Peggy Noon: Obama's Enemies

Peggy Noonan: Obama’s Enemies
In pursuit of the truth - cinops be gone - Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013

Again another classic from Peggy Noon in the Opinion Section of Wall Street Journal, Jan. 26/27/2013

Preface: I believe it is a badge of honor to be on Obama’s enemy list. I know it is all the Republicans but believe me it is also it also includes Christians, conservative, independent, libertarian or even pro-life Democrats. We will be facing this most divisive U.S. President for the next four years. Thanks to his Pravda news media, he would never have gotten elected. How to deal with that reality is always on my mind? On the subject of reality Mark Steyn has an excellent article in Sunday’s Orange County Register, Jan. 27, 2013. - Benghazi Hearings - Hillary lip-synced more than Beyonce.

“Finally, it became obvious this week that the Republican party top to bottom has to start taking Barack Obama seriously. All the famous criticism of him are true: He has not talent for or interest in sustained, good-faith negotiations, he has no real sense of alarm about the great issues of the day, America’s debt. He is a chill presence in a warm-blooded profession.

“But he means business. He means to change America in fundamental ways and along the lines of justice as he sees it. The proper response to such a man is not is not - was not - that he’s a Muslim, he’s a Kenyan, he is working out his feelings about colonialism. Those charges were meant to marginalize him. They damaged Republicans, who came to see him as easy to defeat.

“He doesn’t care if you like him - he’d just as soon you did, but it is not necessary for him. He is certain he is right in what he is doing, which is changing the economic balance between rich and poor. The rich are going to be made less rich, and those who are needy and request help are going to get more in government services, which the rich will pay for. He’d just a soon the middle class not get lost in the shuffle, but if they wind up marginally less middle class he won’t be up nights. The point is redistribution.

“The great long-term question is the effect the change in mood he seeks to institute will have on what used to be called the national character. Eight years is almost half a generation. Don’t you change people when you tell them they have an absolute right to government support regardless of their efforts? Don’t you encourage dependence and a bitter sense of entitlement? What about the wearing of tax payers, especially those who are younger, do not fully understand that what is supporting them is actually coming from other people. To them it seems to come from ‘the government’ the big marble machine far away that prints money…. “You didn’t build that are the defining words of his presidency.”

“He is not going to negotiate, compromise, cajole. Absent these efforts his only path to primacy in Congress is to kill the Republican party, to pulverize it, as John Dickerson noted this week in Slate, to “attempt to annihilate the Republican Party,” as Speaker John Boehner said in a remarkable candid speech to the Ripon Society….

“What Mr. Obama really is Franklin Delano without the landslides. He has the same seriousness of intent but nothing like the base of support. In 1932, FDR won the presidency with 58% of the vote to Herbert Hoover’s 40%. In 1936, it was even better: Roosevelt won with 61% of the vote to Alf Landon’s 36.5%. “In 2008, Mr. Obama beat John McCain solidly, 53% to 46%. But last year against a woe begotten GOP candidate, he won just 51% of the vote to Mitt Romney 47%. (Yes: ironic) His support went down not up. [2 % must have gone to third party candidates. ghk]

“He is moving forward as if he has FDR’s mandate and attempting to crush his enemy every bit as ruthlessly as FDR, who was one ruthless patrician. It will take guts and unity to fight him. Can the GOP, just in Washington for now develop those things?”

George H. Kubeck, How about locally? Let get together at the Long Beach Towne Center [605 Freeway and Carson St.] Chick-Fil-A, Thursdays, Feb. 7, 14, 21, 2013, 9-10:15 A.M.