NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, despite the holiday. Just a quick spin around the Obama school speech issue. Among other things, I notice that accusations of fascism, "Obama Youth," etc. are getting more common. Maybe they're all secret LaRouche supporters. In earlier, simpler times, they might have just called Obama's actions inappropriate or questionable, and explained why. Hitler=Obama removes the necessity of the second step and, better than that, leaves it up to the fevered imagination.

For some the default accusation will always be Communism and Russia (where you came from), of course. Andy McCarthy at National Review:

Van Jones isn't Alger Hiss. There's nothing covert about him. He didn't snooker Obama into bringing him aboard. He is who he is, and that's why Obama wanted him. Having a communist in that job was perfect since the "green jobs" initiative is an important part of the hard Left's agenda to use environmentalism as an additional justification for usurping command of the economy.

In fact, the death of the Soviet Union has actually been a boon for neocommunists. Now, Obama and his fellow travelers like Jones, Ayers, Wright, Klonsky, and ACORN, can spout all the same totalitarian, anti-American, central-planning ideas the hard Left has always pushed, but in the abstract -- under such mushy labels as "social justice" and "green jobs." That is, they are liberated from having to defend the Soviet Empire, which, until 1991, was a living, breathing, concrete example of how horrific these ideas are when put in practice.

Thus we have a new Evil Empire -- the United States of America under its current, duly-elected leadership. With the folks at National Review talking like this, it's no shock the smaller fry are so free with their use of Mao, Hitler, Stalin etc. They've come a long way from the days when William F. Buckley was arguing for national service.