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Obama: ‘Radical on Social Issues’
Guest Column | By Paul M. Weyrich | December 2, 2008
Surprise, surprise - President-elect Obama has appointed a center-right group of economic advisers - that is center right in the Democratic context. That does not make them conservatives by any means, but they all at least subscribe to free-market economic ideas and policy.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., when he was campaigning, warned that then Sen. Obama, D-Ill., was a socialist and suggested he was going to appoint socialists to his cabinet. Well, I have news for Sen. McCain and anyone else who was concerned about that: there’s not a socialist in the bunch.
This does not mean that President Obama will not tax the rich. This does not mean that he will, as promised, have a massive government take-over of the health care system. Since his economic team believes in the free-market principles perhaps they will persuade President Obama that any tax increase when the economy is in as bad a shape as it appears to be is a bad idea. So perhaps he will postpone the tax increases for a time. Or perhaps President Obama will just let the Bush tax cuts expire.
President Obama is still dedicated to a middle class tax cut except that he wants to remove the lid from taxing income for Medicare and Social Security. So what government gives with one hand, government will take away with the other hand. So the middle class may not benefit that much. Anyway, perhaps that can be postponed until the economy turns up. And since his economic team believes in the free markets maybe they will advise him to move slowly and carefully when it comes to the take over of the health care system.
And surprise, surprise - President elect Obama has selected a National Security team that is right of Center. Again that is right of center in the Democrat context but there are still no radicals among them. Retaining Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, if even for only one year, is a brilliant idea. I know Mr. Gates personally and have a great deal of confidence in him. He will not make foolish recommendations.
And while I am no particular fan of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., I have to admit she will probably make a good Secretary of State. We shall see, but she also will not recommend actions which will harm the United States. And while I do not care for retired Marine Corps General James Jones, compared with who he might have appointed as National Security Advisor, this is a surprisingly good choice. I note that Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says he felt very positive after he had his first meeting with the president-elect. He says the matter of Iraq was never mentioned, and neither, for that matter, was Afghanistan. So much for giving the withdrawal orders from Iraq before even taking office.
All of this has the left wing blogs in a state of panic. They feel betrayed. Some of them want to give the president-elect the benefit of the doubt but others believe they have been had. Well, calm down lefties. It is clear to me that while the president-elect may not be a socialist regarding the economy and he may not be radical when it comes to the military, he gives every indication of being radical on the social issues.
He fully intends to undo almost all of President Bush’s executive orders protecting human life. Despite warnings from the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he will enact the Freedom of Choice Act, which will codify Roe v. Wade and do away with all state and federal restrictions on abortion. He may well attempt to force Catholic doctors to either perform abortions or leave the medical profession. He will tell Catholic and Lutheran hospitals that they have to perform abortions or be shut down.
Indeed, the Vatican has told Time Magazine that President-elect Obama appears to be preparing for a war on the Roman Catholic Church. And he is likely to advocate for the hate-crime legislation (crimes which are motivated by hostility towards a particular class of persons) that Republicans have held up for many Congresses, even the last which was controlled by Democrats.
He is very likely to enact some kind of homosexual rights legislation, doing away with the Defense of Marriage Act, legislation which President Clinton signed, which says that no other state has to accept the so called “gay marriages” that are legitimized in another state. He wants to see to it that gay marriage is accepted nationally.
And in the issue of stem cell research: so much is being done these days with adult stem cells that there is no need to destroy embryos in order to get stem cells for research. But Obama has pledged that he is going to enact the kind of embryonic stem cell legislation that is vehemently opposed by the pro life community. There will be no moderation on social issues.
Former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, his nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, has a long established pro abortion voting record. That will keep “The Daily Kos” and the other left wing bloggers quiet. Yes, they would like some socialists appointed to key positions in the government. And yes they would like some pacifists put in to tame the military, but above all else they want unlimited tax-payer funded abortions, hate crime legislation and the so called “Fairness Doctrine” re-instated so that the political opposition can be silenced. By being radical on the social issues, Obama will keep his coalition together and quiet the left.
Paul Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
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5 Comments | Post a Comment
Sue: are you kidding in saying the fairness doctrine will balance, ABC,NBC,CBS, NPR, Time, Newsweek, NYT, LAT, Washington Post and all the other left leaning media by getting rid of talk radio? That’s balance????? What about freedom of speech? Is it free only when it agrees with the left?
We are all in a wait and see mode for Obama and this democratic congress. However, I have been wondering if Obama’s close associations with Rev Wright, Ayres, Farracahn,Frank Davis, Blanko, Acorn etc etc had no impact on his political and philosophical thinking.If they did, I have reason to be concerned especially when I have seen no counterbalance to these people in his life.
Since Obama spoke in such generalities and since he is so inexperienced leaving no written record behind at Columbia or Harvard where he was the first law review editor to leave no writings, all we can do is speculate until we see him more revealed. Fortunately, no president no matter how good, is a power alone. This president will have to deal with the numerous factions within his own party as well as republicans. Our system is too balanced to allow a Chavez like seizure of power.
To Sue Nommi,
...Paul Weyrick has been in politics for some 40 years now.
...When the Fairness Doctrine was in force in the seventies and Eighties, it was applied only against conservative (anti-communist) programs. Some radio stations went bankrupt giving away so much free time. When the conservatives sued liberal stations for equal time, the judges denied their suits on the grounds that the liberal positions weren’t “controversial”. The law said that balance must be provided on all “controversial” issues, and we learned that only conservative positions were controversial according to the liberal judges. That’s how the game is played.
aptly named “loco”-
“Sue: are you kidding in saying the fairness doctrine will balance, ABC,NBC,CBS, NPR, Time, Newsweek, NYT, LAT, Washington Post and all the other left leaning media by getting rid of talk radio?”
Uh, by ‘getting rid of talk radio’? I guess it’s time for me to ask if YOU are kidding.
“That’s balance????? What about freedom of speech? Is it free only when it agrees with the left?’
Freedom of speech is not threatened.
Frank V is as off base in this thread as he is on the others to which he posts his far-less-than half baked gobbledegook. On the plus side, he is easily as humorous as Weyrich.
LOOK OUT, FRANK! THERE’S A COMMIE RIGHT BEHIND YOU! Oh, sorry, false alarm, but we’re ever vigilant.
Sue Nommi, in Post 1, hits the nail on the head.
And, her comments in Post 5, namely - - “Frank V is as off base in this thread as he is on the others to which he posts his far-less-than half baked gobbledegook. On the plus side, he is easily as humorous as Weyrich. LOOK OUT, FRANK! THERE’S A COMMIE RIGHT BEHIND YOU! Oh, sorry, false alarm, but we’re ever vigilant.” - - also seem to be on the mark.
The “radical” Roe vs. Wade decision has been the law in this country for 35 years, so, using Weyrich’s logic, I guess we’ve all been forced to live in a “radical” country for quite a long time, now ???
And, the so-called and apparently also “radical” “Fairness Doctrine” was in effect from 1949 through 1987 - and in those 38 years, my personal opinion is that it worked very well and definitely promoted the goal of “fair and balanced” and “equal time”.
If extremist ideologues chose NOT to listen to “fair and balanced” radio stations in the ‘70s and ‘80s and, consequently, some radio stations in those partisan localities went bust - that sounds like a good thing to me!
And it does seem illogical to me that those who constantly bitch about ostensible political bias or “political favoritism” in newspapers and on network and cable TV would be against re-establishing the “Fairness Doctrine” ??? Why would these people be demanding objectivity, fair and balanced, and equal space or time in the press and on TV - but not on radio ???
The article above sounds like an extremist political “anti-everything” author, writing for money, trying to hustle up a controversy on a slow day when absolutely nothing controversial is even remotely on the horizon.
Let’s have some “War On The Roman Catholic Church” or, maybe even better, some “War On Lutheran Hospitals”!
Geez! What crap!
December 3 at 9:45 am | #1 | Link
Mr Weyrich has a bright future as a comedy writer. Please keep the yuks coming!
for the record, the fairness doctrine will not SILENCE political opposition, it will merely balance it. That’s a good thing.