The Obama-Reagan 'comparison'
Image by Getty Images via @daylife...Peters goes on to say that Obama is Jimmy Carter lite.
Comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan is like comparing Bernie Madoff to Warren Buffett: Hustling your clients isn't heroism, and fraud's not a formula for enduring success.
At a press conference last Tuesday, Obama couldn't restrain himself from invoking Reagan's name yet again, associating him with Tip O'Neill (another disgraceful linkage). But you only had to listen to that presser or read the transcript to grasp the immense distance between Obama/Hamlet, forever wringing his hands and wondering, "To be, or not to be?" and Reagan/Henry V embracing a battle the Washington court heralds insisted he could not win.
Asked about the tumult in the Middle East, Obama responded with gutless generalities.
Asked about the freedom demonstrations in Iran, he offered cautious, lawyerly support in terms that seemed chosen to avoid a law-suit.
Asked about Saudi Arabia, he stone-walled completely.
Asked about the potential threat to oil supplies, he ducked that question, too.
And when, late in the news conference, he finally uttered that terrible word "democracy," he spoke it as if handling a poisonous snake.
Compare that to Reagan's magnificent call: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Obama couldn't even tear down Guantanamo, despite his blustering promises to do so. His response to the Cold War would have been unilateral disarmament.
Reagan took on destructive unions, international Marxists, secret police, murderous regimes and the consistently hostile watercress-sandwich salon culture of an in-bred domestic elite ("He's simply not our kind, darling...").
Obama took on Fox News. And lost.
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I can understand why Obama would want to associate himself with Reagan who also had a tough first two years in office. But he should not expect independent voters to buy into the comparison and he should know that Republicans will not.
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