Dictatorial Daydreams

This is getting frightening.

Bush was supposed to usher in the dark night of Fascism according to the Left in the MSM, entertainment and academia. Today, because Obama has to deal with a fractious Republican party, many of whom were elected specifically to rein in government spending and regulation, there is a serious call for an Obama dictatorship … by these same people.

James Taranto in today’s Wall Street Journal has done us all a favor by providing us with a list of Liberals who really do recommend that Obama take dictatorial powers.

First there’s the would-be dictator himself who suggests that it would be much simpler for him to rule by decree.

"Some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own," Obama told the National Council of La Raza Monday. He paused while the crowd chanted, "Yes, you can! Yes, you can!" and then said, "Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting."

Then we have the NY Times in a news story saying that

“… the president could instruct the Treasury to borrow money without congressional authorization on the basis of the 14th Amendment

From academia we have

“Jack Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School, on what would happen if Obama did assert this authority: "At the point at which the economy is melting down, who cares what the Supreme Court is going to say?" Balkin told the Times. "It's the president's duty to save the republic."

From the opinion pages of the Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson:

"It seems to me that definitive action--unilateral, if necessary--to prevent the nation from suffering obvious, imminent, grievous harm is one of the duties any president must perform"

Of course a power grab is more palatable if the people standing in Obama’s way can be classified as enemies who are a threat to the country.  Which is what Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the NY Times does when he calls opponents of Obama:

He says they are a:

"... national security threat," … "Only it's not coming from abroad, but from our own domestic extremists," whom Kristof compares to "Iran and al Qaeda."

Thomas Friedman, who likes the way the Chinese Communists run their country likens Conservatives to the 9/11 perpetrators, insane killers who blow people up and kill innocent civilians:

…"If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the G.O.P. on a suicide mission."

Another academic chimes in.  Geoffrey Stone, a law professor from the University of Chicago, also calls Republicans terrorists:

“By threatening to wreak havoc with the national interest, [Republicans in Congress] are attempting to terrorize rather than persuade the nation into doing what they want. . . .”

Republicans are crazy animals according to another professor:

“David Barash, a psychology professor at the University of Washington, likens congressmen to bull elephants who have become "temporarily 'crazy' " and “… calls for a dictatorial power grab by President Obama, which he describes in the benign terms of governing "as best he can for the good of the country."

These people are not the fringe of the Democrat party. These are Liberal opinion leaders and "respected academics" who are actually advocating a coup d'état by Obama if Republicans don’t submit. This is serious stuff. This is how it often begins.  Demands from a clique that someone take dictatorial power is the traditional way for tyrants to subvert democracy. These kind of expressions should be taken as seriously as death threats because they actually threaten the life the freedom we have enjoyed for almost 250 years.  This cannot be tolerated in a free country.

“… enemies of the state.”