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.
Maybe he can team up with the McCain daughter.
With all due respect, the jury is still out on that issue.
No, David is not a RINO. He is a valiant warrior on our side and deserves our full support, he goes into universities which are ground zero for liberalism and he has to take a less strident approach to reach the fence sitters who may block you out completely if you start with the Obama = Mussolini argument. I personally think that is true but he is a saying we need a toned down approach to convert the great unwashed. Unfortunately not everyone is a freeper yet !
Life would be relatively wonderful if that were merely the case. But its not.
Although he is a zero, he has many many "accomplishments"... all of which are devastating to the US of A.
“Obama faces increasingly tough choices in the wars against Islamic fascism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Iran.”
Calm down, Dave.
(thread, below)
“Let me say this as clearly as I can,” Obama said. “The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical … in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject.”
It’s a really good thing that a bi-sexual, coke smoking, Marxist Arab is president. A really good thing! No kidding!
LOL
Don’t you feel like that chick in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when Donald Sutherland looked at her and pointed? That’s what I feel like when I run across someone I used to think was a pretty smart individual and see how they are not recognizing that we are Germany circa 1930’s.
They all thought everything would be ‘fine’ too.
We're they joking?
And then the Republican White House spokesman compared millions entering our country illegally, during a war time, to simple traffic citation.
And the author of this garbage suggests we, "Calm down" as Bush passes the baton to some guy named Obama...lol
Yeah, lets all go have a beer...No worries..
“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,”
Thats reason enough right there Dave to NOT calm down, we are more than just UNHAPPY!
Horowitz has never been and never will be a conservative. He is a NeoCon and a Troskyite.
Yeah, calm down.
Nationalizing private corporations?
No big deal.
Tripling government spending a just 2 months?
So what.
Proposing the elimination of our nuclear arsenal?
Who cares.
Killing the F-35 program?
We can bandage our old fighters, right?
Giving up the War on Terror?
Mehhhh....
Freeing Gitmo terrorists in the continental U.S.?
Nothing’s gonna happen...
.
I agree with the author in principle (if only in principle). I think many conservatives could do well to take a deep breath. The world is not ending, and I grow a bit weary of “chicken little” conservatives — who apparently have a propensity to latch onto any two-bit hack that will make a doomsday prediction. This is not the Great Depression.
However, I also think the author takes things a bit too far. Obama is not competent, not accomplished, and is genuinely detrimental to the future of the country. He’s not going to destroy us, and he is not the anti-Christ — but he is horribly wrong about a great many things, and his ill-concieved policies will have consequences. I do not believe those consequences are irreversible, and I don’t buy that things are as dire as many on this board would argue — but there will be consequences.
I think conservatives can back off of the “THE SKY IS FALLING” nonsense without surrendering the fight. We may be taking on a bit of water — but the ship isn’t sinking. Politics is cyclical ... things can turn around very quickly.
The dawn is coming.
SnakeDoc
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