Obama the Alien Threat By Jonathan Alter, Newsweek

[proud2BlibKansan]

Obama's enemies have painted him as an alien threat. Can he fight the flight from facts?

"I'd like to burn them off," says the Illustrated Man in Ray Bradbury's 1951 science-fiction classic of that name. "I've tried sandpaper, acid, a knife. Nothing works." More than a half century before head-to-toe tattoos, a time-traveling witch had painted colorful images on nearly every part of the man's body. The elaborate stories they told made it hard for him to hold a job.

President Obama is our era's Illustrated Man. His enemies - and even some of his ostensible allies - have been busy for three years painting Obama as some kind of alien threat. His name, race, exotic upbringing, and determination to reach out to moderate Muslims have given those who would delegitimize him a fresh palette of dark colors. The caricatures are almost comical, as the president himself recognizes. "Some folks say, 'Well, you know, he's not as cool as he was,'" Obama said at a May fundraiser in California. "'When they had all the posters around and everything.' Now I've got a Hitler mustache on the posters. That's quite a change."

Our maddening times demand that the truth be forthrightly stated at the outset, and not just that the president has nothing in common with the führer beyond the possession of a dog. The outlandish stories about Barack Hussein Obama are simply false: he wasn't born outside the United States (the tabloid "proof" has been debunked as a crude forgery); he has never been a Muslim (he was raised by an atheist and became a practicing Christian in his 20s); his policies are not "socialist" (he explicitly rejected advice to nationalize the banks and wants the government out of General Motors and Chrysler as quickly as possible); he is not a "warmonger" (he promised in 2008 to withdraw from Iraq and escalate in Afghanistan and has done so); he is neither a coddler of terrorists (he has already ordered the killing of more "high value" al Qaeda targets in 18 months than his predecessor did in eight years), nor a coddler of Wall Street (his financial-reform package, while watered down, was the most vigorous since the New Deal), nor an enemy of American business (he and the Chamber of Commerce favor tax credits for small business that were stymied by the GOP to deprive him of a victory). And that's just the short list of lies.

The latest NEWSWEEK Poll tells a disturbing story. Obama's approval rating is 47 percent, slightly better than in the spring and not terrible for a president facing disturbing economic news. (Ronald Reagan touched bottom with 41 percent approval during the 1982–83 recession.) The problem is that some of the lies about Obama are gathering strength. In 2008, 13 percent of Americans were under the misimpression that he was a Muslim. Now the figure is 24 percent. One explanation may be that Obama's connection to his Chicago church was fresher in the public mind then. But the deeper problem is a growing number of people who think the president is not just disappointing or wrongheaded but dangerous. More than half of Republicans surveyed (52 percent) think it's "definitely true" or "probably true" that Obama "sympathizes with the goals of fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world." This says more about the mindset of the GOP than about Obama. It reflects not just the usual personal and partisan animus of the age (George W. Bush was subjected to exceptionally nasty attacks from the left) but a flight from facts - a startling disconnect between a quarter of the country and what some of Bush's aides once disparagingly called "the reality-based community."

more . . . http://readersupportednews.org/opinion/75-75/2820-obama-the-alien-threat

[flpoljunkie]

1. Agree with Alter's conclusion...

Beyond the smears, the president needs changes in policy, personnel, and message to rebut the more legitimate critiques of his record. For liberals rightly concerned that he sides too much with banks over the middle class, Obama can expand his circle of economic advisers and name Elizabeth Warren to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. For businesspeople rightly concerned that he is surrounded by advisers who have never met a payroll, he can find a place inside for a former CEO with experience in capital markets and innovation. For supporters rightly disturbed that he doesn't seem to be standing tall, he can pick a few high-profile fights and improve the faltering stagecraft of his presidency.

A crisper message on jobs is the only way to limit Democratic losses. After his Iraq speech, Obama will turn his attention to infrastructure and taxes. Even as he shifts into campaign mode, he's still too professorial to boil down the choice for voters to its essence: rebuild America or more tax cuts for the wealthy.

Mario Cuomo liked to say that "you campaign in poetry and govern in prose." Obama has taken Cuomo's maxim too much to heart. He needs to reconnect to the poetry and hope and political artistry that brought him this far. But at least the president is keeping his legendary cool. "Any person would go a little mad with such things upon his body," Ray Bradbury wrote of the Illustrated Man. It's a measure of the very otherness that harms him that Barack Obama is not "any person" and that he remains consistently sane as he works this fall to paint himself out of his corner.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion/75-75/2820-obama-the-alien-threat

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. I thought it was a great piece

And yes, I agree with that conclusion as well.

[3waygeek]

3. But Obama IS an alien; here's proof

[Pirate Smile]

4. Great column. Thanks for posting it.

:hi: