Well-Meaning or Not, Obama Threatens America

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Well-Meaning or Not, Obama Threatens America

A wealth of evidence points to an inescapable conclusion.

February 26, 2011 - by Mike McDaniel

In a Feb. 14 Wall Street Journal article, Michael Medved asserts, by way of

title, “Obama Isn’t Trying to ‘Weaken America.’” A film critic and generally
conservative cultural commentator, Medved only approaches the primary thrust of
his argument in his final paragraph when he writes:

Americans may not see a given president as their advocate, but they’re hardly
disposed to view him as their enemy — and a furtive, determined enemy at that.
For 2012, Republicans face a daunting challenge in running against the president.
That challenge becomes impossible if they’re also perceived as running against
the presidency.

As a 2012 political strategy, Medved’s final point is, as far as it goes,

reasonable. However, the rest of his essay often argues against his thesis,
which seems to be that Mr. Obama is not consciously trying to harm America and
is a conventional American president and politician with conventional political
goals and aspirations. If one assumes, for the sake of argument, that this is
true — if Mr. Obama is, with the best intentions and with good will, pursuing
policies that are manifestly harmful to America and Americans — the end result
is the same. The matter of his motivations will doubtless be a ripe controversy
for future historians, but will matter little to contemporary Americans, who
will suffer regardless.

Medved begins his essay with a quote from John Adams: “I pray heaven to bestow
the best of blessing on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May
not but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” Medved mentions some who
were not so wise and honest in making the point that the quality of our
presidents has always been limited by the fact that we are limited to choosing
from the human race. “For all their foibles, every president attempted to rise
to the challenges of leadership and never displayed disloyal or treasonous
intent. This history makes some of the current charges about Barack Obama
especially distasteful — and destructive to the conservative cause.” Perhaps,
but only if Mr. Obama is unquestionably a member of that august company.

Mr. Medved quotes a number of prominent conservative commentators to level a

blanket criticism:

None of the attacks on Mr. Obama’s intentions offers an even vaguely plausible
explanation of how the evil genius, once he has ruined our “strength, influence
and standard of living,” hopes to get himself re-elected. In a sense, the
president’s most paranoid critics pay him a perverse compliment in maintaining
that his idealism burns with such pure, all-consuming heat that he remains
blissfully unconcerned with minor matters like his electoral future. They label
Mr. Obama as the political equivalent of a suicide bomber: so overcome with
hatred (or “rage”) that he’s perfectly willing to blow himself up in order to
inflict casualties on a society he loathes.
Thinking that Mr. Obama is a conventional American politician who will react in
predictable, rational ways to common American political stimuli is a common
mistake, so it is unsurprising that Mr. Medved makes it. But Mr. Obama
manifestly and demonstrably is not a convention politician. The evidence is
stark and easy to find for those willing to see.

Mr. Obama is a doctrinaire socialist who does not, perhaps cannot, see that the
pursuit of socialist policies is harmful to America and harmful to his electoral
prospects. He simply can’t bring himself to believe that the public won’t
ultimately be grateful to him and catapult him back into the White House. Recall
that he has, on more than one occasion, said that people ought to be thanking
him for imposing socialist policies, and in making those statements, seemed
genuinely puzzled and angry that they were not.

Begin with the reality that Mr. Obama is a socialist. Those doubting this
assertion of fact need only refer to Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the
Untold Story of American Socialism. There, Stanley Kurtz meticulously and
undeniably lays bare Mr. Obama’s socialist education, associations, mentoring,
roots, beliefs, and actions. Let us also keep in mind that socialism, like
Marxism, is fundamentally incompatible with freedom, democracy, and capitalism
as embodied in America’s founding documents and as practiced in America. If Mr.
Obama is indeed a socialist — and he is — then his belief system, his way of
thinking, is innately hostile to America. Socialism and American democracy
cannot coexist, so if Mr. Obama is pursuing socialist policies, American
democracy must, of necessity, be weakened or destroyed.

But if this is true, how did Mr. Obama become president? It boils down to this:
He lied. He lied about who he is, about his background, his fundamental beliefs,
his intentions, and his methods. He employed standard Marxist/socialist tactics
and concealed his true nature so as to seize power and impose his will, and for
two years, he pretty much got away with it. A recurring theme of Mr. Medved’s
article is that such things are impossible, as Mr. Obama — like all politicians
— wants to be reelected. Put aside, for the moment, that Mr. Obama has addressed
this issue explicitly, saying that he’d rather accomplish his (socialist) goals
than be a two-term president.

Consider then the following examples, not by any means an exhaustive list:

(1) Mr. Obama’s 2012 budget flies in the face of fiscal and political reality.
Not only does it fail to actually cut spending, it dramatically increases
spending — and the deficit — far into the future, while raising taxes, ignoring
the entitlement crisis, and continuing the promulgation of policies that can
have no result other than to destroy the creation of wealth, jobs, and the
economy. America is broke, beyond broke, and the utter dissolution of our
existing entitlements — not considering ObamaCare — is imminent. Unemployment is
arguably at 10.3%; virtually every economic indicator is in the toilet. Any
responsible president, any president for whom the welfare of the nation is his
first concern, will not propose a budget that spends, now and into the future,
far more money than America produces and can possibly take in or repay. Yet Mr.
Obama wants to spend billions on projects like high-speed rail, a boondoggle the
public neither wants nor needs.

(2) Since taking office, Mr. Obama has serially and crudely insulted our
strongest and most faithful allies, such as Great Britain and Israel, while
extending “outreach” to virtually every thuggish, repressive, anti-democratic
regime on the planet. His repeated threats to establish yet another deadline
when Iran violates the last have established only his impotence. Iran is
pursuing nuclear weapons, and all Mr. Obama can do is threaten to trot out even
more threatening rhetoric.

(3) Mr. Obama’s neophyte involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process”

has served only to destroy it. He tried to force concessions on Israel that even
Palestinian President Abbas admitted the Palestinians did not want, destroying
any contemporary chance for peace.

(4) Mr. Obama’s statements and policies, across the board, are nothing less than
Islamic boosterism. Any president serving as a cheerleader for say, Catholicism,
would be rightfully criticized, but a starstruck media and a benumbed public
have nothing to say when the head of NASA announces a new, primary mission,
handed down from Mr. Obama, to make Muslims feel good about the scientific
accomplishments of their ancient ancestors. Of course, since Mr. Obama has
impaired NASA’s budget to the point of driving it entirely out of space, ancient
Muslim outreach may be all that it can afford to do.

(5) One of the only constants in Mr. Obama’s foreign policy is a reflexive,
mindless support for Marxist and/or Islamist despotism. Take the example of
Honduras, where a Marxist president attempted to overthrow the Honduran
Constitution and install himself as ruler for life. Adhering to the rule of law,
the Hondurans threw him out of office and out of the country. Mr. Obama
immediately sided with the Marxist, and has personally, and through the State
Department, supported him against the Honduran rule of law ever since.

(6) Mr. Obama has appointed avowed Marxists (Van Jones) and worshippers of
Communist mass murderers (Anita Dunn) to high-ranking positions in his
administration. For any other American president, even contemplating such
appointments would be unthinkable. For Mr. Obama, so low have our expectations
sunk that it’s almost unremarkable.

(7) Venezuela has taken delivery of some 2,000 Russian man-portable, anti-aircraft
missiles. It has entered into an agreement with Iran to build ground-to-ground
missile bases in Venezuela, stocked with Iranian missiles capable of carrying
nuclear and/or biological warheads that could reach virtually anywhere in
America. Mr. Obama has had nothing to say about this, and has apparently done
nothing at all to stop it. Did I mention that Mr. Chavez is also going to build
a nuclear reactor capable of producing weapons-grade materials? Neither did Mr.
Obama.

(8) Mr. Obama has done enormous harm to immigration policy and national security.
He has sued Arizona for daring to try to enforce immigration laws that he will
not, and surrendered huge portions of the southern United States to terrorists
and drug cartels, posting signs warning Americans to stay out of those areas for
their own safety.

(9) Mr. Obama and his administration refuse to identify our Islamist enemy, and
continue to pursue policies that make Americans far less safe, including trying
terrorists in civilian courts and establishing a paralyzing regime of political
correctness in every governmental institution. Despite recent speeches by French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, all acknowledging not only the failure but danger of
multicultural political correctness, Mr. Obama shows no sign of abandoning
socialist multi-culti orthodoxy.

(10) When the Iranian public rose up against the mullahs, Mr. Obama ignored them,
giving lip service to “bearing witness.” When the Egyptian uprising occurred, Mr.
Obama flip- flopped, offering support to the protestors one day and to Mr.
Mubarak the next. He succeeded only in alienating virtually everyone in the
region, giving Islamists a boost by declining to delegitimize the Muslim
Brotherhood, and encouraging its involvement in an Egyptian government. In so
doing, he convinced the leaders of every Middle Eastern nation that as an enemy,
America under Obama is harmless, and as a friend, fickle and treacherous.

(11) Under Eric Holder, Mr. Obama’s Justice Department has pursued blatantly
racist and class warfare policies, refusing to pursue — as a matter of
internally declared policy — cases where non-blacks are discriminated against in
violation of federal law. Mr. Holder has also allowed states to blatantly
violate federal law that requires that overseas members of our military receive
absentee ballots prior to elections. (Our military members tend to vote
overwhelmingly for conservatives.)

(12) While decrying America’s reliance on regimes hostile to American interests

for energy, Mr. Obama has cut off domestic exploration and production, actually
saying that he wants energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket” to better force
socialist policies on the public. He has announced his goal of destroying the
coal industry in America. His administration has ignored court orders to issue
new drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico and has blatantly doctored scientific
evidence — and been caught in the attempt — to support its unsupportable
policies.

(13) Mr. Obama rammed through ObamaCare against the wishes of the public, and
has continually lied about its contents, effects, costs, and consequences. Even
though Great Britain and Canada are beginning to back away from the well-
documented
daily horrors of socialized medicine, Mr. Obama blindly rushes ahead into that
pit of despair. The largest single entitlement program in history, ObamaCare
alone will bankrupt the nation. This despite the fact that without considering
ObamaCare, Mr. Obama has spent more money — money that we do not have — in
only
two years in office than every other president combined. He is laboring mightily
to make things worse, much worse.

(14) Mr. Obama federalized the entire student loan industry as part of ObamaCare
(!) — apparently as prelude to his oft-expressed desire that everyone attend
college on the public dime, equally apparently whether they need (or want) to or
not. Add to this faulty calculation the bursting of the higher education bubble,
fueled by out-of-control loan and tuition costs, and by the fact that a bachelor’s
degree no longer guarantees employment or an enhanced yearly wage. Mr. Obama’s
actions serve only to further depress the private sector, reducing tax revenues
while providing no public benefit.

(15) Under the guise of saving it, Mr. Obama has federalized 2/3 of the domestic
auto industry, enriching his union supporters.

(16) Mr. Obama and his various State Department functionaries, including
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have so berated America in foreign capitals
and elsewhere that their enmity toward America can scarcely be denied. Any man
who spoke of the alleged failings and faults of his wife the way Mr. Obama and
his administration speak of America would be hard pressed to make anyone believe
that he loved and respected her.

Imagine, if you will, a socialist/Marxist president whose party controlled both

houses of Congress and who was determined to actually harm America
diplomatically, domestically, economically, and in every other way. Apart from
building a domestic KGB-like intelligence apparatus and paramilitary force, how
would such a president and his actions differ from Mr. Obama and his own?

Each of the few examples I’ve provided are, by themselves, cause for alarm in a
people dedicated to liberty and prosperity. Taken together, they suggest that
far more than poor policy, incompetence, stubbornness, or stupidity are at work.

It may be argued that Mr. Obama’s expressed and implied beliefs and actions
merely reflect a profound lack of experience, perhaps even utter incompetence,
and there is doubtless some significant element of this present in the Obama
administration at virtually all levels. Witness the recent pronouncement of CIA
Director Leon Panetta, who admitted that the information on Egypt he gave the
same committee was not the fruits of professional CIA analysis, but of media
accounts.

Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano is likewise a fount of late night TV

talk show jokes, and Vice President Joe “The Sheriff” Biden is in a gaffetastic
class by himself.

The problem, for Mr. Medved, and the nation, is that mere incompetence cannot
adequately explain away Mr. Obama’s background, his expressed and implied
beliefs, or his associations, appointments, and official actions. Believing that
he actually wishes America harm is, in light of the voluminous and growing
evidence, not unfounded but logical — not a reactionary, emotional conclusion
but a reasonable one based on objective evidence, most of which has been
provided by Mr. Obama himself.

If this was not so, wouldn’t at least some of his policies have the consequence
of substantially and honestly benefiting America?

And reelection? Wouldn’t any normal politician acting as Mr. Obama has acted and
continues to act be committing political suicide? Wouldn’t he know this and
engage in Clintonian triangulation, at least giving the appearance of tracking
to the center? Yes. But Mr. Obama is not a conventional politician.

All politicians, particularly presidents, have healthy egos, but Mr. Obama’s
narcissism is the stuff of legend. Consider his pseudo- presidential Great Seal
of Obama; his extra-constitutional and non-existent “Office of the President-Elect”;
his Marxist, Cold War-inspired propaganda posters and symbols; his announcement,
upon receiving his party’s nomination for president, that history would record
it as the moment the seas began to recede and the planet began to heal; or his
response to a Democrat worried about the outcome of the 2010 Congressional
election that Democrats had nothing to worry about “because you have me.” One
might be forgiven for believing that Mr. Obama’s narcissism gets in the way of a
clear-eyed, realistic view of the world.

Bill Clinton did indeed tack toward the center to ensure his reelection. He was
not a socialist and did not surround himself with socialist radicals. There is
reason to believe that Mr. Obama would like to be reelected, but there is
greater reason to believe that he, first and foremost, sees the world through
Obama-colored glasses. Peering through those lenses, he sees a world not only
hanging on his words, grateful to receive them and anxious to act upon them, but
breathlessly waiting for him to bestow his transformative words. He sees a world
where his rhetoric and the force of his personality and matchless intellect can
and will cause transformative change. He sees a world where foreign policy is an
annoying distraction from his true interest in, as he has often put it, “fundamentally
changing America.”

Despite his protestations (common God- and gun-clinging folk would call them “lies”)
to the contrary, Mr. Obama sees as one of his guiding principles the necessity
and morality of redistributing wealth. He made this clear when Joe the Plumber
dared ask him if he was going to raise his taxes and Obama replied that he
believed that things were better if you spread the wealth around. And of course,
no one is more qualified to know to whom it should be spread than Mr. Obama, who
makes a virtual sacrament of class warfare — particularly against the evil and
greedy rich, a class to which one need make a surprisingly small amount to
belong. (I seem to remember something about class warfare being an integral part
of Marxist theory.)

Mr. Medved is correct in suggesting that it would be unwise for the GOP to
attack the presidency, but he makes the same mistake made by Mr. Obama in
equating Mr. Obama with the presidency. This is a significant part of the reason
why Mr. Obama fails so badly in foreign policy: he speaks not as the president
of the United States, willing and able to use its might and prestige to further
American interests, but as Barack Obama, who routinely disparages America’s
might and prestige, seeks to further his interests, and diminishes not only his
office but the nation it exists to serve. His ego keeps him from understanding
this distinction, but it is surely appreciated by foreign leaders who fear and
respect him not.

In the 2012 election, the GOP standard bearer should not make the same mistake
made by Sen. John McCain. He must be willing and able to criticize every
negative and foolish aspect of Mr. Obama’s ideas, policies, associations,
appointments, and beliefs. He must be willing and able to point out exactly why
Mr. Obama is not fit to occupy the Oval Office. He must make plain that the
office of the President does not exist to empower its occupant to “fundamentally
change” America, to ignore the Constitution, and to gain ultimate, intimate
power over the lives of its citizens, but to faithfully uphold the Constitution
and to ensure individual dignity and liberty. This is not attacking the
presidency, but upholding its dignity and importance — a dignity and importance
substantially diminished by Mr. Obama. John Adams would almost certainly think
him neither honest nor wise.

Mike McDaniel is a former police officer, detective, and SWAT operator.

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