Yes, there was a frenzied right-wing political war waged against Clinton–but against Clinton, the right wing had actual (if flimsy) legal grounds on which to attack him (Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, etc.). And though there were outrageous conspiracy theories, they were believed only by a few people on the fringe; you had to look pretty deeply into the crazies before you found people who actually believed that Clinton ordered the killings of 48 people.

Yes, there was a frenzied left-wing political war waged against Bush–but against Bush, the left wing had actual (and not at all flimsy) legal grounds on which to attack him (violating the 4th Amendment, ordering torture, lying to start an illegal war, and so on). And though there were outrageous conspiracy theories, they were believed only by a few people on the fringe; you had to look pretty deeply into the crazies before you found people who actually believed that Bush was behind 9/11.

The frenzied right-wing political war against Obama is something completely new. There is no legal justification, as Obama has broken no laws and suffered no scandals; there is simply nothing there. He has only been in office less than one year, and has not had time to do anything worth protesting against–his stimulus bill spent less money than Bush blindly handed over to the banks in his last year in office, and Obama’s health care plan has none of the fearsome attributes that the right wing is lividly bellowing about. And as for the conspiracy theories, they exceed the worst ever applied against Clinton and Bush combined–that Obama is secretly building concentration camps and aims to slaughter millions of elderly people, for example–these are believed by a significant number of conservatives, numbering in the millions, probably double-digit percentages of the party membership. Add to that the fact that there is now a popular news network, unashamedly biased and willing to spread outrageous lies, dedicated to taking down this president.

With the theory about Bush and 9/11, at the very least there was a sensical motivation for Bush fueling the conspiracy–Bush benefited hugely from 9/11, shooting his approval ratings through the roof and giving him carte blanche to push through his political agenda. To believe that Obama wants to kill off seniors to save money or that he’s building concentration camps to imprison and slaughter his political opponents is, to put it lightly, a tad less believable.

No, The Crazy is out in force, and the attacks against Obama are without precedent. We’ve entered a new political age: furious, crazed, out-of-control opposition, based on little more than sheer hatred. There is a significantly-sized group of white people out there who feel entitled to power and control and became used to having that over the past eight years; people who believe that they are the victims of the very racial discrimination and religious persecution that they themselves commit. Now they have lost that power, but worse, they have lost it to a black man leading the liberal party which they have come to despise. This is something new.