you hate their pre-revolutionary rage. If you are out of power it is great fun to poke at the corruptions and abuses of the government. But you hate the way that the government uses its power to reward its supporters and shut up its opponents.

In the British sitcom, Dad's Army, Corporal Jones expressed this universal hypocrisy as: "They don't like it up them."

So you'd expect our liberal friends to be outraged that there exist people in the United States not exactly enamored of President Obama. Even Camille Paglia, conservatives' favorite liberal, is outraged now that Obama Derangement Syndrome is rearing its ugly head.

I was utterly horrified to hear Dallas-based talk show host Mark Davis, subbing for Rush Limbaugh, laughingly and approvingly read a passage from a Dallas magazine article by CBS sportscaster David Feherty claiming that "any U.S. soldier," given a gun with two bullets and stuck in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, would use both bullets on Pelosi and strangle the other two.

I agree. It is tasteless, and worrying in its violent intensity. But where were you, Camille, when your chaps were actually making movies about the assassination of President Bush? Not as outraged as conservatives, I'd imagine.

Camille had just seen the 1960s movie, Seven Days in May, a liberal fantasy about US military chiefs staging a coup. And she is outraged that Obama is not being given his due:

I am generally happy with Obama's eagerness to tackle long-entrenched social problems, although there is sometimes a curious disconnect between what he says and what he does. The degree to which Obama is or is not a stealth socialist remains to be seen. But it's about time an ambitious young leader shook up the stale status quo.

Notice what she is saying between the lines. It's time that someone shook up the status quo, but based on current form, it doesn't look like Obama is the one. Even so, She is not giving up on him yet.

Personally, I have been surprised by the vigor of the anti-Obama grass-roots, especially because it seems to be genuinely spontaneous, rather than "astroturf" planted from on high.

But then I was surprised by the 1994 Republican revolution too. I thought it would be the off-year in Clinton's second term before people would start wanting to throw the rascals out.

Let's not rush into any premature judgments. The next item on the agenda is the special election in California May 19, when voters are being asked to raise taxes. Hugh Hewitt thinks that the voters may be about to send a loud raspberry to their California state government leaders. Then we'll see.

"They don't like it up them."