The political director of CBS News is now calling on President Obama to declare war on the Republican Party and completely destroy his opposition.
“Obama’s only remaining option is to pulverize,” writes John Dickerson, who also is the chief political correspondent for the left-leaning Slate.
“Whether he succeeds in passing legislation or not, given his ambitions, his goal should be to delegitimize his opponents. Through a series of clarifying fights over controversial issues, he can force Republicans to either side with their coalition’s most extreme elements or cause a rift in the party that will leave it, at least temporarily, in disarray.”
Over the weekend, Dickerson wrote a lengthy playbook for Obama and Democrats, saying, “Washington’s partisan rancor, the size of the problems facing government, and the limited amount of time before Obama is a lame duck all point to a single conclusion: The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat.”
CBS is now coming under fire for its apparent lack of objectivity in its reporting.
“There’s no pretense these people are journalists anymore,” said top-rated radio host Rush Limbaugh.
“You will not find in eight years of Reagan anything like what you’re reading today about ‘eliminating the Democrats, pulverizing the Democrats, going for the throat, wiping them out.’ That’s not what Reagan was. That’s not what Reagan did. Reagan won in the arena of ideas. Reagan won people’s hearts and minds. Obama’s not doing that. Obama’s not winning with his ideas. Obama’s not garnering support for his ideas. This is what frustrates me. Obama is winning purely and simply by lying and demonizing his opposition.”
He also observed Republicans seem to be doing little, if anything, to fight back.
“They’re watching themselves be targeted for elimination, and they’re not doing anything about it,” Limbaugh said. “Where is the opposition to this? Not only is there not only opposition, there appears to be some real genuine fear of speaking out against any of this.”
Tom Blumer of Newsbusters also reacted to Dickerson’s piece, noting: “Decades ago, to demonstrate the leftist biases of most establishment press reporters, one needed to study their body of work over time. Many of them didn’t make their political beliefs totally obvious until they retired or went elsewhere (e.g., Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw). These days, we usually don’t have to wait too long for reporters’ biases to show.
“Readers with strong stomachs should read [Dickerson’s whole column] to comprehend the visceral disdain Dickerson has for Americans who have the nerve to point out that the nation can’t possibly continue as it is if it continues to run trillion-dollar annual deficits and pile up debt at an even greater rate.”
[poll id=”339″]
