Books & Politics?

Now, obviously, January Magazine is not a political forum. Nor -- clearly -- is our sister publication, the crime fiction blog The Rap Sheet. However Rap Sheet editor J. Kingston Pierce has once again drawn the ire of some of his readers with a clearly political posting. One of the ireful comments asks if political opinion really has a place on a blog dedicated to books. My response -- not that anyone asked -- is that if you don’t see the politics in the everyday, you’re not looking in the right places. It’s all around us, it’s important and in these politically charged times, those of us with opinions need to air them when we can. And it’s fairly obvious that Pierce (who has written often about politics in other forums) has opinions! That said, here’s what has some Rap Sheet readers applauding and others fuming today:

Out of power, out of ideas, and obviously out for blood, a minority of U.S. conservatives seem also to have gone out of their minds over President Barack Obama’s planned feel-good address to students bound back to school next week. Reports The Florida Times-Union: “Although the White House says Obama will use the speech to stress ‘the importance of [students] taking responsibility for their success in school,’ Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer said it would be an attempt to ‘indoctrinate America’s children’ into socialism.” How utterly idiotic. With the country having turned thumbs down on the Republican’t Party after eight years of failures under George W. Bush, GOPers have become unhinged in their attacks upon anything that doesn’t comport with their ideology. Claiming, in the complete absence of evidence, that Obama is trying to indoctrinate young minds in socialism should repulse any moderates who haven’t already abandoned that party. When George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech to students back in 1991, you didn’t hear Democrats going all loony-tunes on him, did you. Of course not. More on this lunacy here, here, and here.

READ MORE: “Hypocrisy Watch,” by Steve Benen (The
Washington Monthly).