So, who is Obama’s role model this week?

Looks like Hugo Chavez. Jay D. Hommick at American Spectator:

To use the Presidential bully pulpit as a blunt instrument against a news organization, to label its approach destructive, to label its content destructive, that is -- to coin a phrase -- destructive. Think back to our first clue that Hugo Chavez was an autocrat, bent on subverting those national institutions which did not refract his glory. It was when he came out against various newspapers and television stations, saying much the same things as our own El Presidente.

The problem for Obama is that, now, practically everybody knows about the Alinsky model and how it works (e.g., the emphasis on demonizing specific, high-profile targets). This was poor spotting by the president to begin with: Fox News is the most trusted news network in the country, and even if he had managed to undermine its credibility, does he think that people are automatically going to turn to MSNBC?

The tactic hasn’t worked, so all that’s left is the naked hypocrisy:

The idea that the journalism at FOX is unique by species is specious. The news is presented fairly and a rightward tilt often peeks through, no more prominently than the leftward tilt at CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN et al. Yet even if it were somehow more egregiously skewed, how is this destructive when so many viewing options are available? Remember, this fox came to the table last, long after the wolves had been seated. Who can reasonably argue that having one strident right-wing voice amid a gaggle of left-wing voices, or even amid neutral voices, is to inject a moral havoc into the culture?

No one can reasonably argue that position; however, in the president’s increasingly Orwellian world, reason is not necessarily – or even usually - a virtue. What matters to this administration is power and control - “Who, whom?” as Lenin phrased it – and the president is likely to find out the hard way that the American people aren’t going to be deceived by his clumsy propaganda efforts (so transparently devoid of reason) into accepting his vision of the United States as a kind of bloated Belgium.

Obama is shrinking in stature daily, and his frequent displays of petulance and finger-pointing are only serving to make him not only a small, but a genuinely repellent, human being. It’s getting to the point where we have to admit that reelecting him would reflect poorly on our taste as well as on our judgment.