The President's Enemies List

The President’s Enemies List

The Democrats in and out of the Obama are desperate for a new villain from the conservative right wing, and they think they have the new person:  Mr. Rush Limbaugh himself.   Armed with an opinion poll, which says younger Americans don’t like Rush, the Democratic operatives have set out to paint El Rushbo as the new villain of the GOP right.    Gone are Bush, Cheney, and various GOP Congressmen who have since retired or gone back to private life.     And Mr. Limbaugh has even dared to criticize the Great One (President Obama), so that alone is worthy of the Dems fire and wrath.    Does this seem similar to the Nixon days of a Presidential enemy list? 

From the Politico: Top Democrats believe they have struck political gold by depicting Rush Limbaugh www.rushlimbaugh.com as the new face of the Republican Party, a full-scale effort first hatched by some of the most familiar names in politics and now being guided in part from inside the White House.

The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.  Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.  The direct link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19596.html

And from the NY Daily News, (editorial by Michael Goodwin, March 8, 2009):

He hasn't called anyone an "evildoer" or denounced an "axis of evil." But make no mistake: President Obama is putting together an enemies list.

Strangely, though, those on it are not terrorists or foreign dictators. They are mostly Americans lucky enough to have succeeded through capitalism and democracy.

In the President's words, they are guilty of being "special interests" and "lobbyists." The Bush-era tax cuts were merely "an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy" and he will bring fairness by raising taxes on "the wealthiest 2% of Americans." His barbs flow almost daily, faulting corporate leaders for "greed" and shirking "a sense of responsibility." And sometimes he suggests the problem is criminal, as when he defended his plan for an expanded government push into health insurance as necessary "to keep the private sector honest."  Less than halfway through what should be a 100-day honeymoon, the Obama administration is on a war footing. Make that a class-war footing.

The direct link: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/03/08/2009-03-08_obamas_search_for_an_enemy_the_president.html

Class warfare?   Using Democrat operatives to slay the vocal opponents of the White House?   By the President suggesting that what made America great (free enterprise, freedom of speech, healthy criticism of government and limited self-government) are longer necessary in the United States, we run the real risk of making the predictable left turn to European and Canadian social(istic) democracy.   When the President attacks lobbyists, special interests and business leaders verbally, and his Democratic operatives attempt to make conservative radio talk show hosts into villains, we are seeing a slide into socialism Obama style.   Most of us thought that the enemies of the American way were countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea, not our fellow citizens who have succeeded in their business endeavors, conservative talk shows or represent special interests?

© 2009, Jasper Welch,  Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org