Posted by
Patrick Henry on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:32:35 PM
In a startling and unprecedented series of railing attacks, Barack Obama and his White House cronies have
unleasehed unrelenting attacks on a news network (Fox), the Chamber of Commerce and the Health Insurance
Industry, attributing to them motives of greed and impugning their character as dishonest. Not since the days
of disgraced Richard Nixon has America seen a president embrace such a "bunker mentality," or degrade his
office by stooping to petty namecalling. There is little doubt that a civil (or uncivil) war of words is raging in
America less than a year into Obama's presidency. So what's up?
First, understand that it's not just a skirmish. It's serious business for both Obama and America. Not only has
he sent his director of communications, his chief of staff and his political advisor to blitz talk shows and friendly
media outlets with blanket condemnations of dissenters, he has made Mark Lloyd, a staunch Marxist who has
praised Hugo Chavez, publicly stated that he has no use for free speech and suggested that the "fairness doctrine"
does not go far enough, his czar for diversity at the Federal Communications Commission. One of Lloyd's first
gambits at the FCC has been to set up a panel of experts to evaluate balance and fairness in talk radio, It is no
coincidence that not a single conservative sits on that panel. It is a foregone conclusion that the panel will decide
that policies should be put in place to muzzle the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Mike Gallagher. Undoubtedly
conservative television networks and internet blogs will be next. Of course, institution of any such rules will
trigger massive lawsuits against the FCC that will end up being resolved in the Supreme Court. They have to
know that too, but the fact that they are pressing the issue anyway shows how desparate they are to stifle all
credible dissenrting voices. These guys are serious.
Second, it's important to understand that liberals are in a race against time. They know that a majority of
Americans (40%) consider themselves conservative in philosophy, while those considering themselves
liberal approximate only half of that. Given the radical nature of the agenda liberals are trying to impose,
and the backlash already building, they know they are operating on borrowed time. If they can stifle
dissent, even tenmporarily, they can buy more time to get their agenda enacted into law, some of which
may well be irreversible. When that conservative majority wakes up to the fact that Obama's idea of change
means remaking America after the image of socialist Europe, the game will be up.
Now, if you are in denial of these facts, you can blather on about how many more people there are calling
themselves Democrats than there are Republicans. But this isn't actually about Democrats and Republicans.
It's about liberals and conservatives. If you doubt that, just look at the battle over healthcare reform, who is
thwarting whom and how desperately Obama is trying to push it through before people even have time to
understand it.
Understand too, that there is a real warning in this for Republicans. They can no longer take my vote as
a conservative independent for granted. In the Bush years many of us believed their rhetoric, but once
elected they ran off to Washington, told us to kiss off and behaved just like liberal Democrats. Fool me once,
shame on you. But fool me twice? The proof that independents are ready to assert themselves as a political
force can be clearly seen in the strong showings of conservatives Marco Rubio in Florida and Doug Hoffman \
in New York, conservatives not backed by Republican leadership. The party's position seems to be to ask us
whether we wouldn't rather have a liberal Republican in office than a conservative Democrat, and the answer is
maybe not.
But the point is that once we lose the right to vocally disagree, on the air waves and in print with the
tyrannical demagogues in the Obama White House and anyone of any persuasion who comes after him,
the first amendment is null and void. Republicans can't win this war, but conservatives can. We need to
stand together and stand up. To succeed we have to listen to one another and not take one another for
granted. And we have to demand that all voices, even those with whom we may disagree, should be heard.
This is one war the president has to lose if America is going to win.