Audacity of Hope 2, The Scent of BO

One of the hardest things about BO is going to be to pin him down (kinda like "where is that coming from?"). He makes Slick Willie look positively "direct" by comparison. He tries to come off as a sort of "Rational Liberal" as kind of a book-end to W's "Compassionate Conservative". If voting Democrat when you were young proved you had a heart, and voting Republican as you matured proved you had a brain, W and now BO say "We are BOTH a floor wax AND a desert topping, have your heart, have your head, vote for us".

I believe that W actually was a "uniter" with his attempts to improve education for all Americans and "leave no child behind", very expensive drug benefits for Seniors and spending for lots of favorite lefty programs, the Democrats decided early on that they were going to fight him tooth and nail, and in the end, all of his "olive branches" amounted to nothing but alienation of his far right base while not gaining a vote in the middle-thus a 30% President.

The media will go all the way to make BO seem as moderate as they can, but the book is relatively clear that he is looking to find SOME way to get rid of any last vestiges of Republicans and gives a few hints as to how:

• Make sure to play the race card for all it is worth while not seeming to play it. On page 27 he gives the famous Johnson statement that as transmitted to that bastion of reliability Bill Moyers, that with the stroke of a pen he had just delivered the South to the GOP for the forseeable future. On the next page though, he admits that "most Southern Democratic Congressmen who chose to stay in party would retain their seats on the strength of incumbency". The nice thing about being a liberal is that an obviously incorrect statement (the Democrats held the House of Representatives until 1994) can be used over to make the even grander point that "Republican's are racist". It is a nice game if you have the MSM on your side and not a lot of critical thinkers in your constituency.
• So why were so many people "misled" to vote Republican? "The violence in the streets and the excuses for such violence in intellectual circles, blacks moving in next door and white kids bused across town, the burning of flags and spitting on vets, all of it seemed to insult and diminish, if not assault, those things-family, faith, flag, neighborhood, and for some at least, white privilege-that they held most dear. NOTE, it only "seemed to insult and diminish" and he mentions race twice here. I imagine that disagreement with the "Pope of Hope" here is tantamount to racism in itself. The evil right as been warned.
• "...as disturbed as I might have been by Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, as unconvinced as I might have been by his John Wayne, Father Knows Best pose, his policy by anecdote, and his gratuitous assaults on the poor, I understood his appeal." Naturally, BO has no "pose"-unless all knowing, all seeing, perfectly correct on all issues isn't in fact true, but I don't see how that could be. He IS the messiah isn't he? Very much of a "uniter" to try to claim that Reagan made "gratuitous assaults on the poor"-Slick Willie must have REALLY been guilty on that front, he signed welfare reform. "Reagan spoke to America's longing for order, our need to believe that we are not simply subject to blind, impersonal forces but that we can shape our individual and collective destinies..." So I assume that BOs view is that we ARE simply subject to these forces and we CAN'T shape our destinies? We need BO to do that for us I imagine-apparently omnipotence comes with his omniscience.
• "It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off politics. This is not a problem for the right; a polarized electorate-one that easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate-works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government. After all, a cynical electorate is a self-centered electorate." Hmm, Both Reagan and Bush presided over HUGE increases in government spending. The turnout in at least 2004 was a long term record and Bush won something that Clinton NEVER did, over 50% of the popular vote with much larger turnouts than Clinton. By making claims about the right that are clearly false, isn't BO trying a little "polarization" on his own? Since he is omniscient, he can't be just "mistaken", so isn't he being "nasty, dishonest and cynical" as he makes these claims that he must know to be false?

I could go on, but basically the only thing new about BOs leftism is that it is re-branded as being less ruthless and "all about BO" than the Clinton's brand--being less ruthless and narcissistic than the Clinton's isn't really all that much of a trick, and they had 8 years in the WH to really hone their sorry act. BO is just getting going, I expect a definite unmistakable stench increase. Just this week we find that he is using "campaign talk" to claim that he would get out of NAFTA, while telling Canada he would do no such thing. When reporters focused on this and the buddy that helped him buy his house, sold him some land for a good price and gave him $150K for campaigns (on the books), he walked out of the press conference.

Beneath the thin veneer of obfuscation beats the heart of a really shifty SOB that certainly is at least just as much concerned about the "vast right wing conspiracy" as old Hillie. Naturally, the NYT, NPR, ABC, CBS, etc are "unbiased" and there is no such thing as "the left". Same old worldview, new smile and more explicit press worshipfulness. We have the seeds of fascism, let us hope we don't smell the flower.