Fighting Obama's Fire With Fire of Our Own

Townhall.com ^ | April 21, 2010 | Ben Shapiro

[Kaslin]

President Obama is nothing if not a clever operator. He accepts $994,795 in campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs -- then turns around when it's convenient and uses them as a model for why we need to heavily regulate the financial sector. He accepts the support of the gay community during the election cycle -- then turns around and delays the implementation of "don't ask, don't tell" for as long as humanly possible. He accepts the support of the Jewish community -- then turns around and attempts to force Israel to surrender to Iran and her terrorist allies.

Some people would call this two-faced. Chicagoans call this business as usual.

For the first time, however, President Obama is facing the wrath of a growing majority of Americans who aren't part of his favored constituency groups. It's one thing for him to tamp down the anger of financial backers or gays or Jews. It's quite another for him to quell the rage of Americans who despise his destructive agenda.

The tea party embodies that rage, and Obama isn't quite sure what to do about it. He tried to co-opt it, suggesting that tea partiers were truly the same disaffected Americans who had elected him: "The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry and they're frustrated."

Americans didn't buy that, largely because it's moronic. So Obama tried another tactic -- he had his lackeys label the tea partiers as a bunch of violent racists. First, he had black congressmen state, without any evidence to back them up, that tea partiers called them the n-word. Then he had the media pick up that meme and supplement it with the lie that tea partiers are violent criminals.

MSNBC has been the most vocal Obama brown-noser on this point, running segment after segment asking whether tea partiers are more or less morally bankrupt than Nazis. Matthew Perry (in the early "Friends" years) look-alike Rachel Maddow suggested that tea partiers wore "white hoods." Keith Olbermann, the slightly less masculine version of Maddow, called tea partiers "Tea Klux Klan" (because Tea sounds so much like Ku, get it? … well, at least Keith's cats thought that was funny).

It's not just MSNBC. Joe Klein of Time magazine says that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are "seditious." Bill Clinton -- a man who thought it was more important to nail Monica in the Oval Office than to nail Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan -- says that tea partiers are just like Timothy McVeigh.

There's only one problem: this isn't working either.

So President Obama has come up with a third strategy. This one is far more insidious and far more brilliant than the first two tired manipulations. This one plays on the latent ideological weakness of the Republican Party.

So far, the tea partiers and the Republican Party have been almost universally on the same side. Republican leaders have done their best to get out in front of the tea party movement, suggesting that their principles are the same as the tea party's and that they stand united against the socialist Obama agenda.

That may be true for many Republicans. It's certainly not true for all of them. And that's how Obama plans to win.

He plans to push legislation that will receive a small base of support from liberal Republicans, incentivizing the tea partiers to abandon the GOP come November. He's looking for another McCain Effect, when conservatives were so disaffected by their nominee that they stayed home and allowed Obama to be elected.

Obama's plan starts with cap and trade and immigration.

Many pundits are scratching their heads that President Obama seems to want to push two unpopular bills through the Senate, even in the midst of an economic downturn. The reason is simple: He wants to show tea partiers that their interests do not align with those of the GOP. He wants to dispirit us.

And he might well succeed. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is a backer of both. Few other elected Republicans back cap and trade, but many back immigration reform. If they do, tea partiers will walk away from them the way so many have already walked away from the Republican National Committee.

Here's what the GOP needs to do: All congressional Republicans must sign an open letter to Graham and any other wavering Republican demanding that they embrace the conservative movement. At the very least, this will disassociate conservative Republicans from non-conservative Republicans. At the most, it will convince the liberal Republicans to get in line. It's time for Republicans to stand together on conservatism, not based on party label. United they stand -- divided they fall.

And here's what we need to do: Hold Obama's feet to the fire by holding the GOP's feet to the fire. Anything less, and Obama will have his victory.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

And lest we not forget the fourth strategy concocted recently by Babs Boxer: Democrats must be more like Tea Partiers.

[Buckeye McFrog]

My sense is that the Tea Parties are willing to give the GOP one, and precisely ONE more shot. They will be on a very tight leash. If they get control and revert to their mushy RINO ways, we will be looking at an historic realignment with the emergence of a very dynamic third party. The downside is that this will likely allow the Dems to rule with an iron-fisted 41% plurality until the GOP finally dies and goes away with the Whigs. But that situation is not too different from what we have today.

[originalbuckeye]

We need to shout out loud....THEIR TACTIC OF RIDICULE WILL NOT STAND. When Conservatives learn that ridicule is the only thing left in their playbook we will gain ground even faster. Saul Alinsky said ‘ridicule is difficult to counter’. Right now the Dems in Arizona are using ridicule against the ‘Birther Bill’. Saying this bill, which would require anyone running for President to present a long form birth certificate before gaining a position on the Arizona ballot, will make Arizona the laughingstock of the country. The Dems complaint against suing the Feds about the Healthcare Bill.......’it is a waste of taxpayer money’ never acknowledging the Bill itself will bankrupt Arizona. The Dems have nothing but ridicule, no honesty, no solutions to the USA’s biggest problems. Wake up Conservatives and start countering the ridicule!

[cricket]

We need as well, to follow a KISS OFFENSE strategy. . .

[sport]

As far as destructive agenda goes, he hasn’t even begun yet. Wait until the provisions in obama care begin to kick in. I won’t even mention student laons, cap and trade, VAT, NASA, to name a few. But then again, who am I to complain, that is what the traitors that elected him wanted, that is what they are going to get.

[revo evom]

I hope they push as many controversial things through Congress as possible, the more the better. People need to see the liberals clearly and that means understanding the consequences of what they do when they have government power.

The real danger for conservatives and hence, the Republic, is our political apathy. The more voters settle down, the more the outrage fades, the better it is for obama.

The more mad voters of all stripes are, the more conservatives fear the direction the country is being taken, the better the elections will go for America.

[Walkingfeather]

Every election year the GOP acts like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown (conservatives). Every time we fall for it and end up on our back as the GOP gets elected with our votes and then undermines the very principles we value that got them elected.

We need a carrot and a stick for those we vote for. We need to have a clear and vivid knife at the throat of those who ask for a vote on a daily basis. So often we want to vote and not think about what the bastards are doing in DC. We need a way to be all over these people like a bad suit.

[marstegreg]

If they are too stupid to realize they are being played, then they don’t deserve to be in office. Personally, I liked the strategy of the GOP to say no to everything until we can vote in some back up. Let the Dems own ALL if it. If the gop owns any of it, he will use it against them, much the way they (still) blame Bush for EVERYTHING. They are willingly making themselves scapegoats. Bad strategy.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

My sense is that the Tea Parties are willing to give the GOP one, and precisely ONE more shot.

Battered-wife syndrome. Just as she will never learn, neither will the GOP supporters.

[gathersnomoss]

If the GOP does not provide a conservative candidate, I bolt. We here in Virginia made it happen. The RNC must react in kind, or they can go to hell.

[cake_crumb]

What good would pledges do now? RINOs had a YEAR to at least pretend to be with the program. Any that have to be coerced into signing some pledge at this point are only bound to break it.