Yuval’s clarifying post on Obama’s health-care moves raises a crucial political question. How are Republicans going to talk about Obama in the 2012 election campaign? The most sensible interpretation of Yuval’s post, it seems to me, is that Obama wants to move toward a single-payer system over time, built that intention into his plan from the start, hid his true goal from the public, and continues to hide it to this day.
The Republicans won in 2010 because the Tea Party was bold enough to say out loud that Obama was hiding his radical, effectively socialist, and utterly unaffordable plans from the public. Yet Republicans seem reluctant to make the same point today, when everything indicates that the original Tea Party take on Obama was right. How can Republicans win with a campaign based on conventional policy analysis when Obama isn’t telling the truth about what his actual policy intentions are?
I’m not calling on Republicans to claim that Obama wants to “destroy” America. But Obama does want to radically transform this country, and he’s not being honest about what that involves. At some point, Republicans are going to have to say this if they want to win. I recently made this point about the budget debate. It’s not that Obama is “failing to lead” on the budget. The problem is that he knows all-too-well where he’s leading us.
The other day, Jonah was bold enough to say: “There’s good reason to believe that Obama has always been lying — yes, lying — about opposing gay marriage.” I’m generally reluctant to use the “l word,” but Jonah is absolutely right. (I play out the same point and relate it to the health-care battle in a new piece “Obama’s Past Tells the Truth.”)
Yes, Obama is personally popular and many Americans think he’s a nice guy. But misleading the American public about your plans for the country isn’t nice. If Republicans are afraid to expose the ruse and define Obama by the intentions he refuses to avow, they will be defeated.
If most voters still give Obama political points for niceness, they have a major problem of perception that needs correction ASAP.
1. Niceness may not be the most important virtue in a President
2. Niceness is hardly what Obama displays, except in an absolutely superficial way
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf Obama is moving to radically transform the country, what are Republicans doing by trying to have public unions lose collective bargaining rights? At the very least, Governor Walker is radically trying to transform Wisconsin (perhaps we should characterize it as a reactionary transformation, but it is no less extreme than what Obama is doing, although it is less widespread, as it only involves one state of fifty).
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse["The Republicans won in 2010 because the Tea Party was bold enough to say out loud that Obama was hiding his radical, effectively socialist, and utterly unaffordable plans from the public."]
Of course, the Republicans won because "the Tea Party" read Stanley's book!
It's amazing how eagerly people impute their own motives onto the tea parties, not unlike what we saw with the progressive set and Obama the blank slate. Swap "the Tea Party" for "Stanley Kurtz" above and you'll see what I'm getting at.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUmm, Allen, there are many states in which public sector unions do not enjoy collective bargaining "rights." Federal workers -- you know, the ones that Obama is the ultimate boss of -- cannot collectively bargain. It is therefore hard to argue that Walker is even trying to "radically transform" his own state. And Wisconsin's population is less than 2 percent of the nation. Completely abolishing public unions there would not rise to the level of radical transformation of the country.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you so much Stanley for all your work. I have the same fear. Obama is the most cynical and obscurantist president of my lifetime. He has hidden his intentions because that is the Alinsky playbook. Republicans need to get a clue if they are behind the curve on this and educate the rest of the public. The media is key and crucial here and they are not on our side.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you Mr. Kurtz.
I would add that as 2012 approaches, we should add to our list of criteria a consideration of which candidates will openly discuss the path which the Democratic Party has set before us. We do need open and honest discussions of this sort.
In my book, this will eliminate some candidates, such as those who adopt conservative poses and then share couches with Democratic speakers of the house.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFrom the very beginning this has been a bad faith presidency. In fact, take it back to 2004, at the Democratic Convention, with Obama's "racial reconciliationist" One America speech, made while he was a participating member of a racialist, black nationalist church based in the revolting "black theology" of James Cone. Bad faith hardly gets near what this is.
I argue that any attempt to grasp this president within the normative terms of American politics is a serious mistake. It cedes to him ground that he does not hold and supports his deception that he does.
When the media laid down for candidate Obama, that was a signal that something remarkably odd was happening off-stage and I think we still don't know exactly what that was. I don't know which is more troubling, that it was a deliberate project (of which the JournoList escapade was but a faint echo) or that it was some sort of reflex response to the new prince of liberals. (Though he's their prince, he is hardly anything as innocuous as a liberal.)
All that the mid-term election just past did was staunch the arterial bleeding. This man, who I think is far from likeable but is perhaps something of a cultivated charismatist, must not be re-elected. He has already laid in a generation's worth of damage, and he is far from done in this term. Losing control of Congress he has now turned to the federal agencies, the permanent government, where he will lay in even more damage.
I dispute any claims that this man wants what he thinks is best for America. I know too well the crowd and the ideology he springs from, and that crowd and that ideology detest America. And I have to say that he is working their agenda at every point he can, and I say there is no way he could believe that it is for the benefit of America. So, not just a bad faith presidency, but a fifth columnist presidency, and I think that just how bad the intentions are remain to be seen. Even though they are already observably well beyond the grasp of the normative terms of American politics.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama wants to destroy America and is working towards that goal. He will do so for as long as he lives, as will his allies, foreign and domestic. In a psychological sense, he needs to do so.
There is no "claim" about it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe word destroy is open to interpretation as is the phrase, transforming the nation. Bringing this nation to its knees is my definition of both of those terms as regards this administration.
Republicans need to pull open the opaque curtain from the great and wonderful Ozbama.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere are way to many Republicans who believe that the only difference between the two parties is that the Republicans can run the Democratic programs better.
The inside the beltway Republicans have no problem growing govt, so long as they are the ones who get to run the new programs.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAllan, You are aware that even in Wisconsin, workers have only had those "rights" since 1959? Wisconsin was the first state to allow workers such rights. Are you also aware that most states, even today, do not allow govt workers to bargain collectively?
Are you aware that Saint Franklin of Roosevelt was adamantly opposed to allowing govt workers to unionize?
What Walker is doing is hardly radical.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEven before noticing the commenter's name, I knew it had to be Martin McPhillips. Few write with such brave clarity.
And he's absolutely right that "any attempt to grasp this president within the normative terms of American politics is a serious mistake."
I fear it would be a fatal mistake.
Calling Obama on his dishonesty is itself a decision fraught with peril. Good-hearted but inattentive Americans will be reluctant to consider the possibility that Obama's entire political career is in bad faith, so they must be convinced. Obama's guard dogs in the media will scream bloody murder about the truth, but they must be ignored.
(And it wouldn't hurt to remind the public that the media didn't have much of a problem with the insanity that 9/11 was an "inside job" or at least an attack that Bush chose not to prevent; the lie that Bush deliberately lied to drag this country into a war; the "Betray-Us" smear from MoveOn; the slander that the Arizona shooting was the result of conservative rhetoric; and the routine charges of sexism, racism, etc.)
Obama and his radical, subversive allies have contempt, not only for constitutional, representative government, but even for the basic decency to be honest about one's beliefs. It's simply not healthy for our civic culture to pretend otherwise -- and thereby reward their current dishonesty and encourage more in the future.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"But misleading the American public about your plans for the country isn’t nice."
The Republicans have proved decisively that this is neither true nor relevant to most Americans.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAllan, there is such a thing as good and bad transformations. Even so, I suggest a change of terms is in order when comparing the paths desired by the Left and Right. Obama, today's champion of the Left, wants to "transform" America; the Right wants to "reform" America. The former desire is in opposition to our founding principles; the latter supports them. The Tea Party is this country's Reformation movement.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDead solid perfect advice, Mr. Kurtz. We cannot afford to ignore it.
Awarded the THE SPOT-ON QUOTE OF THE DAY at:
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Camp Of The Saints
Some of us were screaming that at the top of our lungs during the 2008 election. Tried to get the media information but to no avail even on Fox. I wholeheartedly agree that Republicans need to get a clue. I sincerely hope it is that they are only afraid to say it not that they don't see it or believe it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI second Lawrence's approbation for what Martin McPhillips wrote here. (3/1 at 13:15)
If Mr. McPhillips has a site where he's a regular writer, I hope he'll tell us about it!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePaul137,
Martin McPhillips blogs at NewPaltzJournal -dot- com.
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