Posted on 03/29/2009 10:10:57 PM PDT by To Hell With Poverty
I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the Right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the “Bush Is Hitler” crowd on the Left.
Speaking of this crowd, have you seen any “I am so sorry” postings from that quarter as Obama continues and even escalates the former president's war policy in Afghanistan and attempts to consolidate his military occupation of Iraq?
Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the Left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the anti-Christ, although a disturbing number of people on the Right are convinced he is.
I have recently received commentaries that claim that "Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history" and "never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people" and "Obama is a narcissist," which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.
This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists – and that a recent American president was a world-class exponent of the imperial me. So what? Political egos are one of the reasons the Founders put checks and balances on executive power. As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that? And once, the same recent president set a pretty a high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama's speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louie Farrakhan, Fidel Castro vein. They are in fact eloquently and cleverly centrist and sober.
So what's the panic? It is true that Obama has shown surprising ineptitude in his first months in office, but he's not a zero with no accomplishments as many conservatives seem to think – unless you regard beating the Clinton machine and winning the presidency as nothing. But in doing this you fall into the “Bush-is-an-idiot” bag of liberal miasmas.
It is also true Obama has ceded his domestic economic agenda to the House Democrats and spent a lot of money in the process. But what’s the surprise in this? After all, Bush and McCain both proposed (and in Bush's case pushed through) massive government giveaways (which amount to government takeovers as well). This is bad, but it doesn't make Obama a closet Mussolini, however deplorable the conservatives among us may regard it. Moreover, he's already run into political resistance even within his own party. Charlie Rangel has made it clear that the itemized deduction tax hike is not going through his committee – and that should tell you that the American system, the one the Founders created, is still in place.
Even as astute a conservative thinker as Mark Steyn has been swept up in the tide that thinks Obama is a “transformative” radical. But look again at his approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, as noted, he is carrying out the Bush policies – the same that he once joined his fellow Democrats in condemning. And that should be reassuring to anyone concerned about where he is heading as commander-in-chief.
In other words, while it's reasonable to be unhappy with a Democratic administration and even concerned because the Democrats are now a socialist party in the European sense, we are not witnessing the coming of the anti-Christ. A good strategy for political conflicts is to understand your opponent first – not to underestimate him, but not to overestimate him either.
Once conservatives do that, they will find some silver linings in the first moves of the Obama administration. Through a combination of ineptitude and zeal, Obama has in two short months locked down the conservative and Republican base. On fetal stem-cell research, on borders (e-verification), on spending, on unions, on shutting down talk radio, Obama has flexed the leftist muscle so nakedly and unmistakably that there isn’t a conservative left who will vote Democratic in the next election (and there were many who did so in the last).
As we move forward, Obama faces increasingly tough choices in the wars against Islamic fascism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Iran. Hopefully, he will make the right choices, and should he do so conservatives will need to be there to support him. If he makes the wrong choices, conservatives will need to be there to oppose him. But neither our support nor our opposition should be based on hysterical responses to policies that we just don't like. Let’s leave that kind of behavior to the liberals who invented it.
All are valid concerns, Mr. Horowitz. I also wonder if you've seen Mr. Obama's birth certificate.
I think Obama knows he's in over his head in the foreign area, and is content to bash Bush while continuing to make noises like he's doing something radically different. I think he will use words to placate the left, but he will admit to himself if to no one else that Bush did a pretty good job of holding it all together.
On the domestic front, I think Horowitz needs to look around. Obama is definitely doing some radical stuff.
It’s these pseudo intellectuals on our side that cost us the election to a large part. I wouldn’t be surprised if he even voted for Obama.
IMO this is the same BS “can’t we all get along” hype that wasted past 8 years where we could have built a border wall , passed laws strengthening the constitution they now work every day to dismantle. The idiots in power right now are NOT old blue dog democrats ! This isn’t staying within the guidelines of a republic at all and a scam on what they consider a democracy right now.
..... They are SOCIALISTS Horowitz !
No quarter given , no quarter asked for yet all we’ll have left in the end is quarters if we don’t fight these seditious criminals at every step.
My opinion !
ping
Mr. Horowitz:
Lead. Follow. Or get out of the way.
I know a lot of democrats who are freaked out by where obama is taking us. They are particularly worried for their children and grandchildren.
given how much the left considers him to be an extremist and how he generally isn’t PC when he talks, i’m quite surprised that David Horowitz wrote this but kudos to him
look I’m no fan of Obama but I really don’t like it when I see conservatives signing online petitions saying stuff like we the US apologize for the election of Obama. Isn’t this what the whiny left did the past 8 years? What has the rest of the world done to deserve respect?
Horowitz makes some good points here
Horowitz may suffer from Obama Sycophant Syndrome.
He has a point. I doubt that the spending would have been much different had Bush been in office at this time, or if McCain had.
Obama does seem to be continueing Bush’s plans overseas more (Afghanistan) or less (Iraq).
Where’s the change?
David, the point was that he was a man running for the presidency who had had no serious accomplishments other than being the object of a political campaign. His appeal was, for most, mainly as a symbol. Even after being elected to the US Senate he accomplished nothing of serious note as a legislator.
Do you and I live on the same planet ??
While I like Mr. Horowitz, he is starting to sound like the Liberals that accuse Conservatives of Hate Speech.
The difference between US and THEM is the fact the Media does nothing to expose the lies and deceit of the Obama Administration while they MADE UP lies and deceit about the Bush Administration.
I guess we're just supposed to watch our Nation slip away without a whimper. And yes, I also wonder if Mr. Horowitz has seen Obama’s Birth Certificate.
How dare I question the King? Give me a break.
Well he's got that part right at least. I firmly believe that Obama is the warm up act to allow the real Anti-Christ to be ushered in.
If you don’t see the worrisome moves Obama is making, you’re not looking very hard. What made the Bush/Hitler comparison so silly was the radical differences in their policies. For example, Hitler was a collectivist akin to Mussolini and Stalin. Was Bush? Of course not. How many liberal outlets did Bush threaten with the so-called “fairness doctrine?” None. But we’ve heard the leftists surrounding Obama cackling about it since before the election. When you start looking at the Obama administration, you see lots of little steps beginning to converge on something nasty. Are some remarks (including many of my own) over the top at the moment? Maybe, but they might also be early and accurate warnings. Here’s an example: I fear Obama’s anti 2nd Amendment rhetoric, voting record and appointments (Holder). Has he grabbed any guns yet? No. Do you therefore trust him not to? Really? It’s not a “derangement syndrome” when you don’t have to make up all the nasty characteristics and actions you attribute to your particular bogeyman. In the case of BDS, most of the “crimes” were in fact figments of fevered leftists’ imaginations. Obama? Just look and listen.
Hope you got your helmet on.
No one thinks Obama is the anti-Christ. We think Obama may be the one who makes sure America doesn't even exist by the time the anti-Christ shows up.
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