Yesterday, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol claimed that Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) now-infamous “bitter” remarks were Marxist in nature. On Fox News’s Hannity And Colmes last night, former Bush adviser Karl Rove echoed Kristol’s over-the-top characterization, saying “it was almost Marxian”:
ROVE: I don’t find a lot of people in rural America, I certainly don’t find the dominant view to be — “I’m so bitter that I’m going to hold on to my gun or I’m gonna” — You know, it was almost Marxian in this they cling to their religion. I mean, you know, it’s sort of like it’s the opiate of the masses.
Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/04/RoveObamaMarx.320.240.flv]
Even before Obama’s poorly worded comments last week, many on the right have been making a concerted effort to cast Obama as a socialist and a Marxist. For months now, right-wing talker Glenn Beck, who also hosts a show on CNN Headline News, has been referring to Obama as a “socialist”:
I hope it doesn’t matter to Barack. But he has heard the message of Jesus that shared prosperity is the thing to do. Hope, change, Marxism. This guy is a socialist and all you have to do is listen to his words.
On Fox News Radio yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said that it was “a good question” to ask if Obama is “a Marxist,” though he said he would “hesitate” to call him one himself.
Digg It!UPDATE: As Newshounds notes, Fox News’s Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer made similar charges on Fox’s Special Report last night. Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/04/SpecialReportMarx.320.240.flv]