The parallels get more frightening by the day

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Barack Obama is planning on keeping his national network of volunteers around for good, and will be hiring on a number of them as full-time staffers in a separate organization. This group's mandate would be to help push for his legislative agenda by leaning on members of Congress (especially Democrats who don't immediately sign on to all of his ideas), as well as help plan for his reelection four years hence by keeping the masses motivated.

He's not even inaugurated yet, but he's apparently already thinking ahead to his next campaign. Fair enough, I suppose. What's not so fair, however, is the other use he's mulling over for his legions of mindless troops:

"In what would be another unprecedented step, Obama's political staff is deciding whether to create a service organization that would use the vast corps of its grass-roots campaign supporters. As described by one source knowledgeable with the discussions, this nonprofit arm would be used to help victims of natural disasters, but would do so under the Obama umbrella while continuing to build the overall network's massive e-mail database."

This group is for now being code-named "Barack Obama 2.0", you know, to make it cool for the young people and whatnot. The "2.0" part means it's hip and fun to be a part of, in case you're an old fuddy-duddy who doesn't get the reference.

Hmmm. An extragovernmental organization, accountable to no one in government save The Messiah, that would be dispatched whenever and wherever he felt like it, regardless of whether the "official" government wants or needs them. Sound like any other historical groups?

Chillingly, an anonymous spokesman goes even farther towards making just that comparison, by choosing some unfortunate words:

"'The only way to keep this thing going is to have boots on the ground,' said a strategist familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity because campaign officials have not granted permission to talk about it." (Emphasis mine)

"Jack"-boots, perhaps? Hey, they teed that one up, not me.

The story reports that the ultimate goal is to have at least one full-time apparatchik per legislative district, a "Party official", if you will, whose job it will be to "persuade" local politicians to go along with the program, or presumably face the consequences come reelection time in their districts.

All they are missing is a Siberia to send the recalcitrant lawmakers to when they don't clap long enough at the Messiah's appearances, just like the Politburo under Stalin. The surreal situation at that time eventually necessitated using a bell to announce when it was safe to finally quit cheering without risking death, as none of the terrified Soviet lawmakers wished to be the first to stop. Without such a signal, the adulation would otherwise have gone on for hours:




In other Messiah news, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin is calling out the media for playing to perfection the role of the obedient lapdog:

"The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day."

In other words, don't rock the boat by daring to ask a legitimate question that may embarrass for fluster the Dear Leader, or you'll be frozen out. Why do the other journalists even bother to show up, if they're not among the lucky ones to be blessed with a question opportunity that day? As Warner Todd Huston of Newsbusters.org points out, where's the outrage and incendiary columns that surely would have resulted had President Bush's press people tried to pull the same stunt? Is the press really that much in the tank for Obama?

Sadly, the answer appears to be yes.

This is another too-close-for comfort eerie parallel to Soviet Russia, where the news was whatever the government wished it to be, and reporters who asked the wrong questions no longer were able to ask them, because they were in Siberia or worse. I wonder who will be assuming the Walter Duranty role in the White House press corps, and be chosen to disseminate the most juicy tidbits in exchange for blindly positive coverage?

We were told that Obama's administration was going to be the height of "transparency". This isn't a good start to that goal, unless he was blatantly lying about this aspect of his Presidency as well.

Obama voters, is this the kind of Presidency you wanted to have? I thought you didn't want to have a "dictator" in the White House?

Well, that's exactly what we seem to be getting. Thanks a lot.