From my column today:

What’s particularly odious about Obama’s scare tactics is that he’s using them for the mother of all bait-and-switches. He justifiably scares people about the magnitude of the financial crisis, but uses that fear not to sell them on a solution to the crisis but to trick them into signing up for a new Great Society. It’s like convincing someone he’s got cancer and then telling him that’s why he needs to buy a new car.

One point I didn’t get to flesh out: I don’t understand what’s so bad about using fear in politics. Doesn’t it depend on what you use it for? And, isn’t honesty an enormous part of the equation? If I yell “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater and there isn’t one, I’ve done something really bad. If I yell “Fire!” in a movie theater when there is one, maybe I’ve done something really good. It certainly shouldn’t suffice to say that in both circumstances I am a “fearmonger.” Al Gore thinks Bush is a bad man because “he played on our fears” of terrorism. Well, doesn’t that beg all sorts of questions?