THIS is the new tone of civility?

May 10, 2009 Politics & Government Comments (0)

The kind of base, junior-high, mean-spirited discourse we’ve grown to expect on Internet bulletin boards and blogs has now been “elevated,” or perhaps I should say “mainstreamed,” or “endorsed” by the President of the United States. After the Clinton-Lewinsky escapades, I didn’t think the office of the Commander-in-Chief could sink any lower. But now we have a president who jokes about people with Down Syndrome and laughs at Wanda Sykes wishing Rush Limbaugh would die of kidney failure or be tortured as a traitor and terrorist. For those of you who voted for Barack Hussein Obama, is this what you think “the One” had in mind when he promised to restore civility to our public discourse?

Read as the London Telegraph’s US Editor, Toby Harnden, describes what he witnessed of this sad display at White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

You also might want to watch this small excerpt to see it yourself: