McCarthy on Alinksy

The supremely insightful Andy McCarthy has written a long and instructive article on Saul Alinsky. As part of the effort he shows why it's important to know who he was and why what he did is still important, using as a prime example one of his most devoted acolytes.

Meantime, [Obama] berates “fat-cat bankers”—the same ones his acorn associates pressured into making the ruinous sub-prime mortgage loans that necessitated their bail-out. To squeeze them into slashing pay, Obama summoned bank ceos to a White House dressing down, admonishing that “my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

To rationalize expanding government control over the financial sector, he had his Treasury Secretary gather together the top executives of the nation’s nine largest banks and goad them (in terms worthy of the Godfather) to accept government capital infusions, whether they wanted the money or not, or risk the wrath of regulators.

In muscling in on the auto industry, the administration skirted the bankruptcy laws, orchestrating a takeover of General Motors in which bondholders were robbed blind in order to reward the President’s supporters at the United Auto Workers.

And as public outcry over the Gulf oil disaster mounted, Obama summoned BP executives to a White House sweat-session in the ominous presence of his Attorney General; when the parties emerged, BP had been brow-beaten into ponying up a staggering $20 billion escrow fund to be doled out by an administration flunky, Kenneth Feinberg — a left wing lawyer previously designated the president’s “czar” to police executive compensation at companies bailed out by the government.

I'm tempted to say that some leftists were/are so evil they deserve only to be put down like rabid dogs before they can bite. Apart from an unshakable attachment to the First Amendment, though, there's another consideration that holds me back. No one had to listen to him. That they did, and do, suggests there's something far more wrong with American culture than a lone nihilist. Regular readers will already know well what I think that is.