Don’t Throw Me In That Briar Patch [Reader Post]

Six weeks into Obama’s Presidency, New York Times Reporters tried to get Obama to fess up to being a Socialist; they asked some serious questions and received the ‘rope a dope’.

Q: The first six weeks of your presidency have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities.  Are you a Socialist as s0me people have suggested?

A: You know let’s look at the budget.  The answer would be no.

Logic and continuity of expression often escapes the gifted genius while answering questions without his teleprompter.

Q: Is there anything wrong with saying yes?

This is a rhetorical question. The reporter knows Obama is a Socialist and is asking why he wont step out of the closet and ‘out’ himself; obviously, Obama is reluctant to announce his political philosophy and risk losing a percentage of his base; consequently, the reporter’s desire to release a major story is the least of his worries.

A: Let’s just take a look at what we’ve done. We’ve essentially said that, number one, we’re going to reduce non-defense discretionary spending to the lowest levels in decades. So that part of the budget that doesn’t include entitlements and doesn’t include defense – that we have the most control over – we’re actually setting on a downward trajectory in terms of percentage of G.D.P. So we’re making more tough choices in terms of eliminating programs and cutting back on spending than any administration has done in a very long time. We’re making some very tough choices.

What we have done is in a couple of critical areas that we have put off action for a very long time, decided that now is the time to ask. One is on health care. As you heard in the health care summit yesterday, there is uniform belief that the status quo is broken and if we don’t do anything, we will be in a much worse place, both fiscally as well as in terms of what’s happening to families and businesses than if we did something.

The second area is on energy, which we’ve been talking about for decades. Now, in each of those cases, what we’ve said is, on our watch, we’re going to solve problems that have weakened this economy for a generation. And it’s going to be hard and it’s going to require some costs. But if you look on the revenue side what we’re proposing, what we’re looking at is essentially to go back to the tax rates that existed during the 1990s when, as I recall, rich people were doing very well. In fact everybody was doing very well. We have proposed a cap and trade system, which could create some additional costs, but the vast majority of that we want to give back in the form of tax breaks to the 95 percent of working families.

So if you look at our budget, what you have is a very disciplined, fiscally responsible budget, along with an effort to deal with some very serious problems that have been put off for a very long time. And that I think is exactly what I proposed during the campaign. We are following through on every commitment that we’ve made, and that’s what I think is ultimately going to get our economy back on track.

Whether Obama intentionally speaks in non-sense phrases or just has a problem expressing himself, is anyone’s guess; but the question of whether Obama is a Socialist is one that he apparently is not going to answer truthfully.  Upon leaving the press briefing, Obama understandably began to wonder at the effectiveness of his Jive-ass answers to these key questions; wanting to make his statements as clear as mud, Obama called the NYT.

Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter. It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn’t on my watch. And it wasn’t on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement – the prescription drug plan without a source of funding. And so I think it’s important just to note when you start hearing folks through these words around that we’ve actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are throwing the word socialist around can’t say the same.

The ambiguous nature of the quasi-Socialist pretending not to be a Socialist confuses not only your opponents, but your supporters as well.   Greg Sargent who writes the Plum Line a Progressive Socialist Website E-mailed the New York Times concerning the nature and intent of the now famous question that has caused Leftists to get their backs up and has confirmed the fears of Republicans.  He received this reply from Baker, the Times reporter.

The goal of the question was to get at the same issue your sister publication, Newsweek, was addressing with its recent cover story, “We Are All Socialists Now.”

The point is not the label, per se, but the question of whether the times and the solutions under consideration represent some sort of paradigm shift in our national thinking about the role of government in society. In a moment of taxpayer bank bailouts and shifting tax burden proposals and exploding deficits and expansive health care and energy plans, what is the future of American-style capitalism?

We were also interested in exploring how a new president defines his political philosophy, something that has been the subject of intense debate. We wanted to draw him out on all of that and I think his answers, both in the interview itself and the follow-up phone call, were interesting and important.

The Progressive Socialists are predictably trying to decrease the collateral damage caused by the controversial question and its political fallout.  In a spin to appease the Hard core Progressive Socialist of the Left, it becomes important not to show our cards too early,  and end up turning away a percentage of public support against Obama’s Socialist agenda.

The unavoidable political context here, though, is that Republicans and conservatives — or “some people,” as the paper put it — are trying to tar Obama as a socialist right now in order to turn the public against his agenda.

Reporters often walk a fine line between asking a politician to respond to the valid or substantive criticism of opponents and asking him to respond to criticism that’s politically motivated, substance-free, or plainly out of touch with reality, which risks doing the bidding of those opponents. It’s tempting to place the “socialist” question in the latter category. But on the other hand, as Baker points out, it did elicit an interesting answer from Obama, and few would dispute that the interview overall was sharp and informative.

This line is the key to the Progressive Socialist’s spin on the Socialism issue,

trying to tar Obama as a socialist right now in order to turn the public against his agenda.

Notice the words, “to tar Obama as a Socialist right now”; apparently, it would be advantageous to wait until the President has completed his Socialist agenda and then spring the information on the dim witted American public, “Oh, by way, I am a Socialist.”  Right now, Obama is employing the strategy of Brer Rabbit, when he says, “Dont throw me in that Briar Patch.  The Briar patch being a euphemism for Socialism.

For those unfamiliar with the Uncle Remus Tale of the Tar Baby, here is a synopsis from memory.

Brer Fox was growing weary of trying to catch Brer Rabbit and being ‘outfoxed’; however, he came up with a plan to catch that wily Rabbit.  He built a Tar Baby and disguised it as a real baby, figuring that Brer Rabbit would get mad when the tar baby wouldn’t engage in conversation.

The Tar Baby was placed by the side of the road and Brer Rabbit came alng and asked questions and the Tar Bab was mute.  Brer Rabbit was incensed at being ignored and punched the Tar Bab and then kicked the Tar Baby until he was hopelessly trapped.

Brer Fox picked up Brer Rabbit and wondered what to do with his long time enemy, whether he should barbecue him or hang him…

Brer Rabbit said it was okay to barbecue him or hang him; but please don’t throw him in that briar patch.  Brer Fox wanting to extract the greatest amount of revenge threw Brer Rabbit into the briar patch.  Brer Rabbit jumped high in the air and said, “I was born and raised in a briar patch.”  He laughed and laughed as he ran away.

There are many who will say this story and my essay are not politically correct, to them I say, “I don’t care.”  I refuse to bow to the same state directed accepted speech and behavior on the populations of Mao and Stalin to maintain control, that is covertly being integrated into our culture under the guise of being “politically correct”.

I find it amusing that the sequence of the story is a little off, but Obama seems to have found his Tar Baby in the gulf; however,  he will always find solace and comfort in the briar patch of Socialism, ‘where he was born and raised.’