The Obama Temptation

Mark Levin, affectionately called "The Great One" in conservative circles, posted a blog entry at National Review Online October 25 in which he laid out his take on what's going on in America as we grow closer to the possibility of an Obama presidency.

In "The Obama Temptation," Levin recalls the Stalin-esque cult of personality that has formed around Obama, with folks like Oprah Winfrey calling Obama "The One," or Louis Farrakhan referring to the Messiah. Levin puts it like this: "There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me....Fainting audience members at rallies. Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal. A graphic with the portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it....Young school children singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama's name....An Obama world tour, culminating in a speech in Berlin...."

Turning to the media, Levin notes the perception of liberal media bias, but takes it a step further, saying this election is different from those past. "The media are open and brazen in their attempts to influence the outcome of this election," he writes. "Virtually all evidence of Obama's past influences and radicalism...have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media's role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It's as if the media use the Obama campaign's talking points - its preposterous assertions that Obama didn't hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. - to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny."

Sticking with media bias, Levin questions why Sarah Palin's experience has been scrutinized while "...no such standard is applied to Obama's qualifications for president." Indeed, many have criticized Palin saying she was not ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency while ignoring the no-more-experienced Obama who would actually be the president. ABC News' Charlie Gibson and CBS' Katie Couric, Levin says, "...sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never tried such an approach with Obama."

Turning to the Obama campaign's message of change, Levin says, "The 'change' he peddles is not new. We've seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption...that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government."

Linking the Obama platform to socialist thought, Levin says, "Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the 'the proletariat'....Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us - today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially 'rich.' The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class)....The 'hope' Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual."

The real danger, which Levin notes, is that Obama's platform has a high probability of becoming reality given the expected Democratic gains in Congress. Success will be punished and the "haves" will be forced to give the wealth they earned to those who did not earn it. Forced charity is what is headed our way. And the America envisioned by the founding fathers will slip a bit further into the dustbin of history.