In an earlier post which I wrote after seeing Barack Obama's commencement address (in which he advocated civility), I worried about the president's failure to condemn the relentless campaign to falsely smear dissenters as racist, and concluded with a rhetorical question:

...while I am glad the president said that "we can't expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down," and "you can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it," in light of his failure to condemn the relentless false charges of racism -- which are making it impossible to "maintain a basic level of civility in our public debate" -- I am stuck having to wonder about something.

Does he truly believe in the lofty goals he espouses?

Or is he just a good speech-maker?

Three days after he decried the lack of civility in American politics, President Obama is quoted in a new book about his presidency referring to the Tea Party movement using a derogatory term with sexual connotations.

In Jonathan Alter's "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," President Obama is quoted in an November 30, 2009, interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills "set the tenor for the whole year ... That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans."

Perhaps the president has concluded that since we can't expect to solve our problems, we might as well just tear each other down!

Or maybe (as I suspected) he just thought it was a nice line for a speech.