More Harsh, Bitter Rhetoric from Obama

How does he expect to work with Republicans and govern when he persists in attacking and insulting half the country?
It was just a few months ago during the debate over Obama Care that President Obama and senior Democrats were warning those protesting against the Democrat plan to watch their language and not engage in any overheated rhetoric. In the commencement address he delivered at the University of Michigan in May, Obama he warned that vocal opposition to his policies:"coarsens our culture, and at its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response."

Yet how many times in the past few weeks have we seen Obama himself use rhetoric that has a component of implied violence or threat? In the first week of October he warned that a GOP takeover of Congress would mean "hand-to-hand combat."

On Monday, in an interview with a Spanish language network Obama urged Latinos to "punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends." Punish? Enemies? Is this presidential behavior? What kind of punishment is he encouraging Latinos to mete out to their "enemies?"

And then there are the insults. Last week at a Democrat fundraiser Obama suggested that voters don't appreciate all the good things he has done for them because they are "scared" and not thinking clearly.

Also on Monday, Obama used his shopworn car in the ditch metaphor with an audience in Rhode Island. But he added something new. He said that once he gets the car out of the ditch, Republicans were welcome to ride but would have to "sit in the back" [video].

Imagine what would happen if ANY Republican running for office, let alone a GOP presidential candidate, had suggested Obama sit in the back of the bus or attempted to fire up his voters by telling them to "punish enemies" or threatened to engage in "hand to hand combat?" We all know the firestorm that would erupt in the "news" media. But this is Obama and apparently he can say or do anything without much more than a whisper in the press.

We're a long way from the days when Obama promised that his election would mean "good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." It's a long fall from such soaring rhetoric to "punish enemies," "hand to hand combat" and telling half the country to "sit in the back!"

Do we have a President of the United States in the White House or a Thug in Chief?