Is Obama’s Divisive Rhetoric & Scare-mongering
the New Kind of Politics he Promised?

06 Feb, 2009 by B. Daniel Blatt

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Remember how so many critics of former President George W. Bush called the Texan “divisive”? One columnist contended that the Republican used “scare tactics” to “demean politics and voters.” They faulted him for deriding his opponents.

Now, I have a challenge for those who continue to berate Bush. Can you find anything in his speeches or other remarks, particularly in his first few weeks (even months) in office, when he derided his political opponents as much as his successor has in the past two days?

Did Bush ever accuse his ideological adversaries of “peddling ‘false theories…phony arguments and petty politics’“? Did he ever attack his opponents as his successor has?

Were Bush’s policy addresses in his first term, “devoid. . . of analysis,” reading like campaign speeches?

Remember how we heard ad nauseum over the past eight years that George W. Bush was playing the politics of fear? His successor promised to change that as Charles Krauthammer reminds us declaring, in his inaugural address, that “we have chosen hope over fear.” Yet, barely three weeks into this term, he has abandoned that pledge when he needed “fear to pass a bill.” And now, he’s using “scare-mongering rhetoric” to push his spendthrift “stimulus.”

It seems that the criticisms Bush-critics heaped upon the former president could be more readily used to describe his successor.

Cross-posted at GayPatriot.