President Obama formally kicked off his re-election
campaign in Richmond, Va., and Columbus, Ohio, Saturday, and his theme was
certainly not, shall we say, "it's morning again in America" --
President Ronald Reagan's optimistic re-election slogan in 1984.
Obama's central message was more like: "Hey, I
realize things look bad, and I'm not going to pretend you want four more years
of this. But just think how much worse it would have been without me and how
much worse it's going to get if you get rid of me."
Interestingly, mainstream media journalists Chris
Cillizza and Aaron Blake were certain enough that Obama wasn't sufficiently
forthcoming in his speech that they co-wrote a piece for The Washington Post
"parsing" it. Without a whiff of disapproval, they said, "This
being politics, Obama said less than what he meant. But, that's where we come
in." The two then set out Obama's "most quotable lines" and
followed each with their "translation of the message he was trying to
send."
The writers are obviously sympathetic to Obama's agenda
and, as fellow liberals, share his end-justifies-the-means sleight of hand --
whatever it takes to keep this federal juggernaut barreling along. Let's look
at just a few of the quotes they highlighted.
Obama said: "I don't care how many ways you try to
explain it: Corporations aren't people. People are people." The writers
said Obama was responding to Mitt Romney's earlier remark that
"corporations are people," and they said Obama intended to send this
message: "Romney is the business candidate. I am the people's
candidate."
Well, Romney is right. Most corporations (excepting
holding companies and the like) are owned and operated by people. But Obama
must depersonalize them because it makes his attacks on business seem less
personal, which brings us to another point. Obama has denied he is
anti-business, but everything about him screams otherwise, and even many of his
liberal defenders, from these two writers to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
to Fareed Zakaria, have been hard-pressed to deny that he either is
anti-business or sends unmistakable signals that he is.
Notice also how Obama framed the issue, which is
revealing both as to his attitude toward business (mildly adversarial to
hostile) and as to his general political worldview (us against them). He
gratuitously drew a line of demarcation between corporations (read: business)
and people. This is a false choice. Why can't we be pro-corporation and
pro-people? Shouldn't an American president be bullish on both? The answer is
yes, but Obama can't be; his class-conscious ideology forbids it, and electoral
imperatives demand that he demonize his political opponents, which is why his
hype about all of us coming together as one rings so hollow and disingenuous.
If you still doubt Obama's mindset, you should consider
another quote: "We came together because we believe that in America, your
success shouldn't be determined by the circumstances of your birth." Is
there any way to read this statement apart from the drippingly bellicose class
warfare resentment it connotes?
Obama also said, "Osama bin Laden is no longer a
threat to this country." Not to dabble in ancient Greek philosophy, but I
dare say that the influence of a human being, especially one who has been as
pivotally important to al-Qaida's ongoing jihad against the United States and
its allies, can live well beyond the grave.
What's more naive and even dangerous about the statement
is that it implies that bin Laden's death justifies the false hope that the
enemy is less determined to destroy us than before and that we may now relax
our guard. Yes, we get that Obama wants to keep reminding us that he issued the
kill order for bin Laden, but let's not give him the further leeway of
overblowing the significance of the kill to the war on terror.
This whole issue is a bit spooky when you consider
Obama's double-minded approach to the war. On the one hand, he would have us
believe it's darn near over; he's replaced our so-called jingoistic rhetoric
with such gems as kinetic military actions and overseas contingency operations,
and he seems to believe his overt efforts to reach out to the Muslim world,
including flowery panegyrics to Muslim culture and the construction of Gitmo
basketball courts, have mitigated Islamist hatred toward America and the West.
(Polls emphatically say otherwise.) On the other hand, he's operating
assassination drones like a repressed schoolboy with new toys and indulging in
indefinite detentions of enemy combatants, as if wholly unaware of what the
other half of his split personality has been preaching.
I've just scratched the surface, but the inescapable
conclusion is that Obama cannot spin his domestic and foreign policy records
enough to conceal the truth of his actual record. Indeed, the stubborn truth
will be his greatest obstacle in November.
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