Obama: Dems Are ‘Fact-Based, Reason-Based’ While The GOP Denies Science

During a comprehensive interview with The New York Times, President Obama attacked modern conservatism and the GOP for being too ideological and extremist. He continued by describing the Democratic Party like so:

And by the way, it generally is fact-based and reason-based. You know, we’re not denying science, we’re not denying climate change, we’re not pretending that somehow having a whole bunch of uninsured people is the American way.

Using Politifact‘s ranking system, I give this quote a “Mostly True.” For now.

I’m glad the president qualified his observation with the word “generally” because although the Republicans have slowly allowed the lunatics to take over the asylum throughout the last 14 years or so (mostly in the last five), the far-left wing of the Democratic Party is beginning to give the tea party a run for its crazy money. Put another way, yes, the Republican Party has ceded control to its crackpot tea party flank, almost irrevocably disconnecting it from reality and reason, but the far-left is growing louder as well and there’s a serious danger that the Democrats could repeat the GOP’s idiotic validation of its extremist wing.

By in large, America has gone nuts and it’s unclear exactly why. Our political cheese has slipped off our political cracker.

The discourse has grown so utterly dysfunctional and incoherent — so up its own ass in reaction to every minuscule social media blip and every hyperbolic political headline, it’s difficult to find an actual “fact-based and reason-based” discussion anywhere. Everything on the far-right and, yes, the far-left has become, to one degree or another, a conspiracy theory. The NSA, drones, Benghazi, healthcare, Guantanamo, Gaza, Syria, immigration, teleprompters, the word “folks” — you name it and there’s a privileged crank being paid to spam Reddit with scare-headlines about it. And it almost always involves predictions about the end of America as we know it, with a perhaps-Kenyan, perhaps-conservative, perhaps-liberal, perhaps-pacifistic, perhaps-war-mongering president accelerating the inevitable death of the nation.

Is the tea party far-right more guilty than most for amplifying the nincompoopery? Absolutely, yes. While it was obvious five or six year ago that the ascendancy of the first African-American president… CONTINUE READING

By: Bob Cesca

Bob Cesca is the managing editor at The Daily Banter (www.thedailybanter.com) and a Huffington Post contributor since 2005. He's worked in journalism since 1988 as a print writer/editor, a radio news anchor, a digital media columnist/editor, a book author and blogger. He's the co-host of the Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show podcast and a Thursday regular on the syndicated Stephanie Miller Show. He's appeared on numerous other radio shows including the John Phillips Show and Geraldo Rivera Show in Los Angeles. Bob has been a commentator/analyst on the BBC (TV and radio), MSNBC, Current TV, CNN and Sky News. Following him on Twitter: @bobcesca_go