Owing no fealty to the hobgoblin of little minds, Obama has shifted from criticizing opponent, Mitt Romney, as a say-anything candidate to attacking him as a principled small-government advocate who believes "all regulations are bad; that government has no role to play." If only it were true.
And of course the president is making use of the same straw man deployed by all those who fear smaller government and loathe libertarianism. We say "government is too big and needs to scale back," and they exaggerate it to "they believe government has no role" so they can easily demolish an argument we've never made. "Libertarian" isn't the same as "anarchist," for God's sake. Liberalism isn't the same as totalitarianism, either, but I can construct straw men, too. Did you know that those crazy liberals think government should control everything and not give individuals any right to choose at all? Mine is closer to the truth, eh?
