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Barack Obama: The Great Divider

by

As we celebrate today one of the greatest accomplishments of the most accomplished president of the second half of the twentieth century, it becomes incumbent on ourselves to contrast his rhetoric with that of the current incumbent.  Whereas Ronald Reagan reserved his greatest venom for the enemies of the United States, Barack Obama reserves his for the adversaries of the Democratic Party and the opponents of his ideology.

We have seen him repeatedly blame his predecessor for the difficulties of the job for which he spent two years campaigning to get.  Nixon never blamed, at least not in public, Johnson for leaving him a mismanaged war in Vietnam.  Once in office, FDR didn’t remind Americans of the failings of his predecessor, instead he appealed to the best in their nature — and this nation.

And now, if this quote from Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon is accurate, we’ve got the current President of the United States using a derogatory and juvenile term to dismiss the concerns of increased government control over health care:

Mr. Obama, during his private pep talk to Democrats, recognized Mr. Owens election and then posed a question to the other lawmakers. According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

Emphasis in original, hat tip to Ed Driscoll.  This Democrat uses more divisive rhetoric, far more divisive, than his polarizing predecessor.  Some new kind of politician that.

Ronald Reagan may have been the Great Communicator.  The man who currently occupies his old office has become the Great Divider.

UPDATE:Just moments after posting this piece, I caught something similar at Powerline, Obama’s

 tone is nearly always moderate but what he hints at and what he intimates by way of body language often convey the opposite Witness his warm embrace of Hugo Chavez. Behind the thin veneer of politeness, there is, I suspect, something ugly lurking. In the first of the autobiographies that he claims to have written, Barack Obama frequently speaks of himself as being in the grips of rage. We would do well to take him at his word. 

Read the whole thing!

Comments

  1. “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

    What happened to “listening”? What happened to “the other side has a point”?

    If the Dear Reader did listen, he might find that people simply don’t want further government control of health care. Nor new taxes. Nor the further deficit increases that the Dear Reader’s plans must and will entail, even with all the new taxes of the Baucus and Pelosi plans.

  2. (continued) …And then He wouldn’t get to do what he wants to do. (Which is, to increase the role of government and of Himself in people’s lives.) So that answers my question. For Obama, “listening” stops the second it means he might not get his way.

  3. By now, it has been pointed out over and over again that calling protesters “teabaggers” is a way of insulting them by using a sexual slur.

    For the president of the United States to use the term to describe citizens with a differing point of view is not only offensive, it is disturbing.

  4. That is just the state of politics, cause its been venomous on both sides since I can remember, though that’s only like since…2002 maybe. I think one of the worse things about modern politics is the personal attacks and hyperbolic statements about the opposing side.

    Its not meant to excuse what he said or what anyone said, but it seems to be part of the game now.

  5. DER, what do you remember about Bush doing the equivalent of Obama in calling his legitimate opponents “teabag” people? Can you come up with a Bush quote which sinks to that level?

  6. Accordingly, Reagan spoke formally and repeatedly of deploying against criminal regimes the one weapon they fear more than military or economic sanction: the publicly-spoken truth about their moral absurdity, their ontological weakness. This was the sort of moral confrontation, as countless dissidents and resisters have noted, that makes these regimes conciliatory, precisely because it heartens those whom they fear most—their own oppressed people. Reagan’s understanding that rhetorical confrontation causes geopolitical conciliation led in no small part to the wall’s collapse 20 years ago today.

    The current administration, most recently with overtures to Iran’s rulers and the Burmese generals, has consistently demonstrated that all its impulses are the opposite of Reagan’s. Critics who are worried about the costs of economic policies adopted in the last 10 months might consider as well the impact of the administration’s systematic accommodation of criminal regimes and the failure to understand what “good vs. evil” rhetoric can do.

    Anthony R. Dolan

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704795604574522163362062796.html

    ’nuff said.

  7. Whereas Ronald Reagan reserved his greatest venom for the enemies of the United States, Barack Obama reserves his for the adversaries of the Democratic Party and the opponents of his ideology.

    That is a fantastic line! I would love to hear it from the next Republican presidential nominee. So true. But the frightening fact is that Obama has his harshest words for conservatives because as a Marxist he has more in common with Chavez, Castro, and America’s enemies than he does with American conservatives.

    Remember this is a man who is on tape decrying the constitution and how it doesn’t do enough to redistribute wealth and establish powers that the government must assert over the people.

    He IS Hugo Chavez.

  8. #5 I didn’t say Bush did, I was talking more about political discourse in general. I said I wasn’t making an excuse for Obama either, and to be fair, this was not intended to be a public statement either. I am sure he figured that would not leave the room, but then you can’t even trust you own it seems. I wouldn’t doubt that Bush has said somethings in private that he wouldn’t want to get out either.

    I see what your point is, that he is the president and should probably be more aware of what he says. I am just giving him a benefit of the doubt that he was trying to rally the troops and it was meant to stay private.

  9. ” …and to be fair, this was not intended to be a public statement either.”

    Speaking to an assembled group of politicians is not private.

    Plus he attacked his opposition with a sexual slur, which even if private is still beneath the president.

    Bush caught days of flak for ‘major league’ which is minor league compared to associating someone with a mouthful of testicle.

  10. Say what you will I’m just glad Obama is going to give me and my 200 employees free health care. How soon will that start? I hope next week. Some of my folks aren’t feeling well.