Anti-Obama talk worries some on right

By: Michael Calderone
Politico
April 4, 2009

While Washington policy makers coped with 21st century political problems this week, some conservative talkers were dredging up 20th-century "-isms."

Glenn Beck, who graced the cover of The New York Times on Monday, teased Friday’s episode of his increasingly popular new Fox News show with images of Stalin, Lenin and Hitler, while telling audiences on Wednesday’s show that he was wrong to have said the Obama administration is leading America to socialism — it’s actually fascism.

“They’re marching us towards 1984,” Beck said. "Big Brother, he’s watching.”

Although Beck’s brand of libertarian conservatism has generated a strong following, some members of the right-leaning commentariat openly doubt whether such heated rhetoric is helpful to the Republican Party or the conservative movement at large.

Conservative author David Horowitz, himself no stranger to controversy or heated accusations, warns that the criticism of Obama among some conservatives has approached “over-the-top hysteria." It’s not just Stalin comparisons, Horowitz wrote this past week on FrontPageMag.com — one contributor likened the president to David Koresh, Charles Manson and Saddam Hussein.

(More here.)