The New Politics of Fear

From the AP today:
“Making his case in the most dire terms, President Barack Obama said that if Congress does not quickly pass an economic stimulus package, the nation will slip into a crisis so deep that "we may be unable to reverse" it.”
Are we really on the brink of an irreversible cataclysmic economic collapse? I think not. Rather, Obama seems to have run head on into the same problem Jimmy Carter faced when he took the reins in 1977. He’s an outsider, and he ran on a platform of being an outsider. He stepped on toes and made enemies during his campaign. Now he doesn’t have the political clout to do what he wants to do. So Obama has very quickly turned to fear mongering to try to force his agenda through Congress. Democrats have long decried the “politics of fear” of the Republicans and the terrorist threats. Are we really surprised that they would hypocritically turn to the same tactics to justify expanded government and bloated spending? Not really, or at least we shouldn’t be. Democrats invented the “politics of fear.” Their only real gripe with the Bush administration is that W was able to use their technique effectively against them.