Posted on 05/11/2010 8:57:48 AM PDT by downtownconservative
Who Is The Real Obama? A Uniter or Divider? By Morton Kondracke | May 7th, 2010 | PERMALINK
President Barack Obama certainly is not a socialist — let alone a communist — as some of his far-out detractors claim. But he and his aides certainly are in populist “whack industry” mode.
From BP to banks, health insurance companies to special interest lobbyists, Obama & Co. pass up no opportunity to slash and bash — except when they are asking for industry cooperation or appealing for national unity.
The dichotomy between one rhetorical mood and the other is so pronounced that you almost suspect the administration and its leader are bipolar. Or that they are juggling the need to govern cooperatively with the need to pander to the president’s sometimes-restive left wing and the populist mood du jour.
In February, for instance, Obama-the-unifier told the Business Roundtable — that is, big business CEOs — that “a thriving America is within our reach, but only if we move forward as one nation, only if we move past the debates and crippling divides between left and right, business and labor, private enterprise and the public sector.”
This came a few weeks after Obama denounced “reckless” “fat cat bankers,” whom he accused of conspiring with House Republicans to “kill financial reform and leave American consumers and our economy vulnerable to another meltdown.”
It came amid nonstop vilification of the health insurance industry as Obama sold health care reform — even though that industry initially proposed the basic design of universal coverage, insurance reform and an individual mandate.
At an early stage of that campaign, Obama included pharmaceutical companies and hospitals in his “special interest” denunciations — until their lobbyists made sweetheart deals with the administration and, in the case of drug companies, spent $100 million on ads backing his plan.
Even though health care reform has passed and is in the midst of a complicated process of implementation — requiring cooperation from the insurance industry — the administration is still on the attack.
Late last month, when America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry lobby, announced that companies would speed up implementation of the law’s ban on rescission of policies except in cases of fraud, the White House reacted snarkily.
“Health reform made rescissions illegal because all Americans should be able to rely on quality care when they need it most,” top Obama health adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle said. “It’s heartening to see that the insurance companies who employed these terrible practices — and fought reform — are coming around doing the right thing by instituting the ban right away. We’ll be watching closely and holding them to their word.”
Rescission — canceling an insurance policy — is a “terrible” practice when it’s used to avoid paying a legitimate claim, but in most cases, it’s an anti-fraud device and it’s rare. State regulators say it occurs on less than 0.4 percent of policies.
By contrast, Medicare, which pays almost every claim, loses about $60 billion a year to fraud, 10 percent of its total budget. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the Cabinet officer most responsible for implementing reform, has said she expects the process to involve “hand-to-hand combat” with insurance companies. When insurance companies discovered that the health care law as written did not require them to guarantee insurance to children with pre-existing conditions — only to cover children with existing policies — Sebelius accused them of “seeking to avoid or ignore” the law. She threatened to change it by regulation. When the industry agreed to guarantee coverage on its own, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sent out a tweet: “Kids 1, Insurance 0.”
Sebelius, a former Kansas governor and insurance commissioner — and earlier, chief state lobbyist for trial lawyers, the nemesis of insurance companies — also jumped immediately on disputed allegations that the nation’s largest insurer, WellPoint, systematically cancels coverage for breast cancer victims.
The day after a Reuters story made the charge, Sebelius wrote a letter to WellPoint CEO Angela Braly, a celebrated campaigner against breast cancer, urging her to “end the unconscionable practice of deliberately working to deny health insurance to women diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Braly wrote Sebelius, “To be absolutely clear, WellPoint does not single out women with breast cancer for rescission. Period.” The company said it rescinded less than 0.1 percent of all its policies last year, usually because claimants had made significant misstatements of fact in applying for insurance.
As Obama has made clear many times, his animus against the insurance industry is “personal,” based on his mother’s struggle with an insurance company when she was battling cancer.
But blasting business is not confined to insurance. Last weekend, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar twice said the administration intended to keep its “boot on the neck” of BP over the Gulf oil spill.
But then what do we make of Obama at the University of Michigan last week, saying that “vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise”?
My own hunch is that Obama, at heart, is not a socialist but a liberal without the slightest idea of how private enterprises create wealth — and deeply suspicious of their practitioners.
But he knows that unifying rhetoric is what the country wants to hear. So one day it’s one thing. Another day it’s another. If this is right, it won’t stop, and it’s very sad.
Mort Kondracke, a liberal pundit and the editor of RollCall, states in reference to the Obama administration, “the dichotomy between one rhetorical mood and the other is so pronounced that you almost suspect the administration and its leader are bipolar.” Of course, the term “bipolar” is used predominantly as a psychological descriptor for what used to be called “manic-depressive disorder”. In the context of Mr. Kondracke’s editorial, I’m sure his intent was to underscore the antonymic nature of words spoken to one set of people verses words on the same subject spoken to a different group, not that our Commander-in-Chief needs meds and psychoanalysis.
While Mr. Kondracke rues the situation, his pretext that “Obama certainly is not a socialist…” does little to explain why things are as he describes them, i.e., “It won’t stop, and it’s very sad.” Since he fails to even attempt to deconstruct the whys and wherefores, here’s my theory in the subject.
Often times, people try to make an impression on others contrary to their true nature in order to try to match those folks’ expectations and not antagonize them. But putting up a façade can only last for so long before it starts fray and wear thin. My theory is that President Obama and his administration are far more radical than they want to portray and the fact that their collective façade is becoming translucent explains these widely disparate and conflicting postures.
Are we to believe that the administration is cooperating and working alongside BP to solve the oil spill in the gulf while, as stated by the Interior Secretary, it would “…keep its boot [on BP's] neck…”? If that comment doesn’t depict a hostile and vaguely tyrannical mien, I don’t know what does. And harkening way back to early campaign comments, we all remember the future President’s now famous quote at a San Francisco fund-raiser, “and it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…as a way to explain their frustrations.” Even then his radical (bipolar?) view of Middle-America was poking irreverently through centrist pretense into public view.
This administrations’ contempt for free enterprise, the insurance industry, the banking industry, Wall Street, the medical professions, the oil industry, small business, and, yes, even mainstream Americans, is now slipping out from the veil of pseudo-centrist rhetoric that has been used to obfuscate radicalism. It is becoming increasingly obvious that this administration views vastly bigger government with more control over more aspects of America’s life, resources, and business as the key to a better country. And that would be true only in the wildest dreams of a . . . socialist.
(knew I should've stopped reading at Kondracke)
Dear Snort,
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
You stupid blithering idiot.
/Zak
Well, I glanced through it, but that first sentence is enough to make you stop reading any further. What a jerk!
Jesus Christ Himself could not unite this country. Not today.
Mort, your hunch is only half right. Where is the line where one can be called a socialist? Where is the line where one can be called a capitalist? These are not digital questions but analog questions and Obama is closer to the socialist end of the scale than he is to the capitalist end of the scale. Which isn't to say he personally, doesn't like wealth for himself but then isn't that just like a socialist? ;-)
Barry the affirmative action bastard Obama, the original post turtle.
obama sure fits the mold in my eyes. In actuality, I think that obama is even further left than socialists. Maybe a commusocialist.
It is truly maddening that so many people cannot or are unwilling to see this madman for what he is. It's surprising that anyone of this mindset can cross a street; deluding themselves into believing that the 18 wheeler they see will not hit them.
Not since the 60's (imo) has there been such a clearly defined left and right faction.
zero has coelesced as much of the anti-American element into our politics which in turn has bonded many Freedom loving Americans in much the same way as Jim Robinson did when he started talking to and finding a whole $h!tload of people displeased with the direction our nation was taking.
FreeRepublic will always be my first love in political/socio information and I'm not waxing romantic when I say I need you folks and this place.
Thanx, Jim
Listen up, Mort!
People are now realizing just what the word "Progressive" means. The leftists needed a new name in America when the voters permanently soured on the direction "liberals" were pulling the country.
These super-liberals who call themselves "PROGRESSIVE" espouse a new form of government that is actually a synthesis of two previously existing government forms: Communism and Fascism.
When many use the word “fascist” they are simply using it as a pejorative. When people were calling Bush “fascist”, that was simply a smear. When I challenged them to define fascist, and they were unable to respond, I educated them. That reduced them to calling him monkey instead. Dear Leader has been RULING as a fascist (most recently demonstrated by his nominating to the USSC someone who wants to crush political free speech, as well as the FCCs declaring the internet a "utility" for the same reason.) as I will demonstrate.
However, when using "Fascist" here, I am NOT using it as a pejorative. It's an attempt to describe as accurately as possible the system of government they espouse and are trying to bring about. I ran into a problem, though, when researching the question.
I excerpt part of http://open-encyclopedia.com/Fascism as a base for the analysis.
The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that
- exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual,
- uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition,
- engages in severe economic and social regimentation, and
- espouses nationalism and sometimes racism or ethnic nationalism. ,
... The purpose of the government under fascism proper was to value itself as the highest priority to its culture in just being the state in itself, the larger scope of which, the better...
... The Nazi movement spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes. The Fascist movement, on the other hand, sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture...
...Fascism rejects the central tenets of Marxism, which are class struggle, and the need to replace capitalism with a society run by the working class in which the workers own the means of production. ...
[Fascism includes] capitalism ... This was a new capitalist system, however, one in which the state seized control of the organization of vital industries.
Look at the agenda the Progressives have undertaken since gaining control of Congress in 2006, and indeed before that time. Control of business, reduction of personal liberty, using propaganda and censorship to suppress opposition, social regimentation, higher taxes which again reduces personal liberty, expanding national government everywhere, even severe regimentation passing laws about light bulbs and on and on. Much of their agenda and methodology is VERY fascist.
However, bullet points 1 & 4 give us a problem whether we use nationalism or racism. Progressives certainly never goad people into a frenzy by extolling the virtues of the United States so are not nationalists in the typical sense of the word. They don’t use racism that way, either- they merely use it as a pejorative. Thus, we are not quite accurate in equating Progressivism with Fascism.
A digression concerning Nazi (National Socialist) vs. Fascist: Nazi is a subset of Fascist, but that subset does not include any more Progressive traits than Fascist.
What actually is needed to describe Progressives is Fascism that is NOT nationalist, at least nationalism in the sense of promotion of their nation as superior.
They are not Socialist (Marxist), either. When have you EVER heard a Progressive politician or any of the Democrats extol the virtues of having a classless society? Certainly they don't desire that for themselves or their rich donors! They are definitely in favor of a classes, with themselves in the highest class.
This brings up the following, from the same main source: http://open-encyclopedia.com/Communism
In terms of socio-economic systems, communism and socialism are two different things. For example, socialism involves the existence of a state, while communism does not...[and] abolishes private ownership altogether.
I’ve heard it argued that Communism has never been implemented, as a result. Apologies to Marx and Engels, but it is the supporters of communism who make that argument. Communism as it is now defined requires that there be NO “state”.
This helps us gain some ground. Communism shares this major feature of "no state" with Progressivism! So, where are we now?
These super-liberals, including Dear Leader and those who are currently running congress, have been pushing CapNTax, ObamaCare, apologies for the US, making nice with sworn enemies, international law, eliminating military superiority, etc.. In nearly EVERY area of our culture or economy that they have been pushing most fervently, they push for a leveling of the US with other nations, and attempt to remove national differences and boundaries. These fit with Communism, except that they have NO DESIRE to eliminate "classes" of people, or that the state OWN business- they only wish to CONTROL business as in Fascism (they have stated that they don't want to run the banks or auto companies) and they don't mind that their favored elites are billionaires, just as in fascism. Like fascism, they desire to control individual thought and behavior and forcibly suppress dissent.
Either we stipulate that the “whole world” is the “nation” for Dear Leader et al, to accurately describe their government philosophy, and state they are "ONE-WORLD FASCISTS", or we need a new word to describe their desired governmental system.
A word that would accurately synthesize their thinking is:
CommuFascist
The important point, though, is that whether this philosophy is labeled CommuFascist, or “Progressive” or One-World Fascists, analysis reveals that Dear Leader, Pelosi, and these super-liberals are espousing a MORE EXTREME FORM of Fascism and VERY extreme form of liberalism. Dear Leader is a “one-world” Mussolini.
Far from being pejorative, analysis reveals I was being generous when I was describing them as Fascist, not pejorative. I might be calling them something more extreme instead, “Progressive” or equivalently, CommuFascist.
Mort - you need to absorb this argument and examine yourself. Perhaps it is not your intention to be part of this.
You may be be interested in my post #12 this thread.
Well, Jesus wouldn’t be allowed in the public square. If he tried the Sermon on the Mount in Central Park they’d put him in jail.
Cindie
Mort seems to have gotten very cranky after his first wife died. While he was taking care of his ill first wife, he displayed a quiet compassion. I don’t know anything about his current domestic situation, but his attitude has changed dramatically since his first wife died.
Kondracke put the “T” in twerp.
Of course Obama "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody" is a socialist.
Of course Obama raise capital gains tax rates even if it reduces revenue "for purposes of fairness" is a socialist.
Of course Obama who let Pelosi lead on socialized medicine with her democratic philosophy that "you have to pass it to find out what's in it" is a socialist.
Of course Obama [warning: Helen Thomas quote] "Not Even Nixon Tried to Control the Media Like Obama" is a socialist.
The socialists finally got what they wanted - one of their own has taken charge of a regime running the United States government. Are they ashamed of their beliefs, or are they continuing to lie to the masses to slow down the patriotic reaction of those opposed to evil?
When a "leader" surrounds himself with surrogates who are committed ideologues, and when important policy decisions reflect a similar ideology--when a State and Federal Senate voting record is totally committed to a Far Left ideology, what more is needed to convince Kondracke and Oreilly of the ultimate ideological commitment of this President?
When one considers the great intellect, wisdom, understanding and foresight of America's Founders--all directed toward preserving the liberty of rising generations, one must conclude that their worst fears are being realized as this foolish President "transforms" America into a debtor nation, making slaves of all citizens and snuffing out the light of liberty for his own posterity--indeed, for all the world.
Justice Joseph Story said of the Constitution of the United States: "The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its components are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order, and its defenses are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens."
If America's citizens, who are designated by the Constitution to be the constitutional KEEPERS of the Constitution, do not act soon to reverse the reckless plunge this Administration is taking toward undoing the Founders' protections for liberty, then future generations may never know or experience their heritage of liberty.
Actually he could, but nothing short of Him can.
To add: The nation is severely polarized and will remain so. Soon, in addition to being polarized, we will be balkanized. The illegal aliens will be legalized, 95% of them being Hispanic, and the colonization will continue, until we have our own Spanish speaking equivalent to Quebec.
I wish and hope Hispanics will assimilate, but I do not see that happening. I see them seperating with balkanization an inevitability.
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