The notion that Obama is a dangerous extremist helps him,
because it makes him seem reasonable and his critics foolish. It also helps
those who peddle it, because it makes them notorious and helps them sell their
wares. But it has done perhaps irreparable harm to the central conservative
cause of the present moment—making the case that Obama’s social-democratic
statism is setting the United States
on a course for disaster and that his anti-exceptionalist foreign policy is
setting the world on a course for nihilistic chaos. Those are serious
arguments, befitting a serious antagonist. They may not sell gold coins as
quickly and as well as excessive alarmism, but they have the inestimable
advantage of being true.