Posted on 04/06/2009 8:55:07 AM PDT by Borges
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.
Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the left as we figure out how to deal with President Obama. He is not exactly the antichrist, 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, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.
This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists. 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, a recent president set a pretty high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama's speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louis 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, George W. Bush and John 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 has 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 the American system 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, 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 antichrist. A good strategy for political conflicts is to understand your opponent first -- not to underestimate him, but not to overestimate him, either.
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.
I think Horowitz has gone back to his original liberal roots. Who needs him.
WTF...?
Oh, PUHLEEEEZE! Go AWAY!
Now we've got a corrupt Chicago politician, with ties to William Ayres and Saul Alinksy, sitting in the White House, basically acting as a dictator, and Horowitz shrugs and says "no big deal".
Weird.
Horowitz is not paying attention or is delusional.
Horowitz is an agnostic.
So... we can’t point out any leader’s fascist policies, nor the parallels to another point in history as a warning?
Another “conservative opinion leader” who sees the base not paying attention to him anymore.
We already pay $400 billion a year to service the national debt. Obama's budgeta and stimulus package will double the amount to over $800 billion in just five years. We can't afford it without drastically cutting back on discretionary items like defense. And that is exactly what Obama is planning and doing.
Mussolini made the trains run on time.
I'm not so sure about that. ;o)
To borrow a phrase, that’s not the David Horowitz that I know.
How long before he’s being interviewed on the lovely Rachel Maddow’s show?
First lesson in life is to watch both hands. Be very wary of the hand offered in peace if the other is holding a loaded Gun.
I see 0’s gun very clearly. So do a lot of people
Dave FU, how is that for being calm
At first I thought he was a moron.
Now I think he’s a moron with a plan to actively destroy the United States.
I don’t see him as a misguided fool as Jimmy Carter as some do. I see him as absolutely evil and a traitor.
And David Horowitz is not helping the cause one bit.
With a little touch of the later - or more than a little!
We’re talking about global smiley face fascism here and the only clearly defined target so far is western brand conservatives.
There is no one coming to the rescue this time so we have to rescue ourselves.
He's a dumb Chicago pol out of his depth and the country is on autopilot. Since we have decent technocrats in responsible positions, that means some things will go OK. Since in others (budgeting, grand strategy) we rely on pols, others will be mucked up royally. That is quite completely all.
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