By Ben Shapiro
Friday, October 14, 2016
Barack Obama is deeply dishonest.
So is Michelle Obama.
Let’s start with President Obama. Last night, Obama gave
a speech linking Donald Trump’s paranoid conspiracism with all conservatives
and Republicans. It was a glimpse into how Trumpian support will play out for
the Republican Party over the coming years. Obama shrugged off Republican
discontent over tape of Trump celebrating sexual assault; this, he said, was
just politics. “I guess it was okay when Trump was attacking minorities,
suggesting that Mexicans were rapists and Muslims were unpatriotic, insulting
Gold Star moms, making fun of disabled Americans. I guess that didn’t quite tip them over the edge….They knew better, and
they stood by silently because it was politically convenient.”
There’s an element of truth to this – why would the Trump
tape put people over the edge when all of these other things haven’t?
Obviously, timing matters, and the election is under a month away. By the same
token, however, not a single Democrat has disowned Hillary Clinton over either
the allegations of intimidation of her husband’s alleged victims, or over her
deep and abiding corruption.
But then Obama got truly ugly.
He lumped together all
conservatives and Republicans with Trump, not just those who supported Trump
during the primaries or even the general election. No, he said, Republicans had
created the climate for Trump:
The problem is not that all
Republicans think the way this guy does. The problem is that they’ve been
riding this tiger for a long time. They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of
crazy for years, primarily for political expedience…In the swamp of crazy that
has been fed over and over and over and over again. And look, there’s sort of a
spectrum, right? It’s a whole kind of ecosystem. If I watched Fox News, I
wouldn’t vote for me. If I was listening to Rush Limbaugh, I’d say, man, that’s
terrible…The people who knew better didn’t say anything. They didn’t say, oh, I
disagree with his economic policies, but that goes too far.
This is disgusting. There were plenty of conservatives
who debunked the loony conspiracy theories about birtherism (I got a ton of
flack for doing so at the time) and didn’t believe the Jade Helm nonsense. But
to equate such conspiracism with harsh critiques of Obama’s foreign policy
ideology is ugly and dishonest. Obama knows it – he just doesn’t care. It’s the
equivalent of stating that every Democrat is responsible for 9/11 conspiracy
theories, which led to the rise of Obama. It isn’t true, and it isn’t fair.
Meanwhile, Michelle Obama played the faux outrage card
over Donald Trump’s statements. “I have to tell you that I can’t stop thinking
about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have
predicted….This was not just a lewd conversation,” Michelle said, her voice
breaking. “This wasn’t just locker room banter. This was a powerful individual
speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior…. I have to tell
you that I listen to all of this and I feel it so personally, and I'm sure that
many of you do too, particularly the women. The shameful comments about our
bodies.”
Come the hell on.
Yes, Donald Trump’s comments were reprehensible. So is
his alleged behavior. But Michelle Obama doesn’t get to play this card while
supporting Hillary “Let’s Intimidate My Husband’s Rape Victim” Clinton, or
while palling around with said alleged rapist, or while talking up the legacy
of lady-killer Teddy Kennedy. Standards matter, and Michelle Obama and her
husband abandoned those standards long ago in favor of politics.
The double standards in this election are frustrating
beyond all measure. And the temptation for conservatives is to throw up our
hands and abandon our standards, because the left clearly has no such
standards. But that’s an impulse we must resist. After all, we’re supposed to
be the good guys. And no, abandoning our standards won’t help us win (check the
polls – all of them). It will just help justify everything the Democrats
disingenuously say about our morals and values in the first place.
No comments:
Post a Comment