Wonk Room:

Among the critics of President Obama’s clean energy agenda who say it will destroy the economy are Glenn Beck, Marc Morano, Fox News, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and even Democratic candidate for the governor of Virginia, Creigh Deeds. Beck believes the White House energy and environment adviser Carol Browner is a socialist. Morano, Inhofe’s former blogger, argued limits on global warming pollution is the “biggest threat to freedom” at the Accuracy in Media conference today. Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer calls the regulation “cap and tax.” Inhofe warns of a “global tax” from the United Nations. And Deeds is now running ads claiming the “cap and trade bill” would “hurt the people” of Virginia.

The reason Obama’s critics accuse him of socialism is because, for reasons of “interest or ideology,” they support a system of economic inequity based on an unsustainable fossil-fuel economy. The current system has reaped great rewards for the ultra-wealthy and the industrial polluters at the expense of the health and welfare of their fellow Americans. To avoid blame for their malfeasance, they must paint Obama as the villain, and his essential reform agenda as even scarier than the status quo, with language that taps into the darkest fears of the American public.