George Neumayr: The Obama-Stockholm Syndrome
[George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report and press critic for California Political Review.]
Early in the week, the press spoke of Barack Obama's willingness to extend "an olive branch" to Republicans. By the middle of the week, his "olive branch" looked more like a thorn bush.
A politician who promised a glorious new era of civility and concord was referring to his Republican opponents as hostake takers on the issue of tax cuts. "It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed," he said. It doesn't occur to him that he qualifies more as the captor in the analogy. After all, he is the one who was threatening to take action against the people by raising tax rates on job-creating business owners.
Obama can only hope that the American people will be seduced by a political version of the Stockholm Syndrome, a term that was popularized after Swedish robbers took hostages at a bank in 1973. During the five-day ordeal, the hostages, instead of resenting their captors, grew emotionally attached to them and made excuses for them after it ended.
Obama thinks the American people should feel gratitude to him for offering to release them from a tax-hike crisis into which he had thrown them. He casts himself as the passive negotiator in the struggle, but he is one who has been controlling Washington for two years...
Read entire article at American Spectator
Early in the week, the press spoke of Barack Obama's willingness to extend "an olive branch" to Republicans. By the middle of the week, his "olive branch" looked more like a thorn bush.
A politician who promised a glorious new era of civility and concord was referring to his Republican opponents as hostake takers on the issue of tax cuts. "It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed," he said. It doesn't occur to him that he qualifies more as the captor in the analogy. After all, he is the one who was threatening to take action against the people by raising tax rates on job-creating business owners.
Obama can only hope that the American people will be seduced by a political version of the Stockholm Syndrome, a term that was popularized after Swedish robbers took hostages at a bank in 1973. During the five-day ordeal, the hostages, instead of resenting their captors, grew emotionally attached to them and made excuses for them after it ended.
Obama thinks the American people should feel gratitude to him for offering to release them from a tax-hike crisis into which he had thrown them. He casts himself as the passive negotiator in the struggle, but he is one who has been controlling Washington for two years...