Despite being in office for three weeks, President Barack Obama has been receiving an intense amount of scrutiny for almost every action he's undertaken so far. This, some may say, is natural, as it is the American way to question our leaders. But this soon, less than three weeks in office?
It was only a week into President Obama's first term when outspoken conservatives Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity began criticizing everything they could get their hands on and since then they haven't let up. Their critical and harshly doubtful point of view toward the president and his actions thus far are relatively understandable. Just by observing the harsh criticisms of the executive branch during the Bush years one could justify the aggression of any conservative.
The scrutiny, however, is rash and audacious, and is levelled against actions that either have not been made definite or that are in the opening stages of development. When looking back at the scrutiny of George W. Bush over the last eight years, the brunt of it didn't come until the end of his first term and the beginning of his second and then it was for very good reason. The country was in two wars, one of which many people felt America should have no part of, the Constitution was suspended and we as Americans were subject to invasion of privacy unlike anything we had seen before in our generation.
The main reason why conservatives are being so harsh so quickly toward Obama is because it is now their turn to shell out the criticism by any means necessary. After all, they may as well capitalize on their opportunity to destroy a liberal president to show the liberals how it feels.
Unfortunately, for both conservatives and liberals, this criticism is coming from a gang of racist, sexist lunatics who are quoted to say such things as, "It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea about the separation of church and state," and accusing Obama of using propaganda to win the election. The only propaganda, however, in this case, is coming from conservative talk radio mogul Rush Limbaugh.
This is unfortunate for conservatives because a racist homophobic man who is open about his bigotry on national talk radio is the one voicing their points of view. Immediately any criticism coming from conservatives should just be invalidated. This is also unfortunate for liberals because these are the individuals who are going to be publicly criticizing Obama's actions, whether they pose a bipartisan benefit for the country's policies or not.
The long-term effect of this extreme criticism from the conservatives is much more frightening than Rush Limbaugh's insanity and that is the thought of factionalism. The stubbornness of the conservatives will only get worse as the economy remains in shambles, and unless there is something beneficial to be done quickly, the state of the Union will begin to move toward polarization instead of bipartisanship, which many individuals hope to achieve. At this rate of the separation of ideals it would not surprise me to witness a full-scale political civil war between the prides of the two parties and an effective breakdown of the two-party system by the removal of the minority in question.
Michael Pintauro is a sophomore poli-sci major who doesn't like overly judgemental people.