Obama is no Reagan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Neocon madman John Podhoretz: "I Knew Ronald Reagan (A Very Little Bit), and Mr. Obama, You're No Ronald Reagan."

There's reason #3,762 to support Obama.

Surely this is something we can all agree on -- we Democrats, I mean, Obama supporters and Clinton supporters alike. Ronald Reagan, who has become in life and even more in death one of the key figures of the right's self-aggrandizing mythology, and around whom a cult of worship has formed, was a truly detestable president. It should be taken as a compliment that Obama is no Reagan (or that Clinton is no Reagan, for that matter).

All Obama once suggested was that Reagan was a transformative president -- which he was, just in a very bad way -- not that he was another Reagan.

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Not that we should take Podhoretz seriously. He's an idiot. His entire post is based on a comment by Michelle Obama on the nature of "the Obama movement" (his words) -- taken, of course, out of context.

All Mrs. Obama said was that her husband challenges Americans to become more engaged, more involved, more informed, less cynical, and less isolated, and to push themselves to be better -- in other words, to be more public-spirited and to aim for greater self-improvement.

And Obama has done just that. Are those not noble goals?

Not according to Podhoretz, who implies that Obama is some sort of totalitarian (and hence no Reagan -- though, of course, he conveniently neglects to mention Reagan's support for right-wing authoritarianism abroad and totalitarian christianism at home).

But, then, he just doesn't get Obama, or his movement, or his appeal, or what he is all about, and so has nothing to say save for the usual partisan inanities of the right.