Appearing on Sean Hannity’s radio show, pundit Ann Coulter said the following about presidential hopeful former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) in relation to President Barack Obama:
“I do have a very important point to make … OK, let’s accept that he’s going to be a country club Republican, that’s better than this Marxist Muslim in the White House now — he’s not really a Muslim, he’s an atheist — we have to concentrate on the Senate.”
This is name-calling. Leave aside Coulter’s comments about Obama’s religious affiliation (Obama says he is a Christian, and I have no idea how Coulter believes she can prove otherwise): Obama is simply not a Marxist.
Granted, Obama supports a greater amount of government regulation and intervention in the economy than Coulter supports, but he’s still a far cry from being a Marxist. For instance, he hasn’t called for industry to be nationalized and run by the government. In fact, under Obama, the government intervened to save General Motors and Chrysler, taking partial ownership of them. But, rather than holding on to them, the Obama administration has relinquished them back to the private sector.
Now, you can criticize this bailout of the auto industry (I know I have), but why would Obama return them to private ownership if he were a Marxist? Maybe Obama returned them to private ownership “because he’s hiding his Marxism”, but that sounds as ridiculous as the claim that Republicans support presidential candidate Herman Cain to keep their racism “covert”.
Coulter is derisively caricaturing Obama by calling him a Marxist. And Hannity is giving her a platform on which to do it. I know Coulter and Hannity don’t like it when Obama demonizes conservatives and Republicans. They should refrain from doing the same to him.