One of the Leftmedia’s underhanded tactics to smear Republicans as extremists is to move the goal posts. The Washington Post provides yet another textbook example of this dishonest ploy with a story by David Swerdlick, who ridiculously asserts, “Democrats who want to be president can’t quite figure out how to talk about the most popular figure in their party.” Why? “There’s a simple reason: Barack Obama is a conservative.” No, that wasn’t the punchline to a joke. At least not intentionally.

As evidence to support his outlandish conclusion, Swerdlick points to several policy positions Obama took while in office that he falsely equates to conservative perspectives. These include — wait for it — Obama’s support for the bank bailout, his inaction on gun control, his flip-flop on “gay marriage,” and his willingness to continue America’s war in Afghanistan. Swerdlick also inserts this rather telling statement: “[Obama] believes, fundamentally, that the American model works — even if it hasn’t been allowed to work for everyone.” So, because Obama was not a full-blown Marxist (and even that’s arguable), he’s a conservative?

So, what’s really behind the Post’s revisionist history to paint Obama as a conservative? It’s likely tied to Obama’s recent comments warning Democrats against going too far left. “This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” he stated in October. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.” Cue the outrage.

The fact of the matter is that Obama was the most leftist president our nation has ever had. He forced through one of American history’s biggest government takeovers of industry with ObamaCare, a massive step toward socializing Americans’ healthcare. Obama was notorious for unilaterally going around Congress to put his policy agenda into action, massively expanding the size of the federal government. His was an imperial presidency, where Americans saw many of our most important freedoms run over roughshod, all in the name of standing on the “right side of history,” in Obama’s tiresome formulation. No, today’s hard-leftist Democrat Party is the result of Obama’s legacy, not in spite of it.