Frank Rich: Weak Obama Suffers from 'Stockholm Syndrome' for Agreeing to Extend Bush Tax Cuts

NewsBusters ^ | December 6, 2010 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

It appears that President Obama is about to approve the extension of the Bush tax cuts and this has sent liberals into a frenzy. How to explain it? Well, Frank Rich of the New York Times has a very creative explanation: a weak Barack Obama has been spiritually kidnapped by Republicans and is now suffering from Stockholm Syndrome which allows him to sympathize with his captors. Here is Rich explaining it in "All the President's Captors" at his entertaining best:

THOSE desperate to decipher the baffling Obama presidency could do worse than consult an article titled “Understanding Stockholm Syndrome” in the online archive of The F.B.I. Law Enforcement Bulletin. It explains that hostage takers are most successful at winning a victim’s loyalty if they temper their brutality with a bogus show of kindness. Soon enough, the hostage will start concentrating on his captors’ “good side” and develop psychological characteristics to please them — “dependency; lack of initiative; and an inability to act, decide or think.” 

This dynamic was acted out — yet again — in President Obama’s latest and perhaps most humiliating attempt to placate his Republican captors in Washington. No sooner did he invite the G.O.P.’s Congressional leaders to a post-election White House summit meeting than they countered his hospitality with a slap — postponing the date for two weeks because of “scheduling conflicts.” But they were kind enough to reschedule, and that was enough to get Obama to concentrate once more on his captors’ “good side.” 

[PJ-Comix]

Barack Obama's brain has been captured by Republicans. That is the explanation perpetrated by Frank Rich. Very entertaining.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Hey! Frank!

We won!

[JohnBrowdie]

hostage? up until this moment, obama's party has held both houses of congress for every moment of his presidency. who is holding him hostage?

that's just beyond silly.

[PetroniusMaximus]

Oh this is just...

... too Rich!!!

Ha!!!!!

[reagan_fanatic]

LOL! That’s a new one. Thanks for the morning laugh!

[MrB]

“dependency; lack of initiative; and an inability to act, decide or think.”

He was this way LONG before the 2010 election. The man behind the curtain has been pulling his strings for much longer than that.

[Servant of the Cross]

Hey, Frank, that’s rich! LOL!

[FrankR]

First of all, Rich's decision to become a journalist shows a weak ego and low intelligence...not exactly the kind of source i would rely on for a lesson on the "Stockholm Syndrome".

Obama is siding with the Republicans because since the elections we have handed him his ass on a platter, and his narcissism is crying the blues over his loss of his original popularity.

His rabid leftist followers want him to dive in the pit with no one there to catch him...and president sissy is too scared to do that...I mean, he's already got a busted lip and a bruised ego.

My advice to the liberals is to suck it up, nothing is happening to obama that he didn't do to the GOP when he had control...he's just not man enough to take it. And you little angry liberals - well, YOU elected him.

[andy58-in-nh]

I find some irony in the possibility that Rich mistakes Obama's narcissism for "Stockholm Syndrome" because like the President, he perpetually casts himself as a victim (of the eeeee-villl Right Wing). Besides, he was a drama queen even when he served as the Times' theater critic.

[PATRIOT1876]

* President Obama’s latest and perhaps most humiliating attempt to placate his Republican captors in Washington.*

BooHoo!

We're all cryin’ our eyes out on our great big pillows.

Maybe the flunker of Econ 101 heard, or was advised, that lower taxes will spur the economy despite what he has believed all his life about the wildly successful Soviet Union's spectacular economic policies.

If the economy improves, he has a chance of getting reelected.

[Silentgypsy]

Isn’t he a narcissistic idealogue, a state which, by definition, precludes susceptibility to the attitudes/opinions of others? Don’t you attribute it to malicious subversiveness? Hey, I picked this stuff up on FR and the posted articles. Cognitive dissonance.

[Dr. Thorne]

Frank Rich, the former theater critic for the NY Times, thinks we should pay more in taxes. Of course, he himself has every opportunity to do so.

Will Frank Rich release his tax returns to the general public as an example of someone who believes in higher taxes and, therefore, pays more voluntarily?

If Rich voluntarily paid a 50% federal income tax rate, then I would have some respect for his position. However, I would be willing to make a rather large wager that he pays the bare minimum that the law allows... like the rest of us.

One more smug, elitist hypocrite.

[BiggieLittle]

If you cut taxes you should cut spending. If you cut taxes and don’t cut spending you haven’t cut taxes you’ve just deferred them. Basically you’ve transferred the taxes to future tax payers and future generations. The spending has to be paid for one way or another.

What’s being debated in Congress is not a tax cut but a tax deferral. It’s a screw job on the next generation.