Anti-Obama talk worries some on right - even wingnut Horowitz calls it “over-the-top hysteria."

Anti-Obama talk worries some on right
By: Michael Calderone
April 4, 2009 06:45 AM EST

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.

Borrowing from conservative writer Charles Krauthammer — who in 2003 coined the term “Bush derangement syndrome” to describe some Bush haters — Horowitz dubbed the piece, “Obama Derangement Syndrome.”

“Conservatives, please,” Horowtiz said. “Let's not duplicate the manias of the left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the anti-Christ, although a disturbing number of people on the right are convinced he is.”


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