Back to the 70s: First, Attack Your Allies

He hasn't called anyone an "evildoer" or denounced an "axis of evil." But make no mistake: President Obama is putting together an enemies list...Obama's search for an enemy: The President beating the class warfare drum, Michael Goodwin, NY Daily News, 3/8/2009

That list grew by one from an urban-standard liberal tabloid with this column.

Strangely, though, those on it are not terrorists or foreign dictators. They are mostly Americans lucky enough to have succeeded through capitalism and democracy...(Obama's search for an enemy...(cont'd))

It's a funny thing about a political enemies list. When the enemies are also enemies of the United States, it's a normal activity to maintain such a file; indeed, for the President it's a constitutional mandate. When the enemies are personal, however, one thinks back to Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, whose exercise of the paranoid style in politics still makes this writer cringe.

Obama has expressed little interest in prosecuting those who cooked the books to make billions and undermined the financial system. Nor is he interested in rebuking Congress, including leading members of his own party, who fostered destructive lending and borrowing policies. He seems comfortable with his aides, including those who saw nothing amiss in their former roles as Wall Street players and regulators...Obama's class-war language...looks like selective anger, calculated to stoke public emotion to build support for his expansive agenda...which revolves around a dramatic increase in Washington power, relies on tax hikes on the same successful businesses and individuals he denounces...First he demonizes them, then he taxes them...(Obama's search for an enemy...(cont'd))

One hopes that being on an enemies list is still as fashionable in New York City as it was thirty-five years ago. If Goodwin has invited himself in, one suspects that more will follow into the club.

Luther