Obama is Asked if He is a Socialist

Posted by Bill Dupray on Mar 9 2009 Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

At some point, that kind of question may become a felony, but for now, some brave reporter just asked Obama point-blank, “Are you a Socialist.” Obama’s answer is interesting.

From Politico.

In the interview, Obama curtly dismissed a question asking if he is a socialist, as some Republican lawmakers and commentators have asserted.

“The answer would be no,” Obama said. He went on to argue that the budget plan he set out last month is remarkably restrained.

“Let’s just take a look at what we’ve done….That part of the budget that doesn’t include entitlements and doesn’t include defense – that we have the most control over – we’re actually setting on a downward trajectory in terms of percentage of G.D.P. So we’re making more tough choices in terms of eliminating programs and cutting back on spending than any administration has done in a very long time,” he declared. [me - I have to assume there was muted laughter from the press corps at that whopper].

One of the Times journalists, Jeff Zeleny, tried to ask if there would be “anything wrong” with acknowledging that he was a Socialist. Obama declined to take the bait, but clearly bristled at the “socialist” label. He called the newspaper back later to suggest the label, would be better applied to his predecessor, President Bush.

“It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn’t on my watch,” Obama said in the follow-up call. “And it wasn’t on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement – the prescription drug plan without a source of funding. And so I think it’s important just to note when you start hearing folks throw these words around that we’ve actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are throwing the word socialist around can’t say the same.”

Bush was a Socialist? Let’s take Obama at his word that Bush is a Socialist (it requires the willing suspension of disbelief, I know). If Bush is a Socialist, then we can presume that Obama would also agree that he, Obama, is to the left of George W. Bush, which makes Obama what . . . a Communist? Is there a political doctrine to the left of a Socialist that is something other than a Commie? If there is, somebody please enlighten me.

And if “passing massive new entitlements” is our marker for Socialists, then what the hell do you call nationalized health care?

By the way, if he is not a Socialist, then who is? Europe is infested with admitted Socialists who have enacted all the same policies Obama is enacting. But he’s not a Socialist.

In that fantasy world known as Obamaland, the Republicans are the Socialists.

And this guy went to college?

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