Barack Obama is no soclialist. Take it from an actual card-carrying member of the party. – By Billy Wharton

Excerpts:

During his campaign, the ever-desperate McCain, his hard-charging running mate Sarah Palin and even a plumber named Joe lined up to call Barack Obama a “socialist.” Last month, Huckabee even exclaimed that, “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead, but the Union of American Socialist Republics is being born.”

We appreciated the newfound attention. But we also cringed as the debate took on the hysterical tone of a farcical McCarthyism. The question “Is Obama a socialist?” spread rapidly through a network of rightwing blogs, conservative television outlets and alarmist radio talk shows and quickly moved into the mainstream. “We Are All Socialists Now,” declared a Newsweek cover last month. A New York Times reporter recently pinned Obama down with the question, “Are you a socialist, as some people have suggested?” The normally unflappable politician stumbled through a response so unconvincing that it required a follow-up call in which Obama claimed impeccable free market credentials.

The funny thing is, of course, that socialists know that Barack Obama is not one of us. Not only is he not a socialist, he may in fact not even be a liberal. Socialists understand him more as a hedge-fund Democrat — one of a generation of neoliberal politicians firmly committed to free-market policies.

The first clear indication that Obama is not, in fact, a socialist, is the way his administration is avoiding structural changes to the financial system. Nationalization is simply not in the playbook of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his team. They favor costly, temporary measures that can easily be dismantled should the economy stabilize. Socialists support nationalization and see it as a means of creating a banking system that acts like a highly regulated public utility. The banks would then cease to be sinkholes for public funds or financial versions of casinos and would become essential to reenergizing productive sectors of the economy.

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Morris concludes Obama is an “incompetent socialist,” and NEO-NAZI Sean ‘Klannity’ gleefully agrees with him. Hannity replies, “I told you so”

….and Media repeatedly declare that Obama’s “honeymoon” is “over” — but the cliché lives on

A Media Matters analysis found that since the day after President Obama’s inauguration, broadcast and cable news figures have been stating that Obama’s “honeymoon” is “over” or questioning whether it is, rendering the cliché all but meaningless. During this period, media figures have suggested Obama’s “honeymoon” is “over” with respect to “some … die-hard Republicans,” the media, African-Americans, Cuban President Fidel Castro, “Republican critics of his economic recovery plan,” and economists.

What Honeymoon? — Media Prostitutes Weigh In

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