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Sticks and stones and tactics

Liberals learned half a century ago that a very effective way of stifling dissenters is to claim they are war mongers. The infamous mushroom cloud television campaign against 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater – which had no basis in fact – demonstrated that.

So now, President Barack Obama is doing the same thing against those who dare criticize his proposed deal with Iran. He claims it would prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. There are good reasons to believe it would help the Iranian leaders to do that.

Earlier this month, Obama compared critics of the deal with Iranian fanatics who are pursuing a “Death to America” campaign.

Then, last week, Obama’s spokesman referred to a planned gathering of people who oppose the deal as a “pro-war rally.”

Just hours after that, Obama had the nerve, in a discussion of how the deal will affect Israel, to say, “We have to be sure that we don’t impugn people’s motives.”

Hypocrisy is, of course, a common theme for Obama. So is demagoguery and attempting to demonize anyone who disagrees with him. At one point last week, he referred to political foes as “crazies.”

Name calling is, of course, a tactic used to divert attention from the facts in a debate. Clearly, Obama has a reason to do that.

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