Posted on 01/19/2013 7:44:56 PM PST by Kaslin
"The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat."
So astonishingly wrote CBS News political director John Dickerson at Slate Friday evening in a piece astonishingly titled "Go for the Throat! Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party."
Dickerson is no longer interested in Obama trying bipartisanship in his second term - as if that's what the President did in his first.
"Obama’s only remaining option is to pulverize," Dickerson wrote. "Whether he succeeds in passing legislation or not, given his ambitions, his goal should be to delegitimize his opponents. Through a series of clarifying fights over controversial issues, he can force Republicans to either side with their coalition's most extreme elements or cause a rift in the party that will leave it, at least temporarily, in disarray."
Did I mention this man was the political director for CBS News?
"[B]y exploiting the weaknesses of today’s Republican Party," Dickerson continued, "Obama has an opportunity to hasten the demise of the old order by increasing the political cost of having the GOP coalition defined by Second Amendment absolutists, climate science deniers, supporters of 'self-deportation' and the pure no-tax wing."
"The president can stir up these fights by poking the fear among Republicans that the party is becoming defined by its most extreme elements, which will in turn provoke fear among the most faithful conservatives that weak-willed conservatives are bending to the popular mood," added Dickerson. "That will lead to more tin-eared, dooming declarations of absolutism like those made by conservatives who sought to define the difference between legitimate and illegitimate rape—and handed control of the Senate to Democrats along the way."
"Presidents don’t usually sow discord in their inaugural addresses, though the challenge of writing a speech in which the call for compromise doesn’t evaporate faster than the air out of the president’s mouth might inspire him to shake things up a bit," Dickerson concluded. "If it doesn’t, and he tries to conjure our better angels or summon past American heroes, then it will be among the most forgettable speeches, because the next day he’s going to return to pitched political battle. He has no time to waste."
So the recommendation of CBS News's political director is that Obama begin his second term by "going for the throat" of his opponents to destroy one of the nation's two political parties.
Is this in any way appropriate for a so-called journalist that's supposed to remain neutral and impartial in his dealings with political leaders?
This is what one expects from people on MSNBC.
After Bob Schieffer's absurd comments earlier in the week comparing Obama's anti-gun initiatives to America defeating the Nazis in World War II, is CBS making another huge turn to the left further distancing itself from being an impartial news source?
If not, maybe someone at CBS ought to remind Dickerson of what his role is at the organization and what it means to be a journalist.
Like most in his industry, it appears Dickerson has forgotten
Once the dollar collapses, and the GAO says it will, he'll be number #1 on America's $hit list. Bet on it.
greene66: “They’d slit the throats of every tea-party member if they could.”
I don’t agree. Propagandists aren’t necessarily violent. If anything, that makes them more detestable. The state-run media will act as cheerleaders and apologists for the left, setting the stage for violence and/or civil war against their fellow citizens.
It cannot be stressed enough that millions upon millions in the 20th century were slaughtered by their own LEFT WING governments.
I don’t think the media itself knows where their propaganda leads. They are so thoroughly propagandized themselves, they think they’re creating a better world. The millions who voted for Hitler thought the same, i.e. universal employment, equality of the sexes, “fair” distribution of resources, safety and security, etc. It’s a very alluring lie, and like I wrote, millions died last century for it.
Lord forgive them, for they truly do not know what they do!
“Have you looked at the states? More Republican governors and legislatures... that is where the future of the party is; not the Republicans in Congress.”
That was the beauty and genius of the un-molested U.S. Constitution, was the ability of the states to seat senators at will.
Obamacare would not be a law of the land right now if the states had been allowed to replace their senators at the mere utterance of support for this menace of a law!
This state control of senators was allowable until passage of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.
FU CBS.
You can bet he knows about swing state voter fraud well enough not to be worried about the red and blue election illusion you are laboring under.
His legacy is a stinky punchbowl ornament!
—CBS President Les Moonves
First off, none of any new regulations, short of complete confiscation, will do one whit to reduce violence. Even then deranged people will find other ways to murder people. Secondly, do idiots like Shieffer realize how many Americans own guns? He can’t be so naive as to think law-abiding Americans are going to hand over their guns because some petty tyrants i.e. libs get together and demand it.
Wrong thread.
Nah, it was the right thread..but I originally meant to attack Dickerson and not Schieffer. But attacking Schieffer will suffice.
Michelle Obama: "All this for a damn flag!"
Click the image to see the full video.
Of course the republicans have factions and internal tensions. That’s the nature of coalition politics. I’d rather have our problems than the democrats.’ They have become reactionary defenders of a bankrupt welfare state that can’t be duct taped together much longer. They have a class warfare, leveller president who is reducing the size of the pie vs. beneficiary constituencies that can’t be fed unless the pie gets bigger. “Eat the rich” was a way for Obama to lie his way through the last election, but it’s not sustainable. They have an urban underclass that desperately wants better schools for their kids vs. the teachers unions. They have trial lawyer and environmental radical elites essentially making war on everyone else’s jobs. And they’ve just sold nationalization of healthcare to a mass of low information voters who are going to be very surprised when costs go up and quality goes down.
Yes, we have our quarrels on the right. But I can scarcely imagine the cognitive dissonence with which people on the left must live. Hardly a new observation: living with lies is an old, old story on the left and is rooted in their utopian underpinnings, which makes it difficult to acknowledge dilemmas, hard choices, and the merits in the other side’s point of view. The purpose of the lie is to wish all of that away and recast politics as a simple morality play of good vs. evil.
Yes, we have our internal tensions. But to borrow a phrase, we are a reality based community, and the left is insane.
Reconstruction 2.0
Unfortunately many in here are set to help him with that
Oh zer0 can’t take the credit. The RINO party has been on self destruct since Bush 41.
Good analysis, very well put.
Out of the ashes the Phoenix arises. He should be careful what he wishes for.
It is a call for a one-party state, or perhaps a multiparty system in which one party has a "leading role".
Either way, it is sedition at a minimum.
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