A question of semantics...

Rush Limbaugh put some Republicans into quite a pickle when he said he wanted Obama to fail several weeks ago. Even today Republicans are stuck in a semantic debate over whether they agree with Rush or not.

Democrats are playing this as a question of patriotism. They are playing a semantic trick on the media by figuratively replacing "President" with "country" when discussing the debate. 'If we really care for our country, do we not want to see the American President to succeed, no matter who it is?'

The honest answer depends a lot on the definition of "succeed". Obviously, Republicans want this country to suffer as little as possible from Obama's policies. In fact, we'd love to see the economy skyrocket under his watch. But we fear that his policies will cause long-term damage to the United States. And history has taught us how likely Keynesism is to fail in the long-term.

Either way, the "do you want Obama to fail" question is an easy one for the left to demagogue.

But didn't many Democrats desperately want Bush to fail? Of course not! After all, we would have heard the media documenting their lack of patriotism and desire to see the country fail.

Yeah, right.


That survey question comes from a Fox News poll back in 2006.
Do I blame these Dems? Not necessarily. If their answer was based primarily on wanting the President to fail at getting his domestic agenda through -- then, no. They have every right to want his agenda to fail based on their own beliefs about how the country should be run. But if the answer is focused on wanting the President's mission to succeed in Iraq/Afghanistan? Then yes, I do. No American should want to see our military fail, no matter who is leading them into battle as Commander-in-Chief.

But either way, this isn't a new question Americans have faced when considering their President.

But when has that ever stopped the left?