Obama Derangement Syndrome (a chill pill from Horowitz?)

FrontPage Magazine ^ | 3/30/09 | David Horowitz

[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.

[Cincinna]

David Horowitz is a Red Diaper Baby, just like Obama. He should understand how Obama was indoctrinated in Marxism, Socialism, Saul Alinsky and Atheism from childhood. His little diversion into “Black Liberation Theology” was just another Marxist venture.

Every bowlegged man knows every other bowlegged man in town. Does Horowitz think it a coincidence that Obama hooked up with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? Does he think they met in a local Starbucks and became pals?

Obama kept his radical agenda under the radar, and now his power grab and trashing of the Constitution is out in the open.

Many wouldn’t vote for zobama because he is Black. I wouldn’t vote for him because I know he is RED.

Mr. Horowitz, please read Mark Levin’s book, “Liberty and Tyranny, a Conservative Manifesto” .

Then come and debate on FR.

[Blind Eye Jones]

Horowitz still misses some points of concern: closing Gitmo and media bias. If the WOT goes on then there has to be a Gitmo and there has to be balanced reporting — so good luck with that.

[Boucheau]

“Never waste a good crisis.”

“The constitution doesn’t state what the government can do ON YOUR BEHALF.”

—promising to bankrupt the coal industry

—retroactive, punitive taxation

—nationalizing banks

—socialized medicine

—ACORN, and the millions that stolen from us for this anti-American nest of scheming bastards!

—the grab for control of the census

—the 0bama core, and the potential forced-service idea

—their crazed lust for the power to take over ANY financial company AT WILL

and on, and on...

No, Mr. Horowitz, we have NOTHING to worry about.

This is just another middle of the road Blue Dog.

His books, his associations, his statements regarding the constitution.

Sure there are some that are over-the-top, perhaps me, on occasion, but I think there is more than ample reason to be alarmed at what these people are doing to our country.

He’s not radical????????

Did Horowitz have a stroke before he wrote this?

This isn’t the Horowitz I’ve been following for almost ten years.

Very strange.

[Boucheau]

“Obama does seem to be continueing Bush’s plans overseas more (Afghanistan) or less (Iraq).”

So he’s a great CIF, all of a sudden?

Oh, you mean besides that fact that he has promised to gut the defense budget and make rounds to tenderly kiss the a**es of all of our sworn enemies? Besides what seems to be his inclination towards world government and the end of our sovereignty?

And Bush wasn’t exactly a great Republican, in case some of you have lost track of your gray matter.

Comparing to the Kenyan to Bush to make us all feel better?

Arrrrrrgh!

[norge]

I firmly believe that Obama is the warm up act to allow the real Anti-Christ to be ushered in.

And you have some basis for that statement?

Your post is a prime example of what Horowitz is expressing. Your comment is barely below hysteria, brought on by whatever stuff you are reading or listening to.

Before you blast away at me, and I'm sure you and others will, I am no Obama supporter. I am a supporter of the American way of conducting politics. They won...for now. It is theirs to do with what they can, until the next election(s). My God, we survived Roosevelt, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton, and in the meantime got Reagan. Smile, Chucky, things ain't that bad.

[Marie2]

I think he just fired the CEO of a private company, too.

[little jeremiah]

I agree. What happened to him?

[little jeremiah]

0bama won in the “American way”? That must mean one party owning the media, millions of illegal foreign donations, ACORN fraud and thuggery, and the other guy throwing the election.

Somehow doesn’t seem very “American” to me.

[norge]

Come on, you’re better than that.

[Squantos]

Agree....... come on 2010 !

At least take Obama’s socialist / rino congress back !

2010 will be the litmus test as to the survivability of this Precedent event IMO .

[Apercu]

Substitute evil and /or or communism for pornography in Justice Stewart’s quotation “I don’t how to describe it, but I know it when it see it”.

[Boucheau]

“...things ain’t that bad.”

More proof of what I’ve been saying for months.

No one’s fighting because no one understands what is happening to them.

You people have no idea what’s at stake—you take it all for granted. The principles involved and how these people are setting us up for a dramatically different life.

It’s amazing to observe this!

You would have definitely been among the one-third of the American population who didn’t care to refuse the King his slaves back in the day, wouldn’t you?

“things ain’t that bad...”

How’s your savings? Your retirement?

I suppose you believe that all this economy stuff is blown out of proportion as well, no? Oh, of course, it was all those GREEDY financial types on Wall Street that caused it all, right? Nothing at all to do with socialist plans gone wrong—as if there’s any other kind.

Well, just stick around, FRiend. Even Americans with five-inch-thick skulls will get it eventually.

I think by this Fall you should begin to hear some faint tapping. Stay tuned.

[ReneeLynn]

More ‘can’t we all just get along?’ and ‘aren’t conservatives better than this?’ baloney that helped lose the election.

Here’s the thing David, I’ll calm down about Obama when he’s out of office. Until then, a socialist in the White House will tend to freak me out.

Sheesh, this guy. Let’s all be calm and goosestep nicely.

[norge]

Look, we lost because we had an inferior candidate, the same reason we lost when Dole ran. The same reason the Dems lost when Humphrey ran. That’s it pure and simple.

As to the party owning the media...when haven’t they?

Illegal and foreign donations? Nothing new.

Acorn fraud and thuggery? Let me tell you from experience. My first Presidential election was 1960, as was my wife’s. We were both registered Republicans in Chicago who requested absentee ballots because we were going to school downstate.

In spite of the fact that we asked for them in the summer, we didn’t receive them until well after the election. 1960. Illinois. Nixon-Kennedy. Fraud and thuggery have been going on for at least two centuries.

[norge]

Dude...my savings and retirement were going in the tank under Bush.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

We had an inferior candidate, precisely because the GOP has become timid, and unwilling to fight.

Horowitz is exemplifying exactly that mindset.

[calex59]

Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you!

[Domandred]

Oh please. Watching the country being torn apart bit by bit, line by line, iota by iota and you think I’m just gonna sit back and say “oh it’s not a big deal we survived Roosevelt, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton”. Frak that.

Just in the last what 60 some odd days since Obama’s been in office he’s already passed all them in leftism, big government, and socialism. Only thing missing is a big fat AWBII and it’s going to be much much worse than the last one with no sunset clause either. With these recent shootings expect that in weeks...maybe even days...

As far as the “stuff” I am reading, how about the Bible. Strangely absent in end times prophecies is the greatest super power the world has ever known (the USA). I wonder why that is...

[Lancey Howard]

I think David blew it here.

As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that?

Yes. There is. Whatever you want to say about George W. Bush, he was not a serial liar.

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.

No they're not. They are boring lilts packed with utterly meaningless, if positive, generalities alluding to "hope" and "change" - - let your imagination do the rest! Any vain sneak can speechify like that if he's shameless enough.

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.

That's it? That's Dumbo's "accomplishment"?? (And here I thought it was his vast experience as a "community organizer"...)

I like David Horowitz, but I think maybe he was going through some old boxes and stumbled across a windowpane of old college acid. There was no good reason for him to write this column. Dumbo is President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and this country has a real problem. Playing it down doesn't accomplish anything.

[Boucheau]

“Dude...my savings and retirement were going in the tank under Bush.”

Dude...I must have forgotten the forced subprime lending and Fannie and Freddie didn’t exist under Bush, so sorry, Dude.