Bill O'Reilly's interview of President Obama prior to yesterday's Super Bowl was very interesting. The president's trying to convince us all that he's a center-left kind of guy. Leaves me saying to myself, HUH?
I'll get back to that but first wanted to remark about another subject they covered. O'Reilly asked him how it feels to be on the receiving end of people's ire, in particular any feelings of hate toward him. (A big reason O'Reilly asked that is because O'Reilly receives much hate himself, including death threats.) One of Obama's responses was interesting: "The folks who hate you, they don't know you." If he believes that and, apparently he does, then why does he think it only applies to Democratic leadership? How is it that someone who feels that way about hate (hating someone without knowing them) can encourage hateful attitudes toward those of us on The Right as he did his first two years in office? "Sit and be quiet" he said. There's plenty of irrational and vile hate from The Left toward tea-party types but I guess he has no problem with that. Must think it's justified, eh? Even though the hateful ones don't understand us and don't care to. Hypocritical isn't it? Not to mention being totally unfair to others in ways he doesn't want them to be unfair to him. For a guy who doesn't like to receive harsh judgement when someone doesn't know him very well, he sure can dish it out. Being fair to people is a one-way street with him.
We hear hateful things directed at us all the time when all we're doing is expressing a belief and challenging the liberals' actions. We take it rather well by comparison I think. Mr. President, either deal with hate from all sides fairly and forcefully or just stop whining.
As for Obama saying he's not as liberal as people have portrayed him to be, he's been a proud leader of progressive legislation for the past two years. A very reasonable argument can be made that he's at least a border-line socialist. He does(!) believe that government IS the solution to most if not all of our big problems. And then has the audacity to compare himself with Reagan who said (and believed) "government IS the problem". To believe he's not very liberal, one has to ignore his voting record as a senator, his legislation from his first two years in office, his actual words about things like 'redistribution of wealth', and much else he has said and done his entire political life. Of course it's a ridiculous notion to consider him anything but quite far left politically. Just how gullible does he think we are? Pretty gullible, eh?
The ONLY reason he's claiming he's not so far left is because of last November's election. One thing he is NOT is stupid. He's a really smart guy. Give him credit for that! To the extent people believe what he has said and done for his entire political life, especially as president, there's little liklihood that he can get re-elected in 2012. (Gads! That's next year!) He's smart and he's pragmatic. For sure(!) he'll say whatever's necessary to get elected regardless how untrue it is. And he'll "move" ONLY as far right legislatively as necessary to get re-elected. He's done it before (as before his last election) and there's no reason to believe he won't do it again. Besides being smart, he's pragmatic. Completely idiological but pragmatic too. The problem with it is that he makes a strong effort to hide where his heart lies politically. It's next to impossible to measure this man based on what he tells us. His political actions and maneuvering speak volumes when examined carefully.
I like to make a what-if argument to help understand truth in situations like this. In the case of his pronouncements that he's not all that liberal, I like to imagine what will happen after the 2012 election if he's re-elected and Democrats regain full control of both the House and Senate, including a veto-proof majority at least in the senate. Is there ANY doubt whatsoever that he'd head off in the same direction again as he labored his first two years? C'mon, be realistic. Can you doubt at all that he'd operate at least as progressively? Even more so probably because it would be his last opportunity (term limits) to make so much 'progress' for the progressive movement. Use your head people! Of course he would! There can be no doubt about it whatsoever.
The only reason he's willing to work with Republicans now is because he has to! Yes, it is more than lip service but, he's a pragmatic guy who knows what's required in order to leave office with historic progressive accomplishments behind him. He wants to out-progressive Hoover and Roosevelt, plain and simple. The only way he can do that is to get re-elected next year, along with Democrats regaining control of the House and veto-proof control of the senate. He will be totally committed to doing the best he can to ensure it happens, no matter how far right he has to 'act' in the meantime. And it will be an act. Then, after the 2012 elections, he'll resume his quest of becoming a progressive legend regardless what it does to our freedom and the constitutional(!) principle of small government and little debt.
He likes to promote transparency and then do the opposite. He likes to think we believe his words (that he saw the light in the last election and will change) and not his actions (how he has lived his entire political life). And he likes to think we're so stupid that we can't see who he really is. While his legislation is anything but transparent, he's one of the most transparent people I know. The emporer wears a mask to fool The People but has no clothes.
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