Another Label

The beautiful University of Illinois is over their quota for conservative professors with two on record as promoting the idea of America as it was founded. Our three loyal readers already know about Laura Hollis (archive), quoted here often. Last week Professor Robert Weissberg wrote a piece at American Thinker called A Stranger in Our Midst.

He follows many who try to affix a label to President Obama, and does better than most. We've been consistent to our label - Communist Inspired. Others have argued for or against: Marxist, Socialist, Statist, Fascist, and other 'ists', all with varied success. Professor Weissberg shares his frustration trying to find the right label. His struggle has paid off with a unique take:

As the Obama administration enters its second year, I -- and undoubtedly millions of others -- have struggled to develop a shorthand term that captures our emotional unease. Defining this discomfort is tricky.
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After auditioning countless political terms, I finally realized that the Obama administration and its congressional collaborators almost resemble a foreign occupying force, a coterie of politically and culturally non-indigenous leaders whose rule contravenes local values rooted in our national tradition.

He supports his thesis with the following points: Obama's Associations, Appointments, the Apology Tours, the Bowing, the Spending, the support for Illegal Immigration, and the "Collapse or Trust" in the government. He concludes:

Perhaps the clearest evidence for this "foreigner in our midst" mentality is the name given our resistance -- tea parties, an image that instantly invokes the American struggle against George III, a clueless foreign ruler from central casting. This history-laden label was hardly predetermined, but it instantly stuck (as did the election of Sen. Scott Brown as "the shot heard around the world" and tea partiers dressing up in colonial-era costumes). Perhaps subconsciously, Obama does remind Americans of when the U.S. was really occupied by a foreign power. A Declaration of Independence passage may still resonate: "HE [George III] has erected a Multitude of new Offices [Czars], and sent hither Swarms of Officers [recently hired IRS agents] to harass our People, and eat out the Substance." What's next?

No mention of the GM/Chrysler takeovers, the misuse of TARP and Financial Reform to attack the nation's banks, the impulses to harm private energy companies, or the new enemy of the people - the right wing extremists.

He supported his thesis and made an excellent argument. But there is more, and it leads to analogies to the governing styles of 20th century dictators.

U/T: Rush Limbaugh, who uncharacteristically read the full article on the air. Rush too has struggled with the label issue, and like Professor Weissberg, has made every effort to be fair and defend his ideas.