Stanley Kurtz is a prominent writer in the Conservative punditry. During the last election, he was a major proponent of the notion that if we elected Barack Obama, then we'd be turning the White House over to William Ayers, Reverend Wright, and any other radical who was ever in the same room as Obama. He's now out with a book that makes the case that Obama is a Socialist, which is a claim that many of the president's foes are desperate to believe and/or sell.
It seems like a silly charge to me. Obama's the guy who didn't fight for the public option, didn't nationalize the auto industry, etc. He still won't come out strongly for Gay Marriage and seems to me to barely qualify as a "slightly left of center Democrat," which is how William Kristol characterized him on The Daily Show. (Betcha Kristol never said that on Fox News.) But I do understand that some people are so far to the right that even the middle of the road looks Marxist from their vantage point. I also understand that some folks are so horrified to have a guy in the Oval Office who's a Democrat and/or Black that they want to throw every possible insult at him…so he's Hitler, he's the Anti-Christ, he's not an American Citizen…and he's a Socialist.
Enter Eugene Debs…and this is not the Eugene Debs who helped start the U.S. labor movement. This is a current Democratic activist writing under a pseudonym over at the website run by Conservative strategist-pariah David Frum. Frum is kind of a fascinating figure in the punditry these days. He wants to achieve most of the same things that other right-wingers crave but he thinks they're going about it the wrong way; that while the goals are right, the popular strategy as to how to get there is wrong. There are some folks out there who hate Obama…and hate Frum as much if not more for suggesting that throwing every possible handful of mud at the president is not going to drive him from office. Anyway, Frum has been publishing articles that "Debs" is writing to argue against Kurtz.
If you want to follow the exchange, here's the first round by Kurtz. Then here's Debs' reply and a supporting argument by Frum. Then here's Kurtz's reply to Debs. Then here's Debs' rebuttal to Kurtz and here's Debs continuing his argument.
Obviously, I think Kurtz is full of it. His position seems to come down to "If Obama does X, he's a Socialist and if he doesn't do X, then he's still a Socialist…and if anything he does seems to prove he's not a Socialist, it's obviously a smokescreen to cover up the fact that he's determined to do Socialist things to us." Still, I found the exchange interesting and I leave you to make up your own mind who's winning, not that it matters a lot. Those who believe Obama is a Kenyan-born commie-fascist are going to believe that forever. And Kurtz will sell a lot of books to them.