President Obama's victory: 6 conservatives behaving like sore losers
Sean Hannity, Donald Trump, and Karl Rove are awfully unhappy that their guy lost — and they're not exactly bearing defeat with a stiff upper lip
Conservative America is understandably bummed that President Obama won re-election on Tuesday night. "Losing a presidential campaign just stinks," says Jonathan Chait at New York. "You feel like a stranger at home." And while most Republicans seem to be handling the defeat with relative grace and dignity, a number of conservative commentators and celebrities are engaging in whining, lashing out, wild finger-pointing, and general childishness. Here, six conservatives behaving like sore losers:
1. Karl Rove
Many political reputations were tarnished in the wake of Obama's victory, but perhaps none more so than that of Karl Rove, who not only predicted that Romney would win, but raised nearly $400 million in super PAC money to defeat Obama — all for naught. ("There is some holy hell to pay," one wealthy GOP donor told The Huffington Post. "Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do.") On Election Night, Rove truculently rejected Fox News' verdict that Obama had won Ohio. And the day after, he whined that Obama had only "succeeded by suppressing the vote" — whatever that means. Anchor Megyn Kelly, who has emerged as the voice of reason on the network, shot back, "But he won Karl, he won!" See the exchange for yourself:
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2. Sean Hannity
The uber-patriotic talk show host has taken to blaming his beloved country for Obama's victory. Americans have shown" bad judgment," he said on his radio show. "Americans, you get the government you deserve. And it pains me to say this, but America right now deserves Barack Obama. You deserve what you voted for…Four years ago, the public could be excused for voting for Obama because, frankly, he was a blank canvas…Now he is a known entity. And just barely over 50 percent looked at this pathetic record and decided they wanted more of the same." Listen to his diatribe yourself:
3. Mary Matalin
The conservative pundit and political consultant is really, really mad that Obama won. In an interview on CNN, Matalin had a pouty party on set, while treating fellow guest Van Jones with no small measure of disrespect. "Matalin lost her ever-loving mind and basically responded to Jones like a spoiled brat," says Eton James White at The Root. Watch:
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4. Sen. Ron Johnson
The Republican senator from Wisconsin has fallen back on a time-honored approach to explaining the electorate's decision: Americans are kind of stupid. "If you aren't properly informed," he said, "if you don't understand the problems facing this nation, you are that much more prone to falling prey to demagoguing solutions. And the problem with demagoguing solutions is they don't work. I am concerned about people who don't fully understand the very ugly math we are facing in this country." Obama won Johnson's home state by around 7 points, which suggests that Johnson doesn't think too highly of his own constituents.
5. Donald Trump
The Donald descended to new lows on Election Night, sending out a tirade of semi-seditious tweets bemoaning Obama's victory. For good measure, one of Trump's friends told BuzzFeed that Trump probably wouldn't be hanging out with Mitt Romney after the election. "Trump doesn't like to be associated with failure. Trump's a winner." Here, some tweets to ponder:
6. Eric Dondero
A blogger at LibertarianRepublican.net, Dondero took conservative outrage at Obama's re-election to epic proportions, promising a "personal boycott" against Democrats in his life. "All family and friends, even close family and friends, who I know to be Democrats are hereby dead to me. I vow never to speak to them again for the rest of my life, or have any communications with them." Dondero later spoke to New York. Asked whether he would help a Democrat drowning in a lake, Dondero said, "I honestly do not have an answer for that one."
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