Jim Geraghty writes, “Barack Obama never met Saul Alinsky, but the radical organizer’s thought helps explain a great deal about how the president operates”:
As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It’s not about liberalism. It’s about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it — including invite Rick Warren to give the benediction at his inauguration, dine with conservative columnists, and dismiss an appointee at the White House Military Office to ensure the perception of accountability.
Alinsky’s influence goes well beyond Obama, obviously. There are many wonderful Democrats in this world, but evidence suggests that rising in that party’s political hierarchy requires some adoption of a variation of the Alinsky philosophy: Power comes first. Few Democrats are expressing outrage over Nancy Pelosi’s ever-shifting explanation of what she knew about waterboarding. Those who screamed bloody murder about Jack Abramoff’s crimes avert their eyes from John Murtha. The anti-war movement that opposed the surge in Iraq remains silent about sending additional troops to Afghanistan. Obama will never get as much grief for his gay-marriage views as Miss California.
It’s not about the policies or the politics, and it’s certainly not about the principles. It’s about power, and it has been for a long time.
Read the whole thing.
Obama’s problem is that operating on Alinsky rules makes promises impossible to keep. No one trusts the man to be a person with whom a bargain can be struck.
Therefore, the CIA will continue a low-level, constant war upon him, seeing him failing to restrain Pelosi and others calling them liars (and seeing the prospect of “hearings” and prosecution for “torture”) and will do everything in their power to destroy Obama.
This includes, but is not limited to: publishing/leaking the LAT held tape of Obama at the Rashid Khalidi going away party, where supposedly Obama and Michelle laughed at anti-Semitic and Anti-American jokes, and made a few themselves. Publishing details that could be embarrassing of Obama praying and attending a Mosque filled with radicals, perhaps only one degree of separation with the Blink Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, during his time at Columbia. Embarrassing details perhaps even including video tape of Obama hanging around Jihadis during his trip to Pakistan during that period.
Obama because his word cannot be trusted, because he follows Alinsky, has guaranteed a war with the CIA and the Military. A war where his many secrets and embarrassing problems make him weak not strong. By failing to restrain his allies, he has declared war on the CIA and Military, and they will respond in kind.
“It’s not about the policies or the politics, and it’s certainly not about the principles. It’s about power, and it has been for a long time.”
Or ideology or philosophy or economic theory or, in short, any basic, underlying thought process. That is, it is directionless – which was rather clear in Obama’s rhetoric during the campaign. “Change” – but just change, unqualified. Change to what? A new direction, of course.
To what end? I’m not sure if Alinsky ever actually answered that question publicly. I’m not sure he could have answered it to himself, even. His use of “founding father” is interesting, though. He is similar to a Thomas Paine in that respect – a continual revolutionist. But even he was consumed in the fires he helped to fan.
But this ambiguity – or flip-flopping or whatever – is also a tactic. If you don’t declare a goal, no one can argue against it.
“By failing to restrain his allies, he has declared war on the CIA and Military…”
No. He has declared war on everything.