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.

[norge]

That is pure nonsense. You can rationalize anyway you want to, but there is no way John McCain was going to be President of the United States.

It didn’t take a coup.

[dr_lew]

Strangely absent in end times prophecies is the greatest super power the world has ever known (the USA). I wonder why that is...

In The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, Babylon is a transparent reference to Rome, and in that regard, all his prophecies have long since come to pass. But, here we are again.

18:9 And the kings of the earth, who
have committed fornication and
lived delciously with her, shall
bewail her, and lament for her, when
they shall see the smoke of her
burning,
10 Standing afar off for the fear of
her torment, saying, Alas, alas that
great city Babylon, that mighty
city! For in one hour is thy
judgment come.

[Boucheau]

“Then I presume you are interested in at least for the moment, fostering change democratically?”

You are correct, sir.

“And you have no clue who I am, or what I am doing, or who I have been, or what I have done.”

I do not know you. I’m judging only what you have typed in this thread. And my longest rant was to “you” in the generic sense, not necessarily you, norge.

[1035rep]

It’s a fact. He had to cheat to win.

[norge]

dr_lew, would you care to enlighten us as to the meaning of that passage you just posted, and its relevancy to 2009.

The passage you quote is not “in plain English” now, is it? And just what does it refer to specifically?

[norge]

Who did? If you say McCain, I agree. There was no way he was going to win.

[1035rep]

Hussein and you know it.

They good news is, the way things have been going for the cheese-eating surrender monkey he probably won’t make it 4 years anyway.

[Boucheau]

“...he probably won’t make it 4 years anyway.”

I hope not. The last thing we want to do is make a martyr out of this p***k!

There are far better ways to benefit from the rise of ordinary leftist scum like this.

[antceecee]

This last election was the perfect storm of illegal immigration and the power of ACORN. This election was definitely stolen and there are many factors to count including ACORN and motor voter.

The twelve to twenty million illegals they love to talk about being here is really ten times that many... truth be told. And... they are voting.

Invasion... accomplished!

[1035rep]

Good point. But if he survives the 4 years let just hope we can repair all the libtard damage.

Have a good night, signing off.....

[Smokin' Joe]

No "derangement" required. The current star resident at 1600 Penna. Ave. only wants to figure out how to get around the Constitution, not how to protect and defend it nor the Republic.

Give that any name you want.

I'm still trying to figure out if his motivation is political (wanting to be the 'boss'), racial (getting back at whitey), or if we are just witnessing the greatest robbery in history, one which would make the sacking of Rome look like boosting a pack of Twinkies from a 7-11.

To decry the desire for understanding of his methodology for getting into office is the equivalent of trashing the people who investigate plane crashes.

We all want America to learn from this mistake, and dissecting how that happened is important to that end.

[1035rep]

Absolutely.

[Smokin' Joe]

...there isn’t a conservative left who will vote Democratic in the next election (and there were many who did so in the last).

If they voted Democratic in the last election, they weren't Conservative.

Maybe they have been mugged since and seen the error of their liberal ways, but they damned sure weren't one of us.

[dr_lew]

Well, what was its relevancy to 70 AD ?

[norge]

Look, I'm going to end this for tonight. I would be interested in any further correspondence later, and I will respond.

But the thing that got to me was the irrational and hysterical posting on this thread that makes us look like the mirror image of Move On or DU.

(I just wrote ((a whole bunch of crap)) a brilliant essay on the history of conservatism and why we will win).

And I erased it.

Keep this in mind...Obama is vulnerable on so many fronts, once the stones start rolling, they won't be stopped.

[Boucheau]

“Keep this in mind...Obama is vulnerable on so many fronts, once the stones start rolling, they won’t be stopped.”

Now you’re speaking my language.

Fill us in later.

[PhilDragoo]

hysterical responses to policies that we just don't like

Hey, David, KMA.

Doper Islamo Commie Kenyan is intentionally destroying our capitalist system, our prosperity, our economic freedom, the American Exceptionalism of Reagan.

The Saul Alinsky/Frank Davis Commie is destroying our republic: ACORN is fully funded and the census shall be corrupted.

The Traitor-in-Chief has reversed the Homeland Security policies of Bush which prevented Al-Qaeda reconstituting for eight years.

The Destroyer of G.D. America is slashing defense, insulting allies and kissing ass of all enemies.

And, David, you want us to eschew hysteria.

Eschew MA, good buddy.

[Salamander]

Mr Horowitz will continue to have his job and wealth throughout the Zero disaster so he can easily afford to pimp himself as a “voice of reason” crying out in the rightfully concerned conservative wilderness.

The rest of us are not so blessed.

[*or* he simply doesn’t want to wind up in the “fairness doctrine” unemployment line so he’s playing both ends against the middle]

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

I've read several of Horowitz's books, and think they are invaluable.

This is the second time he has defended Obammie the Commie.

And I find this very, very disturbing, as Obama is THE embodiment of everything Horowitz tries to warn us about 1960’s radical communism.

[fr_freak]

But the thing that got to me was the irrational and hysterical posting on this thread that makes us look like the mirror image of Move On or DU.

You are engaged in a very common logical fallacy, one that political radicals on the Left love to use. You assume that, because accusations of Bush being Hitler were irrational and a sign of delusional thinking, that all accusations against all presidents henceforth will be irrational. However, in reality we could have 100 presidents in a row who were all wrongly accused of having fascist intentions, but that has no bearing on whether the 101st president has fascist intentions or not.

In other words, just because the Left's accusations against Bush were unfounded, doesn't automatically mean that all accusations against Obama will be unfounded. We will have to evaluate Obama on his own merits. The analogy that I like to use is this: you walk into a room where you see your two small children and a broken lamp. You ask the first child who broke the lamp and he points to the second and says "He did." You ask the second child and he points to the first and says "He did." Using your logic, because both children said the same thing, they must both be lying, whereas in reality, one is lying and one is telling the truth.

Also, you should bear in mind that it is a very common but dirty political tactic to accuse your opponent of the very thing you are guilty of. That way, any accusations toward yourself can be dismissed as merely tit-for-tat politicking. That is the kind of tactic that got us Hillary Clinton claiming a vast right wing conspiracy and attack machine, when any person with eyes can see that the majority of the attack media belongs to the Left. In fact, if you want to know what a leftist is guilty of, you only have to listen to his accusations against others.

I do not, in the least, believe that the intense distrust of Obama is unfounded. Some of it may be incorrect or exaggerated, but Obama has done everything possible to convince us that he is, indeed, an inept Marxist who has serious things to hide. Ignoring that merely because we fear looking irrational would be the worst kind of cowardice.