(UPDATED: I linked two Newsweek articles I couldn't find when I originally posted.)
Delete the question mark in the title and you're closer to the truth, as I see things now. I know this sounds like an old argument by this point, but I wanted to connect one more dot that I just found floating aimlessly disconnected out there.
Even back during the campaign, Joe Biden actually thought an interviewer was joking when she asked if Obama was a Socialist. Funny how that seems to be too preposterous to even take seriously. Funny how Biden won't answer the question even when Obama is reported to be a socialist BY SOCIALISTS in Illinois.
Even during the debates when McCain and Palin hinted at (or outright accused) Obama being a Socialist, it was received by Obama as if he was called a dirty word. Well, then we get to the NYT interview aboard AF1, and they ask him directly. They even press him by asking, "Is there anything wrong with saying yes?" To which he responds in length about Bush and then everything he has done thus far in his term. Well, as soon as he gets off the plane from that interview, he calls the NYT to "clarify" his answer to the Socialist question, saying, "It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question".... Again, a response as if to say, "That's so silly! I can't even imagine how you could possibly think such a far-fetched thing! Come on, guys, it's me - THE ONE! And besides, George Bush started it." And this, in spite of the fact that Newsweek declared we are all socialists on its cover on February 7th!
Well, I guess it's easier to play it off as implausible rather than actually engage the reasons why people are asking the questions. It's the classic "if it walks like a socialist, and talks...." But that doesn't mean a thing if you're THE ONE. Even Accuracy in Media had to address the issue it seemed so confusingly obvious. Jacob Weisberg, editor of Salon.com, also wrote a Newsweek article titled "The Staying Power of the S Word". The subtitle of the piece is: "Obama is moving us towards cradle-to-grave opportunity, as opposed to Europe's model of cradle-to-grave security." In the piece he defends: "But the case that the United States is moving away from market capitalism, and toward a European-style social compact in which the state has a much broader role, is not absurd", contrary to the defense of Obama in the Boston Globe article linked above.
So here's that new "Dot" that I came across: Obama's budget. Remember Obamas response to the NYT reporter when first asked the question about being a Socialist? He said, "You know, let’s take a look at the budget – the answer would be no." But that's the problem. All you have to do is stop on page 11 and you find an interesting chart. Daniel Henninger of the WSJ discusses this chart in his article this week. In short,
Delete the question mark in the title and you're closer to the truth, as I see things now. I know this sounds like an old argument by this point, but I wanted to connect one more dot that I just found floating aimlessly disconnected out there.
Even back during the campaign, Joe Biden actually thought an interviewer was joking when she asked if Obama was a Socialist. Funny how that seems to be too preposterous to even take seriously. Funny how Biden won't answer the question even when Obama is reported to be a socialist BY SOCIALISTS in Illinois.
Even during the debates when McCain and Palin hinted at (or outright accused) Obama being a Socialist, it was received by Obama as if he was called a dirty word. Well, then we get to the NYT interview aboard AF1, and they ask him directly. They even press him by asking, "Is there anything wrong with saying yes?" To which he responds in length about Bush and then everything he has done thus far in his term. Well, as soon as he gets off the plane from that interview, he calls the NYT to "clarify" his answer to the Socialist question, saying, "It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question".... Again, a response as if to say, "That's so silly! I can't even imagine how you could possibly think such a far-fetched thing! Come on, guys, it's me - THE ONE! And besides, George Bush started it." And this, in spite of the fact that Newsweek declared we are all socialists on its cover on February 7th!
Well, I guess it's easier to play it off as implausible rather than actually engage the reasons why people are asking the questions. It's the classic "if it walks like a socialist, and talks...." But that doesn't mean a thing if you're THE ONE. Even Accuracy in Media had to address the issue it seemed so confusingly obvious. Jacob Weisberg, editor of Salon.com, also wrote a Newsweek article titled "The Staying Power of the S Word". The subtitle of the piece is: "Obama is moving us towards cradle-to-grave opportunity, as opposed to Europe's model of cradle-to-grave security." In the piece he defends: "But the case that the United States is moving away from market capitalism, and toward a European-style social compact in which the state has a much broader role, is not absurd", contrary to the defense of Obama in the Boston Globe article linked above.
So here's that new "Dot" that I came across: Obama's budget. Remember Obamas response to the NYT reporter when first asked the question about being a Socialist? He said, "You know, let’s take a look at the budget – the answer would be no." But that's the problem. All you have to do is stop on page 11 and you find an interesting chart. Daniel Henninger of the WSJ discusses this chart in his article this week. In short,
The [chart] on page 11 is attributed to "Piketty and Saez."Either you know instantly what "Piketty and Saez" means, or you don't. If you do, you spent the past two years working to get Barack Obama into the White House. If you don't, their posse has a six-week head start on you.
Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, French economists, are rock stars of the intellectual left. Their specialty is "earnings inequality" and "wealth concentration."
Ultimately, French Socialists are the ones to whom Obama refers in structuring his budget. But the Boston Globe article linked above reviews Socialist governments from around the globe and compares Obama's agenda to them. Specifically, they mention,
"Nor does his agenda compare to the democratic socialism of countries like Denmark or Sweden, which have high taxation across a wide swath of the population to fund a generous system of social benefits.... It's ambitious liberalism, without a doubt. But socialism, with all that conjures up? Hardly."But two points should be mentioned. First, the NYT actually defends asking Obama if he was a socialist, saying,
"The point is not the label, per se, but the question of whether the times and the solutions under consideration represent some sort of paradigm shift in our national thinking about the role of government in society. In a moment of taxpayer bank bailouts and shifting tax burden proposals and exploding deficits and expansive health care and energy plans, what is the future of American-style capitalism?"Secondly, however, a recent article in a major Dutch newspaper has called Obama a Socialist. The English article that comments on this Dutch report explains,
"Americans are inherently conservative - they don’t have the typical European mentality. Socialism was and never will be popular in the States (which is why Obama pretends to be a ‘moderate’)."Or should we say, that's why Obama thinks the question is silly, not serious, inane, or any other diminutive word one can use to describe the question of his political amibitions. But, as Mike Pence, A Republican Congressman from Indiana, explains,
"As much as the president might bristle about the term ... it's really hard to argue that this isn't a fundamental transformation of our economy to look more like European-style socialism," Pence concluded.