Remember the time when Obama branded AIG execs “suicide bombers” and threatened them with pitchfork-wielding mobs? Those AIG execs can rest easy for a while. The left’s ever-spinning wheel of scapegoating – the necessary relief valve for any utopian movement that creepily coalesces around a Dear Leader – has temporarily landed on a new target:
“The war’s on,” says Rep. Baron P. Hill, and he’s not talking about a conflict overseas, but a battle over health care in his own back yard, where thousands of people are trying to tell him what to do, some not so nicely… One thing Hill is not doing is holding public town-hall meetings like those at which opponents have heckled members of Congress. He held at least six unannounced meetings with constituents last week and is mulling a day-long series of one-on-one meetings or a telephone conference call. “I’m trying to control the event,” Hill said… “What I don’t want to do is create an opportunity for the people who are political terrorists to blow up the meeting and not try to answer thoughtful questions.”
How dare political constituents try to tell their elected representatives what to do? The nerve. Though apparently there was a time when that sort of thing was celebrated by liberal journalists and academics. Historians the period “the Bush administration.”
Here’s a passage from an academic journal criticizing the Bush administration for using “War on Terror” rhetoric to “demonize enemies to serve as scapegoats for unifying the nation.” Academic scrutiny of Presidential rhetoric has for some reason been a little more lax since Obama took office. Which is a little weird because Obama is the President who made “unity” into a brand. You’d think the “fascism” criticisms would be similar:
A cluster of characteristics commonly associated with fascism include deploying the themes and imagery of the nation’s dominant religion for propaganda purposes, demonizing enemies to serve as scapegoats for unifying the nation, appealing repetitively and blatantly to nationalism and patriotism, pandering to fear and national security, undermining human and civil rights, militarizing society while expanding the power of law enforcement agencies, favoring a corporate culture of business and industrial power while suppressing labor, controlling news media and stifling dissent, and promoting an expansionist foreign policy.
In fairness nobody can really accuse Obama of suppressing labor. The part about “appealing repetitively and blatantly to nationalism and patriotism” gets a little more dicey:
I guess the Democrats have really decided to go nuclear in support of ObamaCare. In the face of massive protests at townhall meetings as elected officials face their constituents, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have a new strategy to avoid accountability. They simply have decided to call protests “un-American.” No, I’m not kidding, and they did it in print… “However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland… These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.
Yeah. Effigies. Outrageous.
References:
* Obama: AIG Is Like A Suicide Bomber. One Of Those Bad Suicide Bombers. [MR]
* Obama To Bankers He’s Been Scapegoating: I’m “The Only Thing Between You And The Pitchforks” [MR]
* Michelle Obama Recites Profession Of Faith To Obama Disciples: “With His Own Power And Will, He Can Fix It” (Plus: Erica Jong: “Blood Will Run” If America Rejects Obama)
* Key Democrat Feels the Heat After Voting for House Plan [WaPo]
* Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Remember when protest was patriotic? [Glenn Reynolds]
* The Rhetoric of Bush’s War on Evil [Robert Ivie / KB Journal]
* Hoyer, Pelosi call protests against ObamaCare “un-American” [Hot Air]
* Catalog Of Mind-Blowing Liberal Hypocrisy Now Includes Manufactured Outrage Over Effigies [MR]
Previously:
* Obama To Lawmakers Concerned About Health Care: Stop Talking
* Shh… Massachusetts Proves Mandate-Based Health Reform Will Be A Disaster
* Obama Pollsters Now Bragging About Their Poll-Tested Scapegoating
