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Obama Takes on His Own Party
Frontpagemag.com ^ | 1-26-2015 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 01/26/2015 4:03:26 AM PST by servo1969

The theme of Obama’s last campaign was “Forward.” Having thoroughly alienated Republicans in Congress, he is boldly moving forward on his final mission of also alienating the Democrats.

It’s no secret that Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, now loathes Obama. But the conflict between Senate Democrats and Obama is approaching explosive temperatures. Senator Menendez accused Obama of parroting talking points out of Tehran as the Senate approaches a sanctions vote.

Obama has threatened to veto bills on Iran and Keystone, along with others, leading to a showdown in which Democrats will have to choose between Obama and electability. The last time Democrats chose wrongly they lost the Senate. Many of the survivors aren’t looking forward to another round of getting stomped on by an angry middle class tired of a thoughtless celebrity administration and its abuses.

And the White House is treating them like yesterday’s garbage.

“Party loyalty isn’t worth what it used to be. He’s going to steamroll them,” a White House aide warned Senate Democrats.

Party loyalty never existed for the career leftists running the White House. Obama never had any allegiance to the Democratic Party. The donkey was just a convenient ride to the top until it dropped dead in 2014.

To the extent that Obama has any allegiances, it’s to his fellow leftist progressives in Congress. The (D) itself means less than nothing to him. Now that he has no Senate majority to protect, Obama feels liberated from having to even pretend to be interested in compromise and moderation.

Obama no longer needs to bother with the Democrats. He has become a one-man party.

His triumphant State of the Union address completely ignored his loss of support. It was a dictator’s celebration of his own unilateral rule. He is finally free, in the words of his aides, to be the president he always wanted to be. And his ideal presidency has a distinct banana republic flavor.

Second term lame ducks usually think about their legacy and try to iron out a positive departure. Instead Obama is burning all his bridges. He’s using and abusing all the power he has and all the power he can grab while he still has the chance.

The presidency hasn’t aged Obama the way it did Reagan, Clinton and Bush. Obama has remained untouched by any sense of responsibility or regret. The White House is his because he is just that awesome. The lies can go on forever because that is how life has always worked for him. Bill Clinton had little self-doubt, but Obama’s complete lack of self-doubt makes Bill seem downright neurotic.

Obama has been a nightmare for the Republican Party. He is about to become a nightmare for the Democrats who want a smooth transition to the Hillary era, instead of an acrimonious power struggle.

Instead of passing the torch, Obama is going to be using it to burn down his own party. A political party needs to reinvent itself after an unpopular two-termer. Obama has made it clear that he will not give the Democrats the breathing room to do that. Instead he’s taking them down with him by offering them the same polarizing choice that he gave Republicans. It’s Obama’s way or the executive order highway.

The outcome of that choice will force a split between moderates Democrats and leftists. It will mean a premature civil war within the party between donors, activists and politicians that will alienate voters.

Hillary Clinton has the most to lose from a Democratic civil war because it makes it impossible for her to straddle the party divide as she has tried to do in the past. Her team and her alignment are just as split as the party which will force her to either distance herself even further from current politics, something she has already done to a surreal degree by refusing to comment on major issues, or pick a side.

She will have to choose between alienating the wealthy progressives who fund the party and provide its activist manpower or the rural and suburban working class and middle class whites who left the party over Obama’s war on their wallets and values. She will have to choose between Bill and Barack.

Considering the weight of active donors and activist power on the left, as well as the threat of a Warrenite challenge from the left, Hillary will be forced to move to the left. She has already begun clumsily echoing the Warren and Obama brand of class warfare rhetoric. And that will make it harder for her to win over middle class voters disenchanted with Obama’s community organizer politics.

Obama’s final revenge on the Clintons is meant to be an ideological one that forces them to abandon their triangulation and fake centrism. If Hillary manages to win by running to the left or is beaten by a challenger running to the left, the party will have shifted its center even further to the left. But if Hillary runs to the left and loses, then Obama will have inflicted a severe blow on his party and on the left.

And it seems likely that this radical suicide bomber act will be his real legacy.

Democrats saw JFK in Obama. But instead of an enduring icon, Obama is going out as a cautionary tale. His choice of pursuing a radical program instead of reaching out to the other side has left him with policy wins, but a poisonous legacy as a widely disliked politician. Instead of JFK, Obama became LBJ. But unlike LBJ, he lacked the ability to work even within his own party, pursuing a radical agenda at all costs.

Americans will not look back fondly on the Obama years. They will be remembered as times of turmoil and strife. A time of street riots, unemployment, angry rhetoric and few accomplishments. A time when Americans did not find hope and change, but instead lost their hope and confidence in the future.

In his last years, Obama wants to turn his radical term into the political mold, but it is likelier that he will have become an example to avoid. The JFK model of the bright charismatic young politician has already been replaced by the safer Hillary model of an old cautious political hack with deep party ties.

Obama’s confrontation with his own party will only ensure the triumph of the party hack. In true leftist fashion, he will have destroyed the legacy he hoped to achieve.


TOPICS: Editorial; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016; 2016election; clinton; democrats; demparty; gop; greenfield; hillary; obama; obamadems; obamawarondems; reid

1 posted on 01/26/2015 4:03:26 AM PST by servo1969
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To: servo1969

Is there even ONE (1) of the EXEMPT Enablers
who ask for even one (1) piece of documentation
of the First Moslem by (Pelosi’s) Fraud?

Nope. Not one.


2 posted on 01/26/2015 4:10:38 AM PST by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: servo1969

I’m not sure that Hillarity is the shoe-in that Greenfield apparently thinks she is, but other than that, the article is spot on.


3 posted on 01/26/2015 4:17:43 AM PST by sauropod (Fat Bottomed Girl: "What difference, at this point, does it make?")
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To: servo1969

Obama’s party is the radical leftist destroy America party with Islam added.


4 posted on 01/26/2015 4:33:19 AM PST by Truth29
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To: servo1969

Considering what 0 wanted to achieve, we should be grateful if he was even a little unsuccessful.


5 posted on 01/26/2015 4:34:29 AM PST by Excellence (Marine mom since April 11, 2014)
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To: servo1969

Let Hussein be Hussein.


6 posted on 01/26/2015 4:35:45 AM PST by The_Media_never_lie (The media must be defeated any way it can be done.)
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To: servo1969
It’s no secret that Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, now loathes Obama

Yeah, getting the crap beat out of you has a way of doing that. Exercise accident? LOL!

The next 2 years are going to be very interesting.....Cry me a river Dems, you brought it on yourselves with your complete idiocy. We told you so but you had your heads so far up your asses you could not hear.

7 posted on 01/26/2015 4:48:55 AM PST by HerrBlucher (Praise to the Lord the Almighty the King of Creation)
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To: servo1969

Can you say Robespierre?


8 posted on 01/26/2015 4:51:32 AM PST by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: SMARTY
One loser fighting a room full of losers.

Odumbo is well on his way of totally destroying this once great nation. He still has a little short of two years to complete his assignment and leave the U.S. a ‘scorched earth”. The pen and the phone are his best weapons and he will undoubtedly use them a lot before he is gone.

9 posted on 01/26/2015 5:51:20 AM PST by DaveA37
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To: DaveA37

The sad part is that all those people he conned into supporting him and who he said he’d help are worse off and even FURTHER behind the 8 ball now!


10 posted on 01/26/2015 5:53:06 AM PST by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: DaveA37

This nation is far stronger than even Obama, and predictions of our destruction are greatly exaggerated, in my view. Yes, he is wrong on almost every issue, and yes, he has usurped the Constitution with his executive orders, but the heart of this nation, its people, remain strong and even resolute. Washington DC is a fishbowl with all of the fish looking at each other and responding to each other’s ideas and proposals. We are the owners of that fish bowl. We feed it, we, by voting, “change its water” and we decide who does and who does not go into that fish bowl. We are in control, IF WE WISH TO BE. Perhaps we will, one day, have to throw out this fish bowl and replace it with another... (I have worn out the analogy. My apologies, but you get the gist.)


11 posted on 01/26/2015 5:58:05 AM PST by NCLaw441
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To: servo1969
One veto override is all it will take to break the myth that Obama is invincible.
12 posted on 01/26/2015 6:12:00 AM PST by JPG (The GOPe will always find a way to surrender)
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To: SMARTY

Can you say Stalin?


13 posted on 01/26/2015 6:53:36 AM PST by bassmaner (Hey commies: I am a' white male, and I am guilty of NOTHING! Sell your 'white guilt' elsewhere.)
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To: NCLaw441

The great thing about President Cruz is he loves to teach, especially about the Constitution, and he will explain to America which hateful policies by the left since 08 have resulted in which horrific consequences, and so here’s why I’m repealing them, and here will be the outcomes of these repeals and nullification!


14 posted on 01/26/2015 7:06:45 AM PST by txhurl (They claim conservatives aren't electable yet they disguise themselves as conservatives to win.)
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To: Truth29

These next two years are going to be worse than the previous six.


15 posted on 01/26/2015 8:18:46 AM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: Excellence
Considering what 0 wanted to achieve, we should be grateful if he was even a little unsuccessful.

He's not finished yet. He has two more years. It will get worse as the days pass.

16 posted on 01/26/2015 12:35:09 PM PST by Know et al (Keep on Freepin'!!!)
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To: servo1969
The Democrat Civil War isn't about ideology but just a disagreement on how to foist socialism on the USA.

OTH the Republican Party Civil War is about ideology, cuts much deeper and is far more serious.

17 posted on 01/26/2015 12:41:39 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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