Obama's Bushisms and His Politcal Stance

Just a slight observation about Obama's speeches lately. Particularly in the past week regarding education and health reform. On education, he claimed that Americans who do not graduate high school are basically betraying their country. In the health reforms, he blasted Republican fear mongering. Regardless of whether you're for him or against him, I've noticed that Obama has been taking a strong "you're either for us or against us" tone in his speeches. G.W. Bush used this style a lot and was blasted for it, yet nobody but me has seemed to have noticed Obama doing it. For someone billed as a great united, this is a vary polarizing tactic. It's certainly got the American right rilled. I can't help but wonder whether it's going to come back and bit him in the end.

I also sense that Obama is far more of a socialist than his policies would indicate, suggesting that he is being held back quite a bit. His appointment of Van Jones as "Green Jobs" czar was an odd choice. Jones is an admitted communist and is a 9/11 "Truther", someone who thinks the government perpetrated the attacks. He has since stepped down from the job due to these controversies. Obama is also good friends with 70s self-proclaimed revolutionary Weatherman Bill Ayers. Then there was the Reverend Wright scandal during the elections. He seems to surround himself with a lot of far-left radical thinkers. On the political spectrum, I would place Obama as a social democrat, not a liberal. You get the sense that he wants to take his policies further left into the realm of socialism, but is frustrated due to the political and procedural roadblocks preventing him from doing so. This is why I believe he has been more aggressive in his speeches in recent weeks. It's not just the Republicans that are causing problems either. He's further left than a lot of others in the Democratic party. (In Canada, he'd probably fit right in with the NDP.) Many Democrats do not feel comfortable with his policies. Unlike Canadian leaders, Obama doesn't have the luxury of strict party unity, so bills inevitably get watered down in congress in an effort to please everyone. He has certainly received a rude awakening now that the honeymoon is over. He's either going to have to accept the limitations on his power, or he should just resign now and save face before the BS hits the fan.