Hank Williams Jr. Spouts Anti-Obama Rhetoric, Misconceptions in New Interview
Hank Williams, Jr. is no fan of the president, and in addition to ragging on Barack Obama on his new album, the country star has also slammed the Commander-in-Chief in a Rolling Stone interview.
One need only look at Hank Williams, Jr., however, if seeking an easy to attack critique of the president in popular culture and indeed, a hole in the argument of opponents of the President across the country. While Obama has his flaws and is certainly not perfect (Wall Street prosecutions, for instance, have been sorely lacking from this administration), Williams — like many other detractors of Obama — is unable to articulate a single true, accurate criticism of the man he hates so intensely.
Obama-haters like Hank Williams, Jr. often say George Bush was subject to even crueler attacks by liberals, and Bush was indeed the target of significant vitriol during his two disastrous administrations. Critics of the former president frequently pointed to his many deadly screw-ups, including two still-raging wars, a stagnant economy, the destruction of New Orleans compounded by an impotent federal response… damnit, I’m getting mad all over again.
Whereas people like Hank Williams, Jr. basically can’t stand the President for a number of tenuous and not-definable reasons that many believe boil down to “because he’s black.” It’s nearly comical if it wasn’t so tragic, to hear where Williams’ hate-on stems from, as the singer explains when asked:
“The guy is the worst. Giveaway programs, hates America in the first place, forget about the flag.”
Asked to elaborate, Hank Williams, Jr. is forced to refer to imaginary events that conservatives have “re-created inside the bubble,” as Bill Maher so helpfully described, to find a reason to despise him:
“It’s kind of obvious. I guess when you take a tour, a world tour, to apologize for America. He did that…You know, ‘We’re sorry.’ Going on a world tour saying, ‘We’re going to be even with everyone else, we only have 6 percent of the population.'”
One Twitter user helpfully clarifies the issue for Williams:
Hank Williams Jr is slamming Obama 4 apologizing 4 America. When in reality Obama is just apologizing 4 people like Hank Williams Jr.
— Gideon Klein (@GideonKlein) July 12, 2012
(For the record, the lie about President Obama’s “World Apology Tour” has been debunked time and again, a perfect example of Fox and the GOP inventing a claim about something that provably never happened.)
You know, Hank Williams, Jr.? It’s totally okay to practice dissent. It’s okay to hate the President. But hate him on his actual policies, his actual actions and his actual beliefs, not some wishy-washy assumption that because he wanted everyone to see the doctor, he’s got some unspoken vendetta against the flag.
