Obama Shifts from 'Income Inequality' to 'Ladders of Opportunity'

President Obama has already changed his vernacular concerning his second term focus of “income inequality.” He is now calling it “ladders of opportunity.”

In an apparent effort to blunt criticism over his intent to engage in full-blown class warfare during his second term, Obama is softening the harsher term with a new label.

The Associated Press reports that Obama has shifted his rhetoric from “complaining” about income inequality toward language that creates an appearance that he is offering support for the middle class.

Since his December 4 economic speech where he used the word “inequality” 26 times, the word is nonexistent in subsequent posts on his website, his press releases, and his speeches.

Obama’s new tact is to sound like he is “lifting people up,” as Paul Begala recently said.

The President’s new rhetoric will sound more like his comments on education made on January 16: “We have to make sure that there are new ladders of opportunity into the middle class, and that those ladders–the rungs on those ladders are solid and accessible for more people.”

In that same January speech, Obama claimed he’d work with Congress to offer those “new ladders of opportunity,” but he also warned again that he’ll go around Congress if he doesn’t get his way.

“Now, I’m going to be working with Congress where I can to accomplish this,” Obama said, “but I’m also going to act on my own if Congress is deadlocked. I’ve got a pen to take executive actions where Congress won’t, and I’ve got a telephone to rally folks around the country on this mission.”

It seems the new rhetoric doesn’t differ from the old.