President Obama was interviewed live by Bill O'Reilly during the warm-up to the Super Bowl. Mr. O'Reilly heavily hyped the interview as a clash of titans, as Mr. O'Reilly still cites his sit-down with candidate Obama as one of the few times that the President faced vigorous challenge by a media member during the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election. The latest interview was not particularly news-worthy, as Mr. O'Reilly was careful to act deferential to the sitting President, while Mr. Obama was careful to come across as likable to an electorate that signaled its displeasure with the significant Democrat losses last November.
When Obama did the initial O'Reilly interview in September 4, 2008, the future President was coming off a grueling primary fight with Hillary Clinton during which Obama's handlers successfully painted him as the candidate of hope and change while she was depicted as part of the Washington establishment. A vote for Obama would be historical; a vote for Hillary would be to choose more of the same. Now, with the nomination in hand, Obama had begun the orchestrated move to the center. The American flag pin, conspicuously absent during Obama's carefully choreographed primary appeal to the Democrat base, was suddenly useful to a candidate wooing the center-right national electorate. The US flag miraculously appeared on candidate Obama's lapel.
Super Bowl 2012
Appearing on The Factor was part of the master plan to paint over Obama's steadfast liberal voting record, his public and private statements consistent with left-wing orthodoxy, and his unblemished support for "progressive" causes and association with radical elements as a community organizer and beyond. Many were deluded by Obama's center head-fake and voted him into office. However, after such job-killing, debt-producing and economy-wrecking policies as the stimulus, Obamacare, financial reform, cow-towing to the unions, domestic drilling shut-down, the EPA's war on American industry, and general unfettered spending -- liberal fantasies all -- Obama had shown himself to be the most left-leaning President in our nation's history.
Now, having implemented the devastating policies of his first two years in office and with an eye on reelection, President Obama is again faking a move to the center. When he lacked the votes to roll back the Bush tax cuts for higher income earners, Obama feigned bipartisanship by agreeing to continue the tax cuts for two more years. After the horrible Tucson shooting led to deplorable and unfounded blame-casting by the angry left, the President called for civility. Having mired small businesses and other job creators in stifling big-government regulations, Obama wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal criticizing regulation.
Obama's second appearance on O'Reilly's The Factor was the next step in this orchestrated head-fake to the center. But the proof lies not in what the President says, but in what he does.
The grand tax compromise will end in two years - what then? The President and his advisers have expressed their readiness to make class warfare -- those so-called "tax cuts for the rich" -- their battle cry for the 2012 election. While with one hand Mr. Obama wrote his editorial speaking of the evils of regulation, with the other hand he has been directing his army of bureaucrats to implement oppressive regulation of the Internet, financial institutions, radio airwaves and greenhouse gas emissions. While the President called for civility in the aftermath of the Tucson atrocity, he was silent when a member of his own party in Congress compared Obamacare opponents to Nazis.
For now, the administration is enjoying a poll bump-up coinciding with the Potemkin shift to the center. Those numbers will change when the public realizes that this purported move to the center, like Mr. Obama making nice with Mr. O'Reilly, is all facade.
Obama on O'Reilly Signals the President's Fake to the Center
Rick Grayson writes about politics for IntendedConsequences.com. For more Conservative Blog commentary, go to IntendedConsequences.com. Get your Credit Score Free at CreditScoreFree.net to view all 3 Credit Scores and Reports instantly and online.
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