Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com
This author has reported extensively on the new faux centrist organization “No Labels” and its organizers’ efforts to form a new, national third party in time for the 2012 presidential elections. After its kickoff event yesterday in New York City, it is clear the group is rendering yet another service to the president: It attempts to portray Barack Obama as a centrist.
In a story today, Politico surmizes that No Labels “may inadvertently serve a stalking horse for President Barack Obama.” However, it does not seem so very inadvertent. Democratic donor Jim Torrey, who attended the event, admitted, “Of all the people in the audience, if you drilled down you wouldn’t find that many Republicans.” The few who showed up were either “former” Democrats (Mark McKinnon, Michael Bloomberg) or RINOs run herd out of the GOP by the Tea Party movement (Mike Castle, Bob Inglis).
Torrey added that Obama “aligned with the values of this organization.” He was right — and that seems to be the group’s current raison d’etre: to pretend its views are the political “center,” and coincidentally Barack Obama shares them all. Thus, whoever opposes his agenda is an extremist who must be read out of polite political society.
The attempt to demonize the flyover country booboisie began on schedule. One participant told the gathering, “You just have to look to Arizona to see extremists who are trying to divide us.” Upon hearing this, Jim Geraghty of National Review wrote, “I thought the point of the group was to stop labeling people; but I guess it’s okay to label the overwhelming majority of Arizonans ‘extremists.’”
On the contrary, that is its purpose: to beat back the Tea Party, revive the spirit of Bob Michel, and keep the country moving steadily to the Left.
As I have noted, the Left center’s target is not just Arizonans….
