The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic (8 page)
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Authors: David Limbaugh
BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic
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The NAACP, a major Obama supporter, has been a prime proponent of the “tea party is racist” smear, adopting a resolution at its 2010 convention in Kansas City condemning “racist elements” in the tea party movement and demanding its leaders denounce their bigotry. NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous denounced “the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements,” insisting, “The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no place for racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry in their movement.” First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at the convention but saw no need to condemn the baseless attacks on the tea party—attacks which provoked vehement protests from tea party groups.
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Though President Obama once sneeringly referred to tea partiers with the obscene term “teabaggers,” he generally refrains from engaging in the most inflammatory attacks on the tea party. Instead, he delegates that job to his supporters, whose diatribes go without presidential condemnation, even when they’re made in Obama’s presence. At a private White House dinner in May 2010, when a guest suggested that tea partiers were motivated by angst over having a black president, Obama didn’t lift a finger in protest, instead agreeing there was a “subterranean agenda” afoot that was racially based.
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One of Obama’s principal “spiritual advisers,” Reverend Jim Wallis, is known for demanding a new tone from Republicans while rejecting civil discourse himself. During a British radio interview, he attributed the entire tea party movement to racism, declaring, “Fox News has been the assassin of Obama’s religion…. What they’re trying to do is disconnect him and his values from the American people. And to be blunt, there wouldn’t be a Tea Party if there wasn’t a black man in the White House.”
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Attorney General Eric Holder also got into the mix just as he came under fire over the gunwalking scandal Operation Fast and Furious. In a
New York Times
interview, while acknowledging that many of his opponents were offended by his policies, Holder suggested that racism, too, motivated some of his critics. “The more extreme segment,” said Holder, alluding in part to the tea party, viewed the attacks on him as “a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him, both due to the nature of our relationship, and, you know, the fact that we’re both African American.”
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Georgia Democratic congressman Hank Johnson made the connection to the tea party explicit, having earlier called Fast and Furious “another manufactured controversy by the Second Amendment, NRA Republican tea party movement.” He asked, “How many firearms are sold to al-Qaeda terrorists, to other convicted felons, to domestic violence perpetrators, to convicted felons, to white supremacists?”
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New York Times
interview, while acknowledging that many of his opponents were offended by his policies, Holder suggested that racism, too, motivated some of his critics. “The more extreme segment,” said Holder, alluding in part to the tea party, viewed the attacks on him as “a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him, both due to the nature of our relationship, and, you know, the fact that we’re both African American.”
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Georgia Democratic congressman Hank Johnson made the connection to the tea party explicit, having earlier called Fast and Furious “another manufactured controversy by the Second Amendment, NRA Republican tea party movement.” He asked, “How many firearms are sold to al-Qaeda terrorists, to other convicted felons, to domestic violence perpetrators, to convicted felons, to white supremacists?”
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It seems the administration’s antipathy for the tea party has even trickled down to the IRS. In early March 2012, David French of the American Center for Law and Justice reported on National Review Online that his colleagues had been in contact with “literally dozens of tea party organizations that have received intrusive information demands from the IRS” in response to tea-party requests for tax-exempt status, which French says seriously impinge on their First Amendment rights. These information requests concern who the groups are associating with and whether they are in contact or have relationships with legislative bodies or political candidates. Significantly, these demands have not been in response to allegations of wrongdoing against the parties, but simply in response to their applications for tax exemptions.
Is the Obama IRS “using the routine process of seeking and granting tax exemptions to undertake a sweeping, top-down review of the internal workings of the tea party movement in the United States,” as French suggested?
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Before answering that question, recall that Obama’s own campaign organization, Organizing for America, once labeled tea party opponents of ObamaCare “right-wing domestic terrorists.”
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If Team Obama views tea partiers as a dangerous threat, would it really be surprising to learn that it treats them as such?
DIVIDE AND CONQUER: OBAMA’S IDENTITY POLITICS60
Before answering that question, recall that Obama’s own campaign organization, Organizing for America, once labeled tea party opponents of ObamaCare “right-wing domestic terrorists.”
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If Team Obama views tea partiers as a dangerous threat, would it really be surprising to learn that it treats them as such?
Team Obama traffics in racism accusations and identity politics as a natural part of its leftwing worldview, but there is also a crass political motive for it all; Obama’s empowerment depends on maintaining a certain level of support among specific demographic and ethnic groups, to whom he presents himself as a protector against racist, malevolent Republicans. He referred to these constituencies in a Democratic National Committee video in spring 2010, when he urged “young people, African Americans, Latinos and women … to stand together once again.”
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Leading up to the 2010 congressional elections, as it became clear that the Democrats were going to lose, they ratcheted up their demagogic, race-based overtures. In October 2010 Obama said on the Latino network Univision, “If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re going to reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder.”
There could be no mistaking whom Obama was identifying as the enemy. When the host complained that Obama was not doing enough and asked what Latinos could do to advance immigration reform, Obama replied, “Look, the steps are very clear. Pressure has to be put on the Republican Party.” Obama then made the baseless, inflammatory accusation that Republicans are engaged in a “cynical attempt to discourage Latinos from voting.”
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Michelle Obama followed this same theme in an interview with Univision in February 2011, when she called on Latinos to help persuade Republicans to support the Dream Act mini-amnesty. The first lady said, “So I urge the Latino community, he needs help, he’s got to have Republicans and Democrats in Congress who are going to step up. If a sound immigration bill gets put on the President’s desk he is going to sign it. But it’s got to get through Congress. He can’t do it alone.”
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In the final weeks of the congressional election campaign, Obama engaged in a black radio blitz in Chicago, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Florida, and Ohio, making overt racial appeals for votes. Addressing blacks directly and specifically identifying with them as a group, he said, “Two years ago you voted in record numbers and we won a victory few deemed possible…. But now … the same Republicans who fought against change are pushing the same plan that crashed our economy…. We can’t afford to go back. On November 2nd, I need you to stand with me, and vote!”
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Furthermore, during an interview with Michael Baisden, Obama suggested Republicans were “trying to hijack democracy.”
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“The reason we won in [2008] is because young people, African Americans, Latinos—people who traditionally don’t vote in high numbers—voted in record numbers. We’ve got to have that same kind of turnout in this election.” If Republicans were to take back Congress, said Obama, “they’ve already said they’re going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill.”
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Furthermore, during an interview with Michael Baisden, Obama suggested Republicans were “trying to hijack democracy.”
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“The reason we won in [2008] is because young people, African Americans, Latinos—people who traditionally don’t vote in high numbers—voted in record numbers. We’ve got to have that same kind of turnout in this election.” If Republicans were to take back Congress, said Obama, “they’ve already said they’re going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill.”
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In an interview with Reverend Al Sharpton, Obama fully agreed with Sharpton’s suggestion that, while Obama wasn’t on the ballot, blacks needed to vote like he was because this was about his agenda.
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Continuing in this vein, Vice President Joe Biden, further demonstrating his unique gift for civility and understatement, warned a few days later, “This is not your father’s Republican party. This is a different brand…. If we lose, we’re going to play hell.”
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Continuing in this vein, Vice President Joe Biden, further demonstrating his unique gift for civility and understatement, warned a few days later, “This is not your father’s Republican party. This is a different brand…. If we lose, we’re going to play hell.”
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Just a few weeks before the 2010 congressional elections, Obama said to his Philadelphia audience that Republicans “are counting on young people … and union members … and black folks staying home.”
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Then he made an inflammatory, race-based appeal to Latino voters in a radio interview on KVEG in Las Vegas a few days before the election, suggesting Republicans were trying to gin up hatred for immigrants. He said, “The Latino vote is crucial and obviously, you know, when you look at some of the stuff that’s been going on during this election campaign that has tried to fan anti-immigrant sentiment. I note that a lot of Latinos, you know, feel under assault.”
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Then he made an inflammatory, race-based appeal to Latino voters in a radio interview on KVEG in Las Vegas a few days before the election, suggesting Republicans were trying to gin up hatred for immigrants. He said, “The Latino vote is crucial and obviously, you know, when you look at some of the stuff that’s been going on during this election campaign that has tried to fan anti-immigrant sentiment. I note that a lot of Latinos, you know, feel under assault.”
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In order to cement its political coalition, the administration champions itself as the defender not just of minorities, but of women, too. Vice President Biden, in his inimitable way, showcased the Obama team’s appeals to women at a fundraiser in Philadelphia, where he despicably compared Republicans to those who excuse rapists by blaming their victims. He said that before the adoption of the Violence Against Women Act, which he had promoted,
There was this attitude in our society of blaming the victim. When a woman got raped, blame her because she was wearing a skirt too short, she looked the wrong way or she wasn’t home in time to make dinner…. But it’s amazing how these Republicans, the right wing of this party—whose philosophy threw us into this God-awful hole we’re in, gave us the tremendous deficit we’ve inherited—that they’re now using, now attempting to use, the very economic condition they have created to blame the victim—whether it’s organized labor or ordinary middle-class working men and women. It’s bizarre. It’s bizarre.
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Unsurprisingly, the administration’s identity politics have not been well-received by the American people at large. A
Washington Post
-ABC News poll in mid-2010 showed that only 4 in 10 respondents believed Obama’s presidency had improved racial relations, compared to 6 in 10 who had expected relations to improve at the time of his inauguration. As time passed it only got worse. In January 2011, only 35 percent said Obama had helped race relations. Only 19 percent of blacks believed they enjoyed a level playing field with whites, and close to half of them believed racial equality either wouldn’t be achieved in their lifetimes or never would be.
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The actor Morgan Freeman seemed to agree, telling CNN’s Piers Morgan that Obama’s presidency had made racism
worse
in the United States—though predictably for a Hollywood liberal, he blamed tea party members, describing their outlook as “Screw the country…. We’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.”
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Washington Post
-ABC News poll in mid-2010 showed that only 4 in 10 respondents believed Obama’s presidency had improved racial relations, compared to 6 in 10 who had expected relations to improve at the time of his inauguration. As time passed it only got worse. In January 2011, only 35 percent said Obama had helped race relations. Only 19 percent of blacks believed they enjoyed a level playing field with whites, and close to half of them believed racial equality either wouldn’t be achieved in their lifetimes or never would be.
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The actor Morgan Freeman seemed to agree, telling CNN’s Piers Morgan that Obama’s presidency had made racism
worse
in the United States—though predictably for a Hollywood liberal, he blamed tea party members, describing their outlook as “Screw the country…. We’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.”
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As columnist Jeff Kuhner wrote, “In recent memory, no president has so deliberately and publicly sought to pit racial and gender groups against each other. The president is not simply the titular head of a party or the leader of government. He is the head of state and embodies the collective will of the American people. He is the president of all Americans—not just certain segments of his electoral coalition. Mr. Obama’s rhetoric is reckless. It is fostering civil strife and racial animosity.”
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Despite portraying himself as a veritable guardian angel for minorities, Obama’s economy is hitting the African-American middle class the hardest. As Fox News’ John Roberts reported, “The unemployment situation across America is bad, no doubt. But for African-Americans in some cities, this is not the great recession. It’s the Great Depression. The Economic Policy Institute reported that the black unemployment rate, as of July 2011, was 19.2 percent, and if you include those who had quit looking for work, it would exceed 20—which equates to a depression.”
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“WE’RE BETTER THAN THAT”76
When the contentious debate erupted over a Muslim developer’s plans to build a mosque next to Ground Zero in Manhattan, Democrats found yet another issue to manipulate in their endless campaign against alleged Republican prejudice. As Americans expressed opposition to the mosque and to Obama’s vague support for the project, Obama’s former White House communications director Anita Dunn, who had previously choreographed the administration’s war on Fox News and other perceived opponents, “launched,” according to a
Daily Caller
report, “a furious attack against Republicans who have criticized President Obama’s remarks on the Ground Zero mosque, labeling the GOP as the party of intolerance.”
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Daily Caller
report, “a furious attack against Republicans who have criticized President Obama’s remarks on the Ground Zero mosque, labeling the GOP as the party of intolerance.”
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Appearing on MSNBC, Dunn invoked the familiar trope that Republicans are intolerant toward “almost any kind of difference in American society.” She denied speculation that she had coordinated her attack with Obama advisers David Axelrod and Dan Pfeiffer, saying they “did not know, approve, or suggest” her comments. Coordinated or not, her ugly and divisive statements were entirely consistent with the administration’s position and doubtlessly enjoyed its full blessing.
After all, Obama said Republicans were engaged in a “race to the bottom,” promoting the worst things in the American character. Exploiting that theme, Dunn depicted the Ground Zero Mosque debate as a contest between champions of religious liberty and Republican bigots who are “labeling all Muslims in this country as terrorists” and whose party has practically “decided to update itself as the Know-nothing version 2.0.”
According to Dunn—and by inference, to Obama—you can’t oppose a provocative, in-your-face mosque next to the very site of the 9/11 attacks without being a bigot. “We’re better than that,” insisted Dunn. “And that’s what the president was trying to take this argument to. I think to a much higher level.”
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