Marathon Pundit: Sen. Alexander to Obama: "Let's not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list"

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Sen. Alexander to Obama: "Let's not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list"

During the two year run-up to last year's presidential election, the Barack Obama campaign had its way with the media. Partly through manipulation, even more so because the establishment media was on its side--the so-called public watchdogs were on the "Hope and Change" bandwagon.

One notable exception was Fox News, which is the most-watched cable news network. Since Inauguration Day, the ratings for Fox have increased.

Over the last few days, Obama operatives Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod have advanced a strategy to marginalize Fox News, calling their content "opinion." But Fox was the first major media outlet to report on the ACORN scandal as well as the controversy surrounding safe schools czar Kevin Jennings, former green jobs czar Van Jones, and White House communications director Anita Dunn's admiration for Chairman Mao.

Fox is doing its jobs as a public watchdog, the other networks are not. Jake Tapper of ABC News is a notable exception.

Is the White House creating an Nixonian "enemies list?" Possibly. Which troubles Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who spoke about it on the Senate floor this morning.

Alexander was a junior staffer in the Nixon White House--worked with Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson confidante Bryce Harlow. Here's an excerpt from Alexander's speech:

As any veteran of the Nixon White House can attest, we've been down this road before and it won’t end well. An "enemies list" only denigrates the Presidency and the Republic itself.

Forty years ago, Bryce Harlow would say to me, "Now Lamar, remember that our job here is to push all the merely important issues out of the White House so the president can deal with the handful of issues that are truly presidential." Then he would slip off for a private meeting in the Capitol with Democratic leaders who controlled the congress and usually find a way to enact the president proposals.

Most successful leaders have eventually seen the wisdom of Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who said, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies.

The British writer Edward Dicey was once introduced to President Lincoln as "one of his enemies. I did not know I had any enemies," was Lincoln's answer; And Dicey later wrote, 'I can still feel, as I write, the grip of that great boney hand held out to me in token of friendship."

So here's my point. These are unusually difficult times, with plenty of forces encouraging us to disagree. Let's not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list. Let's push the street-brawling out of the White House and work together on the truly presidential issues: creating jobs, reducing health care costs, reducing the debt, creating clean energy.