• The GOP's Anti-Obama Propaganda
  by: Robert Parry, Consortium News

• ... The official history of what happened during Bill Clinton's difficult first two years - which ended in a sweeping Republican congressional victory in 1994 - focuses on the GOP's united resistance to his economic plan and Hillary Clinton's failed health care reform. But there was a darker side to the political damage inflicted on the early Clinton administration.

  Republicans and their right-wing allies disseminated what - in a covert operation - would be called "black propaganda." Some exaggerated minor scandals, like the Travel Office firings and Clinton's Whitewater real-estate deal, while other key figures on the Right, such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, spread ugly conspiracy rumors linking Clinton to "mysterious deaths" and cocaine smuggling...

Patrick: There is certainly room for "principled opposition" to some of President Obama's policies and positions, and I welcome that, as long as it's expressed in a civil manner. However, the above article deals with the kind of uncivil, paranoid propaganda that we saw during the Clinton years, and we've seen some of the same kind of stuff used against Obama.

I confess, I was caught up in the demonizing of Bill and Hillary Clinton. A lot of it was probably inaccurate, and definitely unChristian. Bill had enough real faults, in terms of some of his policies and moral problems. Right wingers didn't need to make up even uglier stuff. But, some did. It would be refreshing if we didn't have to see a replay of that politics of destruction propaganda.