Pot, meet kettle. If there is anyone out there who ought to know something about "divisive" rhetoric and pitting average Americans against each other for political gain, it's these two. Pat Buchanan, after finally being knocked off the air at MSNBC, retreated again to Fox and Sean Hannity's show to throw stones at President Obama for daring to speak out about the extremely destructive Ryan budget and for commenting on the upcoming ruling on the Affordable Care Act by the Supreme Court.
HANNITY: Patrick J. Buchanan, you've heard a lot of hyperbole, demagoguery even in your lifetime. What do you think?
BUCHANAN: Sean, I think you're correct. This is divisive and it's demagogic. And it's also foolish. We're seven months away from the presidential election and Barack Obama is crippling the most vital asset he has, which is the presidency of the United States and the aura that surrounds it and the fact that the American people give deference to a president. He's coming down from that pedestal and making himself a pretty savage partisan. In so doing, he is also damaging his reputation, which seems to be deserved that he's a very likable individual.
He is polarizing and dividing the country and quite frankly, he is not credible to portray Mitt Romney as some kind of Social Darwinist, who's going to order the Pinkertons to shoot down the strikers in the streets. So I think his own people, quite frankly are probably going to pull him back from this kind of rhetoric, because it's the end of campaign rhetoric of somebody who's losing. Like you said, if you've got a great record to run on, run on it. You don't go out and try to demonize your opponent.
And it just got worse from there with the name calling. As Jon Perr noted here -- After Threatening Judges, GOP Accuses Obama of Judicial Intimidation -- George W. Bush routinely criticized the Supreme Court, but that seems to have gone down the memory hole with these two:
After all, George W. Bush's Supreme politicking during his State of the Union speeches was a regular fixture of his presidency. For three straight years (2004, 2005 and 2006), President Bush denounced "activist judges" and insisted "for the good of families, children and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage." On the very day Samuel Alito joined the Roberts Court, Bush used his 2006 SOTU for a victory lap:
"The Supreme Court now has two superb new members -- new members on its bench: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito. I thank the Senate for confirming both of them. I will continue to nominate men and women who understand that judges must be servants of the law and not legislate from the bench."
Of course, Bush had his own unique view of the constitutional separation of powers. As he put it in 2000:
"The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law."
So much for the nine robed people who sit in the Supreme Court. Which is just fine with the GOP, just as long as one of their own is seated in the Oval Office.
But we all know the rule on Fox... IOKIYAR.