Obama & Alinsky: You Know the Student; Meet the Teacher

If you do not know who Saul Alinsky was, or what he stood for, you will be unable to understand the government philosophy of President Barack Obama.

Fortunately for us, Jim Geraghty at National Review has a short primer on the Obama-Alinsky relationship. A few excerpts:

Alinsky died in 1972, when Obama was 11 years old. But three of Obama’s mentors from his Chicago days studied at a school Alinsky founded, and they taught their students the philosophy and methods of one of the first “community organizers.” Ryan Lizza wrote a 6,500-word piece on Alinsky’s influence on Obama for The New Republic, noting, “On his campaign website, one can find a photo of Obama in a classroom teaching students Alinskian methods. He stands in front of a blackboard on which he has written ‘Relationships Built on Self Interest,’ an idea illustrated by a diagram of the flow of money from corporations to the mayor.”

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As a tool for understanding the thinking of Obama, Alinsky’s most famous book, Rules for Radicals, is simultaneously edifying and worrisome. Some passages make Machiavelli’s Prince read like a Sesame Street picture book on manners.

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One of Alinsky’s first lessons is: “Radicals must have a degree of control over the flow of events.” Setting aside the Right’s habitual complaint about the pliant liberal media, Obama has dominated the news by unveiling a new initiative or giving a major speech on almost every weekday of his presidency. ... The constant parade of events large and small ensures that whenever unpleasant news arises and overtakes the desired message — think of Tom Daschle’s withdrawal, the Air Force One photo op, or North Korea’s missile launch — it leads the news for only a day.

[SNIP]

Alinsky wrote: “The moment one gets into the area of $25 million and above, let alone a billion, the listener is completely out of touch, no longer really interested, because the figures have gone above his experience and almost are meaningless. Millions of Americans do not know how many million dollars make up a billion.”

Sound familiar?

Obama insists that he doesn’t want the government to run car companies, but he has fired CEOs, demonized bondholders, ensured the UAW gets the sweetest deal, and guaranteed warrantees. He insists that he doesn’t want to run banks, but his Treasury Department hesitates to take back some of the TARP funds that give them influence over bank policies. He’s critical of Wall Street, but he signed off on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s remarkably generous plan to give hedge funds and private investors a low-risk, high-reward option on toxic assets. Much of this is explained by Alinsky’s epigram, “In the politics of human life, consistency is not a virtue.”

One more snippet, and you begin to get the picture.

Moderates thought they were electing a moderate; liberals thought they were electing a liberal. Both camps were wrong. Ideology does not have the final say in Obama’s decision-making; an Alinskyite’s core principle is to take any action that expands his power and to avoid any action that risks his power.

As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It’s not about liberalism. It’s about power.

And for Alinsky, power was necessary for the ability to transform society in a socialist mold.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.