What Obama’s Brush with the Tea Party Reveals About Him

 by Howard Portnoy
Allahpundit provided coverage this morning of Obama’s brush with the Iowa Tea Party.

I wanted to offer a few insights into the president’s response to Ryan Rhodes, the Tea Party member who asked Obama to react to Joe Biden’s calling the Tea Party “terrorists.”

At first Obama dodged the question, citing protocol (“I asked everybody [with a question] to raise their hand”), then answered. “I absolutely agree that everybody needs to try to tone down the rhetoric,” he said, adding smarmily:

Now, in fairness, since I’ve been called a socialist who wasn’t born in this country, who is destroying America and taking away its freedoms because I passed a health care bill, I’m all for lowering the rhetoric.

The comment misses the mark on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin. First and foremost is the fact that every president is a target of criticism. It goes with the territory—by virtue not only of the job’s high visibility but of the president’s unique role as steward over the lives and fates of 300 million people. Maybe at times the criticism is over the top (such as when the left branded George W. Bush as Hitler), but the right to dissent is a privilege enjoyed by the citizens of a democratic society. For the leadership to engage in (or in Obama’s case sanction) this same sort of behavior diminishes his high office and makes him look petty.
What’s more, being called a socialist is hardly on a par with being called a terrorist. The term socialism may seem like a dirty word to a “centrist” like Obama, but it is a bonafide political ideology, not to mention a label proudly worn by at least one member of the U.S. Senate (and coincidentally a man who votes almost unfailingly with Obama’s congressional caucus). As far as I know, there are no self-described terrorists in Congress.

Lastly, as for the claim that Obama was not born in the United States, the birther controversy, like the truther controversy, is history. Everyone has moved on from it—except apparently for Obama.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/08/16/33133/