The politics of old lives on

Tonight America heard President Barack Obama continue and extend the very politics he eschewed and denounced during the '08 campaign. Throughout that campaign, Obama attacked President Bush for using the politics of fear to make his case in the War on Terror. Obama derided what he saw as Bush's use of fear mongering and scare tactics to defend the war in Iraq, as well as the prison at Guantanamo Bay and warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists. In effect, Obama accused Bush of saying: "If you don't support the war - or this or that policy - then you want the terrorists to succeed."

You may well believe that Bush was guilty as charged - guilty of fear mongering. But if that is so, how is President Obama not guilty of resorting to precisely the same tactics to defend the Stimulus Bill? As he has done many times recently, Obama repeated his threat against the U.S. economy tonight. Said he: "If we do not move swiftly to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, [our] economy... will be faced with catastrophe." In other words: if you don't support this stimulus bill - as it's written - then you must want the economy to suffer a catastrophe (all evidence to the contrary of Obama's argument notwithstanding).

How refreshing! How nice it is to know that Barack Obama has delivered change we can all believe in...