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Obama's Thunderdome Strategy - The president's goal is to make Republican ideas intolerable.
Wall Street Journal ^ | January 30, 2013 | Daniel Henninger

Posted on 01/30/2013 10:35:16 PM PST by neverdem

Few are the men and women in American public life who haven't heard Mr. Dooley's famous aphorism: "Politics ain't beanbag." John Boehner, currently serving out his community service as speaker of the House, appears to have been meditating on Mr. Dooley's cautionary wisdom. At the Ripon Society last week he said the Obama administration was trying "to annihilate the Republican Party."

Better late than never, Speaker Boehner now sees that Barack Obama's notion of political competition is Mad Max inside the Thunderdome: "Two men enter, one man leaves."

Last week during the president's second inaugural address, if one can employ that hallowed phrase to describe this speech, Mr. Obama used the occasion to defend entitlement programs by whacking his defeated presidential opponent: "They do not make us a nation of takers."

This was the second time Mr. Obama used a traditionally elevated forum to take down his opposition. His 2010 State of the Union speech will be remembered in history for nothing other than an attack on members of the Supreme Court seated before him. Justice Samuel Alito's whispered "Not true" would prove a prophetic comment on the Obama modus operandi.

Subsequent targets of the president's contempt have included the members of Congress's deficit-reduction supercommittee, the Ryan budget ("antithetical to our entire history"), repeated attacks on the "well off" and bankers, and famously a $100 million dump-truck of vilification on Mitt Romney.

When he won, the rationalization was that it was all a shrewd if brutal campaign strategy. But it kept coming. What is striking about the Obama technique is that it's not so much criticism as something closer to political obliteration, driving his opposition out of the political arena altogether.

--snip--

If the opposition is looking for one word to shape its role now, it would be this: Dissent.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 113th; bho44; classless; henninger; hewillpay; noclass; obama
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To: skully

“RINOS apparently believe in not believing in anything. Lukewarm, spit from mouth.”

RINOS believe in feathering their own nests and assimilating into network of like minded associates who will give them high paying consulting or lobbying jobs if the voters ever throw them out of office. It is the ultimate backscratching club they join when they arrive in Congress.


21 posted on 01/31/2013 3:41:24 AM PST by Soul of the South
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To: neverdem
"They do not make us a nation of takers."

MAybe not; but it DOES make you a President of VOTEBUYING; and Buster - that is ILLEGAL!

22 posted on 01/31/2013 4:23:36 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: neverdem
None of this radical and extreme behavior in a President would even be thinkable IF the MSM would function, in fact, as the watchdog of the peoples' interest.

THIS is what you get with a state run media AND a leader who acts independently and totally without regard for the Constitution or any precedent whatsoever.

Thank you Liberal America!

23 posted on 01/31/2013 4:24:29 AM PST by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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To: TigersEye

We survived the BullMoose party in 1912 (no one was bitten) and we’ll probably survive the BullCrap one we have now.


24 posted on 01/31/2013 4:25:51 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: CitizenUSA
I’m not saying they wouldn’t eventually resort to violence if they had to, but why bother when there are other means to silence the vast majority of us?

Monkey Wrench Gang

You can only be silenced thru intimidation.

I do not think that is a one-way street.

25 posted on 01/31/2013 6:28:42 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: AZLiberty
It barely gets a mention in the papers.

It would if they'd marched on the WP, and sealed it off from the outside world!

26 posted on 01/31/2013 6:29:40 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Kickass Conservative
March for Life, 500,000 in attendance, not a blip on the radar.

Wrong place.

That many folks could SURROUND an awful lot of 'providers'; thereby keeping Choosy Mothers from their appointed meeting with DEATH.

27 posted on 01/31/2013 6:31:36 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: SMARTY
...IF the MSM would function, ...

Sorry; but it IS functioning: exactly like it's OWNERs want!

We have GOT to buy back the media!

28 posted on 01/31/2013 6:32:59 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Olog-hai

I will see your “intolerable”

and raise you “Free Stuff” and an “obamaphone”


29 posted on 01/31/2013 6:34:31 AM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: factoryrat

The best strategy at this point would be to work through your state government and

IGNORE THEM.


30 posted on 01/31/2013 6:36:08 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: neverdem

How about we call reporters “communists”?

we have gloria vanderbilt’s son doing a second amendment bashing fest on cnn later today.


31 posted on 01/31/2013 6:40:52 AM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: neverdem

BUMP


32 posted on 01/31/2013 7:07:41 AM PST by Roses0508
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To: Elsie

Maybe. There are no guarantees about it at all. At any rate I was speaking of the politics going on not the nation in general.


33 posted on 01/31/2013 10:22:26 AM PST by TigersEye (The irresponsible should not be leading the responsible.)
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