Who's More Radical?

Wall Street Journal readers chime in on Michael Medved's reflections: "Obama a 'Radical'? Get Real." (See Noman's post on this for background, "Our Enigmatic President" from 3/13/11.  In a section of Letters To The Editor entitled "President Obama Is More Radical Than FDR and LBJ," one reader underscores President Obama's pre-White-House radical associations, specifically with Weathermen Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and long-time pastor Jeremiah Wright.  Check.  Another notes his cadre of whacky Czars, a "small army of secretive, extra-constitutional, ideologically [sic] radicals, lacking Senate examination and confirmation." Check.  Another notes the President's fitting the profile of the progressive "anointed" in Thomas Sowell's 2002 book "A Conflict of Visions."  Check.  A final commentator notes that while President Obama's extensions of the welfare state parallel those of FDR and LBJ, neither of those two Presidents doubted America's exceptionalism, or that it was a force for good in the world.  They did not see America as something that had to be apologized for, as our current President does.  Check.

President Obama Is More Radical Than FDR and LBJ

Radical is as radical does.  And, by that standard, Noman says that President Obama is a radical's radical, despite that fact that he wears $5,000 suits, talks a smooth game, and looks good on TV.