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The Obamarang
Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On January 28, 2010 @ 9:05 pm In Uncategorized | 131 Comments

All politicians fudge on their promises. But this president manages to transcend the normal political
exaggeration and dissimulation. Whereas past executives shaded the truth, Barack Obama trumps
that: on almost every key issue, what Obama says he will do, and what he says is true, is a clear
guide to what he will not do, and what is not true. It is as if truth is a mere problem of lesser
mortals.
1. Obama now rails against a pernicious Washington and its insiders: ergo, Obama controls
Washington through both houses of Congress and the White House, and wants to expand
Washingtons control over the auto industry, health care, energy, student loans, transportation, etc.
2. Obama bashes the Supreme Court on weakening public efforts to curb campaign contributions.
Therefore, we know Obama has done more than any other president in destroying public campaign
financing by being the first presidential candidate in a general election to refuse public funds in
confidence that he could raise a record $1 billion, much of it from big moneyed interests on Wall
Street.
3. Obama calls for a freeze on government spending and deplores deficits. Hence, we know that the
possible $15 billion savings in some discretionary spending will not affect the Obama record budget
deficits that will continue to grow well over an annual $1.5 trillion a year as Obama piles up the
greatest budgetary shortfalls in any four-year presidential term in history.
4. The president calls for the Guantanamo Bay detention center to be closed within a year of his
inauguration, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, to be tried in New York.
Accordingly, we know that Guantanamo wont be closed within a year and KSM wont be tried in
New York.
5. Obama issues four serial deadlines in autumn 2009 for Iran to comply with non-proliferation
accords. Presto we know that Iran will get the bomb unimpeded by U.S. opinion.
6. Obama promised an end to earmarks and lobbyists in government of course, we assume,
then, that lobbyists will be ubiquitous among his presidential appointments, and there will be
thousands of earmarks.
7. Obama announces that he will end the war in Iraq by removing all combat brigades by August
2010. As a result, we understand that George Bush long ago signed an agreement with the Iraqis
for a joint agreement on removing U.S. combat forces by August 2010.
8. Obama laments that his fall in popularity resulted from a failure to communicate directly with the
American people. We conclude as a result that Obama has given more interviews, radio and TV
appearances, and stump speeches than any first-year president in history.
9. Obama reiterates that this is not about me. That reflects the fact that he has employed the
first-person pronouns I, me, and my more than any prior president.
10. Obama assures on eight occasions he will televise all health-care deliberations on C-SPAN. This
is clear proof that nothing will be televised as debate occurs behind closed doors, punctuated by
votes purchased through $300 million bribes and state exemptions from federal statutes.
11. Obama promises to be a tax-cutter. So we know that vast new taxes will come through revised
income tax rates, caps lifted off payroll taxes, Cadillac health care charges, and a variety of
surcharges.
12. Obama warned that if another stimulus were not passed, unemployment would reach doubledigits; hence, we were assured that the jobless rate would reach 10%.

13. Obama calls for bipartisanship and an end to finger-pointing. Of course, then, he will begin and
end nearly every speech with attacks on George Bush and the prior administration.
I could continue ad nauseam, but you get the picture. So why does Obama serially tell untruths,
mislead, and do the opposite of what he promises?
Here are four brief reasons. They are complementary, rather than mutually exclusive.
1) He does this because he can. Obama, from college at Occidental to Chicago organizing, has
never been called to account. He was always assured that his charm, his ancestry, or his rhetoric
alone mattered, while his record, actions, and accomplishments were mere footnotes. He channels
our hopes and dreams and need not traffic in reality. We, the people, like the media, have tingly
legs and believe the president is some god, and therefore need not question the charismatic face
on the screen.
2) Obama is a reflection of an era of liberal academic postmodernism. There are no
absolute facts; truth is only an illusion in the eye of the beholder. Reality instead is relative, and
predicated on the basis of power. Ergo, what others say is true is simply a reflection of their
race/class/gender/religion/cultural privileges. Speaking truth to power means simply opposing
those who, you deem, have more advantages than you and yours.
3) Obama is a neo-socialist who believes the ends of social justice justify most means
necessary to achieve them. As a philosopher-king who knows what is best for ignorant lesser
folk, who cant possibly appreciate all the ways in which he works and suffers on our behalf (Cf.
Michelles deigns to run), Obama reluctantly must employ Platonic noble lies to achieve the
common good: OK, we dont understand ObamaCare and therefore fear it and the way it is
packaged and sold; but once it is forced down our throat, we will come to love what is good for
us.
4) Obama is a narcissist, who believes that his reality is our reality, that his rules are our
rules. If the king, the autocrat, the heart-throb, the prophet, or the messiah says something is
true, then facts and reality adjust accordingly. Facts and corrections are boring. And if confronted
with contrary evidence, the self-infatuated simply smiles with the assurance that the problem is
others, not his.
And it is, sort of.

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