COMMENTARY | Just before President Barack Obama offered a full-throated defense of labor unions in front of a crowd in Detroit, Jimmy Hoffa, the son of the infamous Jimmy Hoffa Sr., head of the Teamsters Union, declared war on the Republican Party and the tea party.
According to Real Clear Politics, Hoffa said, "President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong."
The president, in the remarks that followed, did not reference Hoffa's remarks and certainly did not condemn them. As Robert Bolt put into the mouth of Sir Thomas Moore, "Silence implies consent."
Considering the violent history of labor unions, especially the Teamsters, Hoffa's words were, to say the least, unsettling. The promise of "war" with a movement of the American people, the tea party, brings to mind images of people being beaten, being taken out and killed, and private property being fired bomb.
To be sure, Hoffa may have just been getting carried away, enraptured by the sound of his own voice. But in an era in which Sarah Palin can be accused of being complicate in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for a map, Hoffa should not escape criticism for using violent, obscene rhetoric to whip up a mob.
Even further, President Obama should not escape criticism for not condemning those remarks when he assumed the podium. Hoffa is the leader of the Teamsters, so thuggish behavior is perhaps to be expected. But the president ought not to consent, event through silence, threats by a political ally to commit violence against American citizens. Through his silence, Obama is buttressing the notion that many people have thought for a long time that he doesn't really consider himself president of all Americans, just those whom he finds agreeable.
Imagine a president who apparently agrees with Hoffa that tens of millions of Americans, the majority in fact of Americans, need to be "taken out" by a marching army of union thugs. The man who was going to unite Americans in a post racial future is now tolerating the idea of what amounts to a civil war launched by his union allies. It is one more reason why Obama needs to be retired from the office that he is so unsuited for.
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