Obama Replaces the War on Terror with the War on Critics

For eight years Democrats pounded at the doors of D.C., throwing their own fecal matter around, and claiming that it was only a matter of time until Bush had them all rounded up for being unpatrotic. And like the frenzied mob at a Black Friday sale waiting for the doors to open, shoving and shoving against the glass, until the doors finally open, and the mob bursts through stomping over any store personnel in the way, Democrats have been completely unable to let go of the attack dog politics of the last 8 years and actually govern.

Instead what we've gotten is massive incompetence, massive malfeasance and an enemy of the month. When in doubt the motto of the Obama Administration has been, ATTACK SOMEONE. Whether it's Rush Limbaugh, Jim Cramer or Glenn Beck-- the party now in power, but still trapped in the vortex of their own hate, is obsessed with waging a war on all their enemies, both real and imaginary. Forget the E Pluribus Unum on the seal of the United States. The new motto is, They're all out to get me.

Putting the most radical Democrat in the race and his coterie of dot com brats, wannabe Marxists with homes in Chevy Chase and academic radicals, followed by an admiring train of media groupies, has only made the whole thing that much worse. Taking radicals who believe the government is out to get them into power is a historically proven way to get a government certain that the only way to build paradise is to destroy anyone who stands in their way.

Opponents of the Bush Administration often branded its War on Terror as being paranoid, an overreaching of executive power and a threat to civil liberties. Of being too paranoid and too willing to see enemies on all sides. With the Obama Administration however the War on Terror is now making way for a much higher priority conflict, one being fought against American citizens... the War on anyone who disagrees with them. If the Bush Administration had terror alerts, the Obama Administration has critic alerts.

Despite holding both Congress and the White House, in less than a year the Obama Administration is well on its way to becoming the most paranoid White House in American history. In less than a year, the Obama Administration has already launched major campaigns against talk radio and cable news hosts, threatened reporters who "crowd the plate", demanded that other news networks stop listening to the cable news network that is being critical of him, declared war on the Chamber of Commerce, threatened the AMA, threatened car dealers, threatened health insurance companies, thrown its backing behind a phony Anti-Israel lobby masquerading as a Pro-Israel lobby in order to displace the actual major Pro-Israel lobby, continued blaming all its financial missteps on the Bush Administration, gave away hundreds of billions to banks and auto companies only to turn around and blame them for mismanaging it-- and the list goes on and on.

There's one word for that kind of behavior, particularly for a party that has secured a veto proof majority and can pass just about any legislation it wants, no matter how destructive or even downright illegal -- crazy. After 8 years of being the opposition party, the Democrats have not adjusted to being in power. And while the Republicans have begun to learn to act like an opposition party--- the Democrats bizarrely enough also insist on acting like the opposition party. And what are they opposed to? Anyone who criticizes them or rejects any of their proposals.
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Democrats continue to hurl abuse at conservative media personalities, as if they were in charge of some Latin American banana republic, instead of a country with centuries of legislative tradition. And their approval ratings continue to sink further as a result, because what the radical regime of Mao admirers in D.C. can't seem to understand is that they were not elected to wage war on the Republicans-- no matter what their nutroots tell them, they were elected to address serious economic problems. And they have only made them much worse by treating the stimulus and bailout plans as loot for their donors, political allies and pet projects.

Democracy means having a voice of opposition always at your back. But by demanding the legislative privileges of the ruling party, combined with the attack politics of the opposition party- the Democrats have created an unholy mixture that is a surefire moonshine recipe for tyranny. Democracy is the right to dissent, and a ruling party that insists on waging a war against its critics using the leverage of two of the centers of governments, is severely undermining the right of dissent.

The most disturbing aspect of the Obama Administration's War on Critics is that it is directed primarily not at Republican politicians, but at media figures and ordinary citizens who show up at Town Hall meetings to voice their dissent. Had the Obama Administration directed its full fire at Michael Steele, John Boehner or at least potential 2012 opponents such as Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney, it would still be a profound waste of time and abuse of political power-- but it would not be nearly as dangerous as when it assails radio hosts or Town Hall protesters.

There is a fundamental difference between attacking political opponents in Congress, and attacking anyone in the general public or press who speaks out against your policies. An Administration that consistently does the latter is displaying dangerously paranoid behavior that can easily tip over into going beyond smear campaigns of intimidation and into taking direct action to forcibly suppress that same speech it does not like.

Politically the Democratic approach is failing. Limbaugh and Beck have only benefited from the White House's attempts to smear and silence them. And most Americans have not swallowed the bizarre claim that the Obama Administration can't get anything done because of its critics. While the Democrats continue acting as if Bush is in power and it's their solemn duty to destroy him, the actual burning issues go unaddressed. Democrats pretend that they can ignore the economy and the War, because those are supposedly legacies of the Bush Administration. The problem with that sort of delusional irresponsibility though is that voters expect solutions, and they don't expect them from Limbaugh or Beck, but from the folks living it up in D.C. on the taxpayer dollar.

The role of critics is to question. The role of government is to answer those critics, not with personalized smear campaigns and shunning, but by demonstrating that their policies actually work. The Obama Administration has been unable to do this, and with a sharply rising deficit, huge unemployment rates and no bang for all the stimulus and bailout bucks-- instead continues to try and silence the critics. But the United States is not Venezuela or Cuba, and unlike his ally Hugo Chavez, Obama cannot send troops to seize FOX News and turn it over to CNN. So instead he's doing the next best thing, and in the process sharply undermining the barriers that protect free speech and political dissent in America.