NY Times: Repugs suddenly backing off harsh anti-Obama rhetoric [View All]

[gauguin57]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/us/politics/09memo.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

November 9, 2008
Washington Memo
Harsh Words About Obama? Never Mind Now
By JIM RUTENBERG
NY Times

That whole anti-American, friend-to-the-terrorists thing about President-elect Barack Obama? Never mind.

… There is a great tradition of paint-peeling political hyperbole during presidential campaign years. And there is an equally great tradition of backing off from it all afterward, though with varying degrees of deftness. … But given the intensity of some of the charges that have been made in the past few months, and the historic nature of Mr. Obama’s election, the exercise this year has been particularly whiplash-inducing, with its extreme before-and-after contrasts.

… The presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said she was hard-pressed to find a similar moment when the tone had changed so drastically, and so quickly, among so many people of such prominence.

“I don’t think that’s happened very often,” Ms. Goodwin said. “The best answer I can give you is they don’t want to be on the wrong side of history, and they recognize how the country saw this election, and how people feel that they’re living in a time of great historic moment.”

Others in the professional political class were not so sure. Some wondered whether simple pragmatism was the explanation. …