Krauthammer: Obama and the U.S Chamber of Commerce

Charles Krauthammer finds Obama's bizarre crusade against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce loathsome.

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Transcript

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Well, there's desperation and then there's reptilian desperation. And this is the reptilian variety. This thing just oozes of slime and innuendo. And it's McCarthyite. You make an accusation that the other side is using foreign funds. You don't have a shred of evidence and you answer like Axelrod, 'Well, what's your evidence?' which is what McCarthy did. You'd raise suspicions about someone, and the objective is not to actually make a case. It's to raise suspicions and leave them hanging out there.

Here are the facts: The Chamber of Commerce has 110 overseas affiliates which give annual dues. And it is peanuts. It's one half of one-tenth of one percent of its budget.

Also, as the New York Times has written, not me and not other Right-wing troglodytes, they've written that this practice of getting dues from overseas associations is not illegal, it's not improper, and it's not unusual. As we heard earlier in the show, the Sierra Club and the AFL-CIO also have overseas affiliates which give dues and they engage in political activity.

The money from the overseas affiliates is segregated and not used in politics. The accusation here is that the money is being used, again, without a shred of evidence.

And the irony here is that Obama's the man who ran on hope and change, and this is a pure appeal to xenophobic fear. Secondly, here's a man who said we have to be one with the world. He stands up in Berlin two years ago in a rally of swooning, cheering Germans, and what does he say? 'I'm a citizen of the world.' And now his use of the world is as a weapon. The foreigners, the sinister foreigners, are influencing our elections in a secret way, again without a shred of evidence.

Well said.

"Reptilian desperation" is a perfect term for Obama's charges.

Russ Feingold exhibits the same reptilian desperation when he speaks of foreign money funding ads supporting Ron Johnson.

Jonah Goldberg also weighs in on Obama's attack on Chamber of Commerce ads.

JONAH GOLDBERG: I think this is a disastrous move. I agree entirely with Charles that it has this McCarthyite stink to it.

And also, I think when the New York Times raps you on the nose with a rolled newspaper and says stop doing something, and then you keep doing it, it tends to make that part of the establishment angry. And I think that what you're going to see is, it is amazing how this president has managed to alienate not just his enemies, but his friends.

This is such a sad, farcical display that we're seeing from these guys, where they know it's not true. It really gives the impression that the president of the United States is sitting around reading obscure Left-wing blogs.

I think that's exactly what Obama and his comrades are doing.

Their lurch to the radical Left is pathetic.