Obama and Me
I have by this time written and posted maybe two dozen articles bitterly decrying the ruinous ascendancy of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States. In developing my arguments, I have used every discrediting metaphor and analogy I could think of — Obama as a defective scholar, as a greedy restaurateur, as a mad apologist, as a Science Fiction Destructor, as a sorcerer’s apprentice, as a sly feline, as a flamboyant orchid, as President Stuxnet, as an arboreal lycopod, as an arrogant college sophomore with failing grades, as a Burgher of Schilda, as the Playboy of the Western World, as the Pied Piper, as Zartan who assumes the identity of the president in the film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, as the reincarnation of the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi, and more. I have even suffered nightmares in which he appears like a spook out of the yawning earth to haunt a terrified people.
But it didn’t start out that way. After 9/11 and the attendant shock to my soft-left political convictions, I embarked on a prolonged period of historical and political study culminating in my 2007 book, The Big Lie. Though I had by then become deeply conservative in my thinking and allegiances, this new orientation did not prevent me from admiring various worthy politicians in the Liberal Party of Canada and the Democratic Party in the U.S. And like so many others among the deluded, I was originally highly impressed by Barack Obama.
When I first heard about Obama as a rising star in the Democratic Party, a man so refreshingly different from his predecessors and contemporaries, I was intensely curious and quite favorably disposed toward the youngish, African-American legislator and author. And when I gleaned from my local newspaper that he might harbor aspirations to the White House, I found myself very much in his corner, one of his many Canadian fans. He had an effect similar to the new car smell, appropriately called “outgassing” in the trade, which is often irresistible to prospective buyers.
Naturally, I wished to learn as much as I could about the man who represented an unprecedented phenomenon on the American political scene. I soon discovered that very little of substance was known about this rara avis and so began a disciplined search for more information. Within months I had accumulated a towering stack of articles, commentaries, editorials, and diverse kinds of documentary materials, much of this stuff mere unfocused adulation and adjectival irrelevance but many of these items of a distinctly troubling nature. His autobiographies notwithstanding, I was soon caught in the grip of a profound paradox. It seemed the more I knew, the less I knew. But this “less” was more than enough to convince me, by the time he had won the Democratic nomination, that Obama was everything he presumably was not.
I had finally amassed enough documentation to determine that he was not the centrist he affected to be but a far-left ideologue, that he was a gyrating opportunist who could reverse his proclamations on a dime to suit the occasion, that he had neither knowledge of nor competence in the complexities of foreign affairs, that he was an unabashed plagiarist in his stump speeches, that there was no chance of him becoming a “post racial” president but rather a demagogue who would sharpen racial tensions, that his grasp of real-world economics was shaky to non-existent, that he was an unnervingly ignorant man (e.g. the Austrian language) as well as a showboat (e.g., the fake classical pillars), that he was associated with some of the most dubious people in the political, academic, and religious communities, and that he would waste little time putting the screws on Israel while flattering and appeasing the Islamic world.
True, Obama had done a masterful job obscuring both his past and his intentions, reminding me of John Dryden’s depiction of poetaster Thomas Shadwell in his great poem, “Mac Flecknoe”:
Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
Nonetheless, despite the dearth of salient information — the birth certificate flap, the mystery of his upbringing, the sealed college and university records, the lack of authoritative publications in his field, the undisclosed campaign donations, financial statements and professional clients list, and so on — there was sufficient evidence (or the crucial lack of obligatory evidence) to suggest that he would probably turn out to be one of the most reckless and divisive presidents in the entire panorama of American history. Nor was I surprised to learn that Obama’s The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream was translated in Indonesia, where he spent his formative years, as Assault Hope: From Jakarta to the White House (Menerjang Harapan: Dari Jakarta Menuju Gedung Putih). According to the American expatriate who made this piquant discovery in 2007, the Indonesian title definitively implies a “hopeful assault” or “struggle for victory,” that is, a “jihad.” It’s hard to believe that Obama was not aware of the substitution. What it may possibly signify is up to the reader to decide.
The irony was that Obama had been received into the heart of a significant portion of the American public as a sort of redeemer, even as a “god,” in Evan Thomas’ famous and ludicrous formulation. Mulling over such idolatry, I recalled those lines from Elizabethan poet Fulke Greville’s Mustapha, tweaked slightly in the application:
Yet when each of us in his own heart looks
He finds the god there far unlike his books.
To return, my interest in the man which had begun so auspiciously had morphed into a visceral loathing of everything he stood for and articulated with the ventriloquial collaboration of his nigh-indispensable teleprompter. Oleg Atbashian, author of Shakedown Socialism, writes that he feels “queasy” when listening to one of Obama’s press conferences. I, too, had arrived at the point where I could no longer listen to those lying cadences without reaching for the off button, and had to rely on printed reports in the newspapers to stay abreast of his pronouncements.
And still, I often had to swallow hard. What I found equally galling was the free pass he had been given by the dreamstream media and the Leftosphere in general, which garnished every faux pas, every lame decision, every piece of vacant bombast as an illustration of Obama’s unquestionable genius. It reminded me of the way Greeks tend to treat their students and children, as never failed to amaze me during the years I lived in the country. They ask a boy his name. “Takis,” he says. “Bravo,” they reply. In what other country, I used to wonder, do you get praised for knowing your name? (Actually, in our “self-esteem” education system, we are not far behind.) A Canadian friend of mine who teaches at a premier college in Athens joked: “In school the categories that correspond to our Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, etc., are: Angelic, Wonderful, Marvelous, and if you fail everything and are nabbed cheating, Room for Improvement.” In the same way, Obama’s report card glitters for every subject he has mangled beyond recognition.
By then I had decided that it was my moral duty to expose him in my writing and conversation for the charlatan and threat I knew him to be. As Frank Fleming has so aptly put it, “what a disaster it would be to appoint a mediocre legislator full of empty platitudes as president.” Indeed and rather absurdly, I felt a bit like a Paul Revere riding into the environing darkness to alert the unwary. It wasn’t long before I was knocked off my horse.
Like David Solway, I too was mesmerised by that liquid molasses voice at first. Then I had second thoughts after seeing the MSM barracking for him and realising that The One was a phantom figure with no discernable past history or substance. The camed the forked-tongue speech, and the denunciations with the lefturds shilling for him and vilifying the ordinary man who questioned his actions. Now I’m no longer a believer, but thank goodness my disillusionment came early-it was less difficult to bear! Imagine those who still haven’t realised what an empty shell he is, what a false Obamessiah he is. That will come, but not unfortunately before he has wreaked havoc and maybe destroyed a large part of the America and American institutions we know and love.
We should form a support group. My period of curiosity didn’t last long however. I started to read everything I could about the Great Deceiver and the picture which emerged was murky and vaguely threatening. His associations, his words, his “fluid” background, and on and on were enough to stop my willingness to suspend judgment. I’ll bet many who voted for him basically felt the way some of your readers did, but they didn’t finish the rest of the background check. Their decision was emotional and egotistical. That was enough for them. Now we have the calamity writ large. And the most sinister aspect of all this is that I cannot help but believe that Obama KNEW EXACTLY HOW THE MAJORITY WOULD BEHAVE. He counted on it.
scythe, the Agitator-In-Chief absolutely knew how the clueless, mesmerized, ever guilty race obsessed voters would behave-like lemmings to the slaughter.
Although he is dumb as a post when it comes to traditional academic rigor-a smartie he is not, an affirmative action baby he is-he is VERY clever in social psychology, capable of stirring up the masses to orgasmic delight, thus emitting emotional contagion.
It shows an appalling lack of civic responsibility that the voting public failed to due their due diligence as citizens, even when I was able to discern who this poser really is, not too long after his nomination.Something did not sit right with me, so I did my homework.
To wit, I found out much of the same information that David Solway did, even though I was already living in Israel.
The questions become-why didn’t the voters check him out,and, what does the negligence of said voters say about American’s lack of foresight?
Ah. me. What to do.
Talk, commisserate, write in blogs. Let off steam and Hope the Freshmen Republicans Change what the “Democrats”/RINOs have been establishing aggressively since that election in 1960, in wait for it Chicago. With the warhorses in both parties habituated to perks of Congress. Is there any evidence EVER of Congress endangering their sinecures by standing against those in the power seats? (the “Democrats” in the House having re-elected the obviously deranged Nancy Pelosi as their Leader, and Harry Reid remains Senate Majority Leader). Do Freshmen, even principled, normally faithful to oaths / vows have much of a chance for principled political action in such a milieu ? Fidelity to oaths, private or public, boo – hiss, old – fashioned, for dinosaurs. It’s politics.
OBAMA, THE FRONT MAN for the Democratic Party of the USA is merely putting the finishing touches to designs long engineered.With assurance and arrogance that are breathtaking.
Remember Nancy Pelosi’s rage at the loss of the Millenium election and couple Pelosi’s vows for revenge with her smirking triumphant march through Washington after gangster tactics passed Obama/Hillary Care. Then ask why she has been re-elected to Congress. Ditto Harry Reid.
Remember that the Millenium is for Westerners a supreme symbolic date, for “a new beginning”. That date as symbol lost through historical time to “Democratic” Party efforts to crown their sabotage of the USA because of that “vast right- wing conspiracy” as named by Hillary Clinton.
Remember that the race card was the triumph of Edward Kennedy and his “Democratic” Party. And remember that trump was supremely successful, along with other cards they played from their marked deck, e.g. feminist and destruction of the family (White and Black)to pit citizen against citizen and destroy the social cohesiveness of the USA as national identity. Their successes to be cemented by relentless messaging in all establishment and entertainment media and most aggressively in their takeover of the entire educational system from nursery school through university.
Symbols: 40 years from Chicago 1960 to Millenium 2000. Date lost because free Americans declined them as leadsrs. Revenge is sweet even 8 years late. Years used to refine and polish tactics for takeover of the USA, her power, her wealth and her influence in the world. Now see Obama, the Clintons, Pelosi, members of the hierarchy in the Democratic Party et al smirking and DARING Americans to stop them. Woe is me, what to do?
The Democratic Party of the USA in their goal of destruction/”assassination” of the USA as Constitutional Republican government with and ONLY with the consent of the governed, in effect trained the entire nation, with exception of some who refused their “free lunch” into a national Manchurian Candidate.
I thought at first that he was a guy looking to leverage his race and get some publicity. But almost immediately, the Rev Wright association came out and then Ayers.
For months, I thought it was great. Hillary is dangerous, and I couldn’t conceive of anybody but the most rabid loon voting for this guy, so I calculated that he would hurt her, which would help the adults.
At that point, we entered Oz. As more and more information came out about the guy, every detail clicked into the puzzle like a Mercedes part. There were no inconsistencies at all. Bitter clingers, “spread the wealth”, he “hung out with the marxists”, the slimy lying, the hidden records, the wife’s comments, the cult, the illegal contributions, the total subservience of the msm, the 6 once-in-a-lifetime economic catastrophes that occurred so conveniently in the 8 weeks before the election.
It’s hard, to ever know the truth about complex issues. But when a pattern is 100% consistent, and when no contrary evidence ever appears, after a while all uncertainty disappears. This guy is a stone cold marxist revolutionary dead set on undermining and destroying this country. The only open questions are whether he is controlled or independent, and whether he will get away with it. I have a hard time believing a person who can’t speak apart from a teleprompter would be able to cause this much destruction without some serious controllers behind him. Whether he will get away with it…well, amazingly enough, he still might.
…..100% consistent….
At the risk of sounding like I’m wearing a tinfoil hat, has anyone considered just exactly what took place in the Gulf oil well “blowout”?
How convenient since he hates oil so much.
Do we even know today the particulars on that event??
I didn’t think a real lot about it, until recently. Natural gas is abundant and clean. So I started wondering why all these rash of explosions from the “dangerous” natural gas?
I wouldn’t put it past any of them.
Lot’s of mysteries about the BP Gulf blowout.
Strange how all the crises seem to work to the Marxists advantage, isn’t it.
btw, tinfoil hat, wingnuts…just ways to shut down disagreement.
Same thing they did with Palin. Same reason they call everybody who disagrees with them a racist.
I ignore it. They can call me names till they’re blue in the face. All the stuff they don’t want you to talk about is exactly what needs to be talked about.
Rahm Emanual was living in a BP owned apartment in washington
BP was the author of the cap and trade bill for the obama administration.
BP was a large donor to the Democrats
BP had the absolute worst record for safety in the entire western oil industry.
BP did not have to do an environmental assessment on the well that blew because the obama administration gave them a pass.
what else was hidden from public view?
There is a photo of The One speaking in a house, and on a chair behind him is Spooky Dude himself, George Soros.
By the way, Dnish Dsouza sees Obama more as an anti colonialist, than as a communist.
Right now, the Wisconsin mess is kind of like watching Saruman letting the wolves out of The Tower.
Dsouza’s theory is interesting and there may be something to it, but it’s hard to imagine anybody’s world view being shaped by a person he hardly knew, even if the man was the person he was told was his father.
There is a ton of supporting evidence that his entire life is steeped in marxism from at least his teenage years. Every acquaintenance he has had since those years has been a radical marxist, a closet marxist, a jihadist, or some combination.
imho, that overwhelms Dsouza’s thesis.
“I too was mesmerised by that liquid molasses voice at first”
GAH! I’ve never understood how anyone could find 0bama’s voice anything but a grating, haltingly stunted, speech-impediment riddled, tele-prompter reading mess! I seriously have to hold back the voms whenever I hear his voice droning on and on and on about crap he obviously has no clue about that he’s reading from his puppet-masters. It’s damned creepy!
creep fits.
…he is as scary as Libya’s Gaddaffy Duck
Interesting observation. He does make a lot of people’s skin crawl.
There are millions of us who can’t stand to watch him for even a second. There is an extremely sinister aspect to the guy; smiling assasin, nixon-like amorality, grinning in contempt not friendship, cold, heartless. The fingers are particularly creepy.
My wife says she was repulsed from the first moments she saw Obama. She says she knew he was a snake and a liar instantly. Some women have spot-on instincts about men because they are always at risk. Her instincts are particularly acute because she is handicapped and completely defenseless.
WOW, proreason. Thanks for telling us about your wife. The hairs on the back of my neck rarely lie to me, and they were on total red alert from the first moment with this man.
You are so right-on as usual, proreason and the little glimpse into your personal life about your wife made you all the more precious in my eyes ((HUGs to you both)).
“…I observed that, generally speaking, Obama supporters rarely engaged in evidentiary debate, but studiously adopted evasive maneuvers instead. They either shut down the conversation entirely or, in many instances, contented themselves by flinging ad hominem invective at the doubter, in this way resolving the argument by steadfastly refusing to confront the facts at their disposal. Obviously, these are not the usages of reasoned discussion but the tactics of ingrained prejudice immune to the solvent of introspection…”
The author has just described the mental disorder known as “LIBERALISM” perfectly.
“…I observed that, generally speaking, Obama supporters rarely engaged in evidentiary debate, but studiously adopted evasive maneuvers instead. They either shut down the conversation entirely or, in many instances, contented themselves by flinging ad hominem invective at the doubter, in this way resolving the argument by steadfastly refusing to confront the facts at their disposal. Obviously, these are not the usages of reasoned discussion but the tactics of ingrained prejudice immune to the solvent of introspection….”
The author has just described the mental disorder known as “LIBERALISM” perfectly.
Bravo Mr. Solway! I too lost many friends in the runup and aftermath of the disater of ’08. Maybe your lost female friend in the privacy of her abode will read your words and see the light. So many of us cannot bear the thought of being a fool.
I never bought his bull except like so many others I liked his speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004. Who wouldn’t? It was the only time he has been even remotely Reaganesque.
noahp writes, “I liked his speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004. Who wouldn’t?” Well, I wouldn’t—and didn’t. I haven’t liked ANYTHING about this impostor from the get-go. (People say he’s a good dad: who would know? I’m not sure that a narcissist and pathological liar can be a good dad.)
It seems to me—I call myself an “observant”, as in small “o” orthodox Christian—that my friends of a similar persuasion were generally not taken in by this despicable snake oil salesman. I watched, aghast, as so many of my lefty and uninformed, more conservative friends fell for his empty, prima donna act. Like David and others here, I cannot stand to see or hear Obama: the sight—arrogant, purple lipped head swaying back and forth like a cobra—and sound of him (lies intoned with grammatical errors and clipped, arrhythmic, unnatural cadences) make my skin crawl.
How to inform people who don’t care to hear the truth? I’m afraid the topic of Obama barely passes my lips with those who will quickly become ex-friends if I let them know what a disaster he is and my loathing of him. What would my candour gain? These people are not open to facts and evidence. I believe my silence will stand me in good stead when Obama finally goes down in ignominy. Then, these head in the sand dupes might be willing to listen! (Maybe.)
Hey, dude. You just diagnosed yourself with having a obsession. Have you considered seeking help? I see Glenn Beck on the TV ranting about Antichrist, I read articles here *every day* who show signs of obsession just like yours, where Obama is a secret muslim manchurian candidate. Could it just possibly be that you all are self-inducing your self into paranoia?
Wake up, wake up. Pleassssse. Look beneath the politics to the MAN underneath! Forget democrat/republican. Judge the man by his friends! Bill Ayers? Rev. Wright? Trumpka? He has 6 members of his cabinet he has not even made a phone call to in TWO YEARS in office yet he talks to the union boss 2-3 times a day? Hello? READ his own books! And hurry please, before it is too late.
Yeah, Trumka saying he speaks to the President 2-3x a DAY was a real eye opener. Maybe this explains why our response to what is going on in Northern Africa is so… how to say it?….disengaged? The real crisis is in Madison.
If it looks like a Duck,walks like a Duck,quacks like a Duck,I think what we have here is a Duck. Is that delusional?
Either tens of thousands of details of his life are lies….or he’s a duck.
He’s a duck
Let me refresh your cool aid, sir.
As always, the leftists are completely unable to understand the plain language of metaphor and irony. Sometimes they can recognize sarcasm, if it’s heavy enough.
Their well-washed minds cannot plumb the depths of ordinary prose, it seems!
I hope that you can continue to write about Obama with facts,facts and more facts that are told often enough that they become understood even by those who idolize this man. You have done the research, be the drop of water wearing down this rock of duplicity, PLEASE.
Yes but…. the libs don’t care about facts, only ideology. Also remember, as the battle heats up, these desperate people will do desperate things. Unfortunately,(or not) we conservatives tend to play fair. They can still walk all over us if we try arguing with facts.
“I had finally amassed enough documentation to determine that he was not the centrist he affected to be but a far-left ideologue, that he was a gyrating opportunist who could reverse his proclamations on a dime to suit the occasion, that he had neither knowledge of nor competence in the complexities of foreign affairs, that he was an unabashed plagiarist in his stump speeches, that there was no chance of him becoming a “post racial” president but rather a demagogue who would sharpen racial tensions, that his grasp of real-world economics was shaky to non-existent, that he was an unnervingly ignorant man (e.g. the Austrian language) as well as a showboat (e.g., the fake classical pillars), that he was associated with some of the most dubious people in the political, academic, and religious communities, and that he would waste little time putting the screws on Israel while flattering and appeasing the Islamic world.”
And this is news? Many of us were screaming about all of this well before the 2008 election. But when you have to fight the main stream media that’s in the tank for this socialist as well as all of the unions and universities, then it’s almost impossible to win. In some ways, I’m surprised McCain did as well as he did and didn’t go down in flames as badly as Walter Mondale did in 1984. But, hey, that was then and this is now. Next year there will be an election and we’ll have an opportunity for a major “do-over.” Will the American people be willing to take it? I’m guessing they will, simply because they don’t want a socialist as a president. They have now seen what socialism means in America, as with Obamacare, nationalizing the banks and automotive industries, an almost trillion dollar “stimulus” that stimulated nothing, and the government control of so many things, from offshore drilling to the FCC. And the American people just don’t like it. The Republican candidate in 2012 only needs to keep repeating what Obama has done and he or she will win. Because Americans, in general, don’t want to go Back to the Future.
AND, it will take a lot of work just to undo the legislative damage already done. See the piece in today’s WSJ about the negative impact Obamascare has already had on our health system BEFORE IT HAS EVEN GONE INTO EFFECT. We all–THAT’S YOU AND I–need to promote, campaign for and elect intelligent, hard-working and honest representatives at all levels of government, people with the courage of their convictions like Scott Walker or Chris Christie. Choosing good representatives requires effort on everyone’s part, if only to keep ourselves up-to-date on the issues so we can make intelligent choices at the voting booth. And, in my opinion, people who have had a 9-to-5 job or who have started a business or made a payroll should be preferred over career politicians. We must make our own informed choices and not just pick someone who gives Chris Matthews tingles. As this article points out, we must be skeptical and ask the hard questions!
Please do some research on Mr. Christie’s support of Islamists.
He’s no friend of America – he’s merely not nearly as bad as most Democrats.
Just think – if we’d had a conservative running, Obama would now be a footnote in the history books, and Hillary would have her, “I told you so!” moment.
If there is a “leg up” in seeing Obama for what he is more quickly, it is watching what he does and not listening to what he says. His communication style is studied and affected, his words seldom unifying or specific.
His personal appeal is narrow, for all the descriptions of his impressive pant creases and leg-thrilling charms, I never hear women describe him as handsome. Never. Maybe there have been one too many pictures of him dressed in “mom jeans” or in shorts and flip-flops; perhaps I don’t run with the “love scrawny arms and legs!” or “purple lips RULE!” crowd.
Yes, many of my comments here are superficial and do not advance the discussion much. My hunch is when more information about who this guy really is comes out, we will all wonder why we even bothered to think of him–the accidental president–at all.
I notice that the media, even the Republican and libertarian media, are thoroughly ignoring Jack Cashill’s well-argued case (in Deconstructing Obama) that Pres. Obama is a liar and plagiarist, who mendaciously claimed to have written two books.
The best summation of this disaster of a President yet. It was only thins weekend that I finally was able to help my wonderful wife to totally understand the danger we are in from enemies from without and within. After trying to convince her of the economic tsunami our country has been facing for three years, she has finally understood where we are as a country and the financial danger to all of us as individuals. Alas, we are now in such a dismal place as a country, that our real estate is essentially worthless because there are no buyers, many of our small businesses are unsellable because demand for their products is very small and the banks continue to squeeze us for larger payments because they know inflation is coming (or is already here) and they don’t want to be left holding the bag!
Luckily for us, she has a wonderful job, we are together in mind and spirit and I have morphed my company into a provider of energy solutions that saves homeowners on their utility bills and am back in the black as a small business for the first time in three years. We may lose everything in the end. If we do because of these complete Leftists in our administration, we will pick up and start over after they have been ridden out of Washington on a rail. We will live in the Republic of Tennessee or the Independent Country of Texas if it comes to that.
However, my money is on the Tea Party and I believe we pull this liberation of America out in the end, but it is going to be close!
You can’t imagine the horror of watching Obama train wreck the nation from here. Yes many of us had his number before he was elected and knew that he would be bad, but I don’t think anyone expected him create such havoc at such a fast pace. Now every day we have to wonder what level of hell he will put us in an break out in a cold sweat at the thought of him being re-elected.
Indeed. I had thought that he was the lesser of two evils, compared to Hillary. With the well-oiled Clinton corruption machine at her disposal, I thought she would do far more damage than the boy wonder.
I was very wrong. I neglected to account for the well-oiled Chicago corruption machine being at his disposal.
I never doubted obama was a marxist style socialist.
and that mccain was basically hillary in a different pant suit
‘I don’t think anyone expected him create such havoc at such a fast pace. ‘
I did. The only thing that surprised me was that Obama spent as much time as he did in the first few months after taking office traveling, playing the world leader, partying, and wheeling and dealing the GM and Chrysler bailouts. (Don’t believe for a moment that he wanted that distraction. I was payback for the union support. There was no upside for his social engineering intentions). Had he attended to his real domestic agenda more aggressively in the first 6 months and before the pushback over the auto bailouts and the stimulus debacle, we’d be in a lot worse shape. We’d be looking to repeal Cap and Trade – think the unemployment numbers are bad now, imagine if that had been signed into law – along with Obamacare.
Thank you, David, for another very enjoyable article. Indeed, a pleasure to read. And you have included some criticism that I have been citing for years.
Many of us knew this was coming. And wrote about extensively. But, as you discovered, his faithful followers are as rigid as suicide bombers.
As you illustrated, our enemies are building up their weapons and systems, while we watch over the fence, and hope they will just be satisfied with having their toys in the toy box. We’ll be as successful at that as we will be at wishing Obama would agree to the Peoples wishes, and abandon his destructive ways.
I’m afraid this president is going to bring Armageddon to America. He acts and sounds more like Reverend Wright every day.
Excellent article, Mr Solway. I feel the same about the Obama-phenomenon.
Mr Solway,
Even a poet must not abandon the Truth. We are only called to bear witness, and on our deathbeds, I doubt that we will have any regrets for doing so. You are like a single soldier, standing at his post, in the face of extreme bombardment.
Assuming the country survives the Obama Interregnum, the impulse will be to forget and marginalize him as swiftly as we forgot Jimmy Carter. The best outcome would be that he and his ilk become our national Boogeymen, used to frighten young persons of detected socialist inclinations out of their fantasies before they grow old enough to vote!
Mr. Poretto:
“The best outcome would be that he and his ilk become our national Boogeymen, used to frighten young persons of detected socialist inclinations out of their fantasies before they grow old enough to vote!”
I disagree. When you forget the blooming dandelions when they inevitably go away you simply guarantee their re-appearance in greater numbers later.
The best outcome is that, like Carthage, the soil that produced a Carter and an Obama is plowed under with salt and sterilized.
This process is happening in Wisconsin and Indiana, (and soon other states and municipalities), as well as at the Federal level.
The Left is being de-subsidized…peeled from its lip-lock on the taxpayers’ teats.
It can’t come fast enough, and its hard to imagine how it can be overdone.
Personally, I think that when a bust of Senator Joseph McCarthy takes its rightful place of honor under the Capitol dome, we will be able to claim a victory in this struggle.
lol ..Mr. Bilge
you are a bigger optimist then I.
liberals/socialists are the natural result from a lack of personal responsibility. like water they take the easiest path and the government encourages it.
the incentives need to be altered so this is not the case and although there is a lot more will then before it may not be enough if these clowns succeed in destroying the economy of the USA ..the rest of the world is a bit further ahead on that one and it will only take another year of obama to catch up
from there is anyones guess but my money is on a real life version of Mad Max
“I would have to accept a rapidly dwindling company of friends. Obama has cost me dearly.”
I went thru the same thing myself & believe me, it’s best not to pal around w/the delusional. Your blood pressure will thank you for it.
David, indeed many of us became obsessed. I for one have spent the last three years consumed by little Lenin.
My father who escaped a communist country saw through him immediately upon his entering the political stage.
Interesting how those who witnessed communist takeovers like Oleg saw through the crafty rhetoric. My father remembers villagers being mesmerized by speeches given by Tito’s commie apparatchiks. No one understood the substance , just knew that they sounded “smart’.
I have been waiting for this article. The one I will forward to those on the fence. The turmoil we see in the world today is the result of the power vacuum created by the community organizer and his administration, the likes of Brennenn and Clapper.
Obamas support of those union thugs in WI has shown the fence sitters that all those daily and weekly visits to the Potus office by Tumpka and Andy Stern weren’t some conspiracy Glenn Beck dreamed up.It was a concerted effort to maintain power for the democrat party who was taken over by the radical left a long time ago.
Many thanks
Canadian Girl
Indeed, to expand upon your thesis, Canadian Girl, many of those same people from former Communist “worker’s paradises” also recognise that Mr. Obama is just the public face of something much broader than him. They’re the forces at work in Wisconsin. They’re the forces driving “big labour” away from worker representation and into political action. They’re the forces keeping scurrilous “community activists” afloat under ever-changing names and guises.
People who’ve lived under the thumb of Marxist tyranny know it all too well. They know of the orchestrated and methodical crushing of choice, liberty and freedom which these forces bring with them. That’s why they’re not taken in by people like Mr. Obama. They understood from the first moment they heard him who he is. The understand that if he fails to put in place his whole agenda, there will be others who will try.
I was born, raised and educated in the USSR. Obama lost me at “hello”.
That comment belongs on billboards all over the country!
I wish my dad were here to read your reply.
I agree that’s a billboard, I hope Oleg from The Peoples Cube can market it.
This is such a good article that there is really nothing more to say. It is the first time I have senn anything explaining the cruise ship disablement. Thank you for that too.
Mr. Solway,
As someone approaching her 7th decade in a lifetime of well-nigh compulsive reading (“Some people say living’s the thing, but I prefer reading”), I must tell you that, despite the grimness of its subject, your writing takes my breath away.
That you as a Canadian citizen should demonstrate such a profound love and understanding of this country, that equals and in many cases far surpasses that of its native sons and daughters, is heartbreakingly ironic. And yes, you can color me overwrought, because at this moment I am.
Please do not stop—America “hath [desperate]need of thee”! Would that we could drop copies of your masterful essay by the millions from the skies over the continental United States.
So the laurels go to you today, Mr. Solway, because you are doing for us what every American should be doing, and perhaps with examples such as yours, we can and will hold back the black future we seem hellbent on rushing to embrace. Or in words more apt than mine:
“There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.” Teddy Roosevelt
Well said, good lady!
Mr. Solway, from a former Canadian, now confirmed American, thank you very, very much.
The spectacle playing out on a national scale is simply a larger version of the spectacle that has been playing out in large American cities for decades now.
Corrupt community organizer types become corrupt mayors. A violent and self-destructive underclass is permitted to continue destroying themselves and everything around them — home values, schools, opportunities for employment. Their self-imposed distress is both the justification for and the distraction from the ugly pillage by the activist-cum-elected official class occupying city hall. Meanwhile, public employees loudly buffer the elected activists, enriching them both.
Then once things become very, very bad, the feds swoop in with barrels of cash; occasionally a grown-up gets elected and cleans house a little bit, and earnest outsiders take another go at injecting normalcy at great personal expense before they burn out and give up. But the default is always to some version of the original spectacle. Wasted in this game: trillions of taxpayer dollars and good faith treatment of those who actually got up in the morning and went to work for them.
How on earth will this municipal-type tragedy play out on the federal scale, where there is no parent government to shower the activists with block grants and development zones and other transfers of other people’s money to cover for their incompetence and mendacity?
I don’t know either.
Mr. Solway:
“Obama may not be a god, but he might be a godsend insofar as his destructive tenure should serve to warn Americans of the folly of electing a rhetorical windbag of a Marxist persuasion to the highest office in the land, without having done their due diligence.”
Do you pray, Mr. Solway?
In the future he’ll be remembered as America’s worst experiment with affirmative action. My lefty friends who voted for him would never have dreamed of hiring an affirmative-action doctor or lawyer in extremis, but they thought it would be just too cool to have this obvious chameleon as president. Too bad he didn’t decide to become a talk-show host instead of leader of the free world. As with Jimmy Carter, we’ll be toting up the damages for decades.
Thank you for this finely wrought rant against America’s worst president.
I, too, am a recovering over-schooled, cappuccino-liberal who was shook to his senses by the events of 9-11.
Add me to the list of Americans who claimed: We Will Never Forget. My eyes are wide open now, and they will remain so. Even if I still enjoy the occasional cappuccino (dry, with a dash of cinnamon, please).
Obama has yet to sink to the depths of James J Buccannon. Remember he caused the civil war by his indecision. obama has not yet caused a civil war.
May I point out that John Brown had a much greater impact on the start of the Civil War, and that he was funded in large part by prominent abolitionists, including New England transcendentalists. The left wing of the country at that point in time. The left then and the left now are not so very different. They embraced utopian plans then, such as Brooks Farm put together by those New England transcendentalists, and while they preached what others should do, including non-violence, they were happy to fund the man who planned the raid in Kansas in which 5 slave owning farmers were hacked to death with broad swords.
Buchanan by the way, alone could do what? Despite what is going on under Obama and what once went on under FDR, our government is not supposed to operate that way.
“Used ideology salesman”–Perfecto! That says it all.
What is shocking is the inability of so many Americans to draw the one inescapable conclusion regarding BHO.
Eli Cohen, an Israeli Mossad agent placed in Syria, did his job so effectively that he was nominated to become
the Syrian Deputy Minister of Defense before he was captured and executed. His efforts had a huge impact on the outcome of The Six Day War.
Is it inconceivable that a group of the wealthiest individuals in the world, motivated by an expansionist and brutal ideology, controlling several independent countries, would be capable of electing a Unites States President subservient to their wishes?
If you are the slightest bit open minded the question must have crossed your mind.
If you look at the facts, not the rhetoric, the answer is as plain as day.
MBY:
“Is it inconceivable that a group of the wealthiest individuals in the world, motivated by an expansionist and brutal ideology, controlling several independent countries, would be capable of electing a Unites States President subservient to their wishes?
If you are the slightest bit open minded the question must have crossed your mind.”
It has always seemed peculiar to me how the revelation of the Cambridge Five Soviet spies in Britain never led to a widespread appreciation that the Soviets might have done the EXACT SAME ploy here in the United States.
I guess that to promote and investigate that possibility would have hit too close to home to too many people, but looking at the Alleged Hawaiian’s supporting cast of characters and especially his ideological patrimony, I think that the fact that we were penetrated by the ComIntern at some pretty high levels…and it was never acknowledged and rooted out… would be manifestly evident to even the most dullardly of observers.
“Barack Obama”, (or whoever he is), ain’t playing for Team America.
B, I would ask every American to read the Cairo speech of June 4, 2009.
” No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. ”
” And I will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.”
” So let their be no doubt: Islam is part of America. ”
” And since our founding American Muslims have enriched the United States. ”
Each one of those statements deserves scrutiny yet little has been given.
From outright lies to treason and pure madness. Never has a leader worked so actively to destroy the country
that empowered him. Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Obama plays basketball.
Mr. ben Yachem and Bilgeman,
BINGO, Gentlemen. I have never wished more fervently to be wrong, but I have felt the man is a rabid traitor from the day he came on the scene and I am frantic over the destruction he is wreaking and the blindness of our countrymen.
Frantic. That’s the word I’ve been looking for. Today I thought about how I am in such turmoil and distress over the state of our country and having to put up with this utter disaster of a president. I sometimes wonder how we can take two more years and stay intact and strong. I cry for my beloved country and worry all the time. I get so frustrated at people who still support him. How can they? They are the ones who defend the indefensible all the time. They can’t face that our nation is so imperiled and can’t see that doom hangs over her.
With apologies for misspelling your name, Mr. Ben Yakov!
yes …I never saw anything that didn’t say obama meant what said.
the ultimate community to organize. but you know all this will end badly for most people.
once the brotherhood have control of a vast part of the middle east…well then things will get interesting.
there are several ways it could go but all of them will be painful.
Who are you and what have you done with the turd that was on here last week praising Soros and blaming Christians for the Holocaust?
No, no, no, Mr. Yakov!
Conspiracies are not possible! No such things can exist! Anyone who suggests such a thing is obviously uneducated and unintelligent, and probably being manipulated by the vast right wing conspiracy!
I think if we ever manage to rid ourselves of this Bozo, he should be treated to the same fate as befell the fictional protagonist in “The Man without a Country.” But who the h**l would ever crew a ship for him?!
Dear Mr. Solway,
I completely agree with you. The signs were there, but few people chose to see them. He won for two reasons: a total repudiation of the previous administration, and the absurd selection of the Republican candidate for VP.
I’ve never been involved in politics, but when I realized what the future would bring, my young daughter and I entered the McCain campaign early on. Unfortunately, once the VP candidate was selected, I knew the election results were sealed.
My rejection of the Dem. cadidate was due not to racial prejudice (I would have gladly voted for Sec. Rice or Gen. Powell) but the Dem. candidate did not have the experience to ascend to the highest position in the country. Later on, after listening to him or reading about him, plus a very active gut feeling, I was convinced the country was making a terrible mistake.
But this comment is not to talk about me. I’d like to convey what I believe is a critical observation.
It’s too late to keep hammering on his idiology, goals or right to occupy the Oval Office. He was elected according to the law, and even if the birth certificate were a fraud, it will be impossible to prove, and the public trust would be irrevocably destroyed. If there was a conspiracy, all facts must have been buried decades ago. Therefore, insisting and pushing on this issue (which sounds totally far fetched to any rational individual) rests seriousness, legitimacy and strength to all other arguments made regarding this Administration.
In my humble opinion, the present level of danger this country and the rest of the Western civilization is facing, requires to move on and leave the issue of the birth certificate and the whole legitimacy of this presidency, to history. Let’s just concentrate our efforts in derailing any hidden, or not so hidden, actions to reach a pre set goal.
The enemy is using the very system they despise to advance their infiltration. Things are happening under our noses and people are blind. This my be enraging, it is understandable. The kind of attack we are suffering is so counterintuitive, that most rational people reject it as far fetched or pure paranoia of a very conservative and “limitted” segment of the population. The fact is that those who know history or come from cultures which suffered centuries of barbaric attacks, have different perspectives and understanding of present events.
Let’s concentrate on uncovering and highlighting what is happening here and in Europe. Let’s provide verifiable facts, let’s draw the curtain of political correctness and reveal the truth. Let’s abandon all ideological discourse; don’t link left with Islam, even if true, because otherwise the main message gets lost.
Once people understand the reality and urgency of the situation we are going through, any support to the enemy from the left will be out in the open. Nobody will have to point at it. The present strategy is playing in the hand of the enemy.
All I ask is that you please take these suggestions into consideration. We have to use and appeal to all possible sources of support, and I believe that by removing the ideological tint will provide a big enhancement to our cause, which is to protect and defend not only our country but also our Western civilization.
Thank you for fighting for what you believe.
Marta, you seem to be all over the map and you contradict yourself all over the place. E.g., In the very same paragraph that you write, “Let’s provide verifiable facts, let’s draw the curtain of political correctness and reveal the truth”, you also say, “don’t link left with Islam, even if true, because otherwise the main message gets lost.” (It does?) And you say that the truth of Obama’s birthplace—still not established—can never be verified and should not be pursued. If you say so, I guess. But I’m not convinced.
So, what is it to be, Marta, truth or appeasement? You seem to lean to the latter, which doesn’t strengthen your credibility. Nor, IMO, does your gratuitous attack on Sarah Palin.
troll. Note the single first name and assertions only, no verifiable facts. That’s the pattern, so marta is probably a pro move-on type troll. (yes, I know there are conservatives as well who post under a common first name. No insult to them is intended.)
marta must be an inexperienced troll because she invested a lot of time in a silly nonsense argument designed to slander Palin, as if they haven’t already spent millions of hours doing so.
Usually these tools just do a hit and run. When I see one like this, I think they are a true believer, a rare breed.
Who are the trolls here? Methinks Marta is not one of them.
Madam, have you ever looked at the facts of the birth certificate issue? Just the publicly available facts?
I’m certain you have not, or you could not make such a statement. On the contrary, no rational individual could look at those facts and not conclude that there are serious questions that need to be answered.
It is not rational to believe that no conspiracies are possible, and thus to dismiss them out of hand.
On the contrary, conservatives overwhelmingly saw him for what he is from the beginning. Those Johny-Come-Latelies who did not should take some time to ask themselves what their problem is, that they did not see something that was so glaringly obvious.
You might as well suggest that few people saw daylight today.
On the contrary – Sarah Palin is the only reason McCain did as well as he did. Look at how close it was in terms of the popular vote. Had Palin not been on the ticket, many conservatives – especially among the social conservatives – would have stayed home, resulting in a larger Obama win and the likely loss of more seats in other elections, both federal and local. Sarah Plain brought them to the polls, like it or not.
Sarah Palin is not Presidential material, IMO, but she’s far better material than the likes of John McCain!
You also miss one of the major reasons for his win – his color. Had a white man of similar “qualifications” entered the race, he would have been out after the first primary. Laughed out, by the left as well as the right. But his color made him un-attackable, and brought out the black vote like never before in American history.
Since you mention that you are new to things political, may I suggest you spend some time learning your way around before you comment?
Mr. Solway,
I am rendered awestruck and beyond grateful that a Canadian citizen would so render such a tribute to America and have such a clear sighted view of our current president. Thank you. As a child of a WWII vet and a staunch patriot it has been very painful for me to see the destruction this man has wrought in our country, a country my father fought to preserve. i have sent him your article and hope it brings him the same pride and gratefulness that it brought me. Thank you again. And pray, please, pray for my beloved country and that this black mark in it’s history can be undone.
Obama is a scab that once lifted from the skin reveals a deadly cancer below.
He was able to hide his entire life of anger, hatred and agitation because the Left agrees with him with unmatched fury.
The sad and frightening fact is that we have a significant slice of people in this country who have been educated by the same people who educated little lenin to hate the rest of the country with a blind fury. Not just us, they hate GENERATIONS who preceded us.
They hate people who work. They hate people who create things. They hate people who make money. They hate people who develop loving relationships. They hate people who raise successful children. They hate people who believe in God. They hate people who treasure life. They hate.
But even they aren’t really the problem. And the boy king is more a symptom than the problem, although his mere existance is so dangerous that he cannot be ignored. The problem is that none of this developed spontaneously. We know this is true because 360 years of American history passed with nothing remotely similar happening. Those generations were no richer than we are. The ephemeral “income disparity” was greater, not less. The races were more divided, not less. More people were abused and taken advantage of, not less. Crime was more widespread, not less. Life was much harder, not less. But the public as a whole was not filled with hatred of their neighbors. To the contrary, this country was the most patriotic on the planet. The pride that every class and group took in their country was greater by leaps and bounds than it is today.
What happened? How did it happen that a Barack Obama developed in the country that has created more wealth and freedom than any country that has ever existed? How did the most charitable people in the world turn into a people where perhaps 20% of the population lives and breathes hatred for the other 80% every moment of every day?
That is the question to ask. Thank god that a smirking subversive has brought the question to the forefront. Thank god that the vermin have now finally come out of hiding. Termites cannot be exterminated until you can finally see them in the light of day.
How did this happen?
Perhaps because the West has turned its back on its Judeo-Christian roots, as in no respect for either God or His Ten Commandments. C.S. Lewis found that the Ten Commandments were almost identical to the moral codes of many ancient civilizations. He called this code, The Tao. Civilizations that do not adhere to the morality of respect for a higher being and justice for one’s neighbours—these virtues tend to go together—don’t last very long.
In his fine essay “The Abolition of Man”, C.S. Lewis wrote, “And all the time—such is the tragic-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Here’s a hymn (text: 1551 Genevan Psalter; tune: Old 124th) that expresses these ideas poetically—and prophetically:
“Turn back, O man,
Forswear thy foolish ways.
Old now is earth,
And none may count her days.
Yet thou, her child,
Whose head is crowned with flames,
Still will not hear
Thine inner God proclaims
“Earth might be fair
And all men glad and wise,
Age after age their tragic empires rise.
Built while they dream,
And in that dreaming weep,
Would man but wake
From out his haunted sleep.
“Earth shall be fair
And all her people one
Not till that hour
Shall God’s whole will be done.
Now, even now
Once more from earth to sky
Peels forth in joy
Man’s old undaunted cry,
‘Earth shall be fair
And all her people one.’”
By the way Mr. Solway, you never disappoint. This commentary is a tour de force, hilarious, memorable, and achingly true. I suspect many Americans are hanging by an emotional thread because of this numnuts and keep attempting to shore up their fears with humor. This certainly helped.
“the losses and tears that have piled up…could have been avoided if we, as a people, were not so irresponsible or unfaithful to our history as to place at the head of our societies leaders so unworthy as the one who so unfittingly occupies the seat of Washington and Lincoln, at the head of this great republic.”
And therein lies the tale that resulted in Barack Hussein Obama, alias Barry Soetoro, an incompetent, inexperienced, narcissistic, African American with extremely questionable personal and organizational associations and a wife ashamed of being an American, to acquire the lofty and undeserved title of “leader of the free world.”
Will this political ignorance be overcome in 2012 or will some of this Canadian interest and concern for America’s future cross our Northern border as do the illegals in the South and begin an urgently needed recovery from our pending irrelevance and eventual demise as “leader of the free world?”
Good on ya Solway for ditching your left-liberal friends (or for them ditching you?). Who needs ‘em. Must be tough to find good conservatives in the People’s Republik of Canuckistan. Best of luck there.
I have no need for mental patients (left-liberals) in my life and have purposely chosen to shun them. Some of them have been long-time friends, but it’s just not worth investing any more time on people who are so hateful and anti-truth. I’ve also given up talking politics around the office or with acquaintances. It’s just not worth it. These people are so invested in their evil ideology I fear it’s going to take some severe national and worldwide pain for them to ever reconsider their error.
What they are invested in is getting in your pocket.
Very few people are genuinely ideological. Their opinions are based on self interest. Their “philosophy” is a cover story. They want what other people have. That’s why they can’t argue rationally.
In a way, most day-to-day libwits are actually victims, even though their intent is to victimize others, because they are the marks in the marxists’ con. Like all marks, they are lured into the con because they are greedy and want something for nothing. Their fury is genned up by “organizers” (the con men with sharp creases in their pants) so that the organizers can establish their own tyrannies which, if successful, will then crush their victims lifestyles just like our lifestyles. They have a formal role in the revolution: “Useful fools”
God save our Republic.
Witness the election, yesterday, of Rahm Emanuel, the new mayor of Chicago. This is exactly the snow job done to U.S. voters in 2008; I hate to rub your noses in the mess, but “I told you so”.
Sorry, I can never forgive you all for putting this nation in the extreme jeopardy that Obama’s administration (handlers) have placed us in. The man is the consummate manchurian candidate!
EXCUSE ME?????? What “you all”?????????????????
Bravo, David…take a bow.
My own journey has been a bit less filled with hairpin turns, but no less bumpy.
I was leery from the start. On these very pages, I railed against the Dream Team Stream media if we don’t vet, a leftist Democrat we will get , the very open ear and cozy relationships with virulent battalions of hate, racism, slander and treason.
Yet, I sought balance and equilibrium. I wanted facts, not kneejerk resistance and blind opposition.
And the more digging that Stanley Kurtz did and my friends here at PJM, and at National Review Online and Hot Air and elsewhere, the more I was becoming cemented in the notion that I was a baby bird flying full speed toward the living room, but did not see the pane of glass. Nothing was as it appeared, with deadly consequences.
Alas, my cyberfriend, you may have missed Rick Moran’s column on paranoia, or Brooks, Noonan, Frum and Parker’s brand of “centrism” …constantly pish-poshing “conspiracy theories” and bold conclusions of hard leftist tactics being infused into our system of self-governance.
It is not the loss of the liberal friends that jars the sensibilities, it is the self-proclaimed “noble arbiter”, who rains down the thunder of opprobrium…for having “gone too far” in interpreting the very facts placed before us.
It is at once, David, the feeling that everything and nothing…is as it appears.
I did see that parlor, filled with majestic cloths and wood upon which to perch my highest hopes. My breast swelled with pride, I swooped and swooned at the chalice brimming with the sweet wine of harmony, brotherhood and tolerance.
What a cruel trick that window has been. We crashed our necks at full speed upon it and lay in the dirt beneath its sill. The deadly consequences of reckless abandon, of seeing what we wanted to see and not what was really there ahead of us.
What twisted, battered fools we have become.
The falconer has called again. We are the bitter clingers to our lives, as the falcons dive and talons claw in Wisconsin, in Ohio, and the Morans and Brooks and Parkers and Noonans and Frums tell us to just lie there, a little while longer.
David, it has come to this.
Appreciate both the essay and the comments. Like many, I was in despair in 12/08 and 1/09. Whether our resources will be enough to find out path remains to be seen.
In late ’08 we were a ship with damage heading for harbor and repairs. Now the captain has turned us away from the harbor, we have taken more damage, are low on fuel.
David:
It is gravely onerous to have to reconcile one’s beliefs in the democratic process, with what appears to be a sham foisted upon the world. I empathize.
One questions whether there is a majority who are deceiving themselves about Obama’s character, or whether it is themselves who practice self-deception.
I conclude that it is normal to attempt to deconstruct and understand Obama. It is prudent, and wise to try to gather information to make informed decisions. It is not crazy to engage in epistemology.
A psychologist might say that if you form a model of the world that is inconsistent with reality, you will affect your ability to deal effectively with reality.
How should one try to objectively assess Obama’s model of the world? According to him, starting now, the world’s oceans have started to recede? How should we decide when to interpret his rhetoric metaphorically, instead of literally? Is it a consensus who is ultimately responsible for deciding when Obama speaks metaphorically or literally? I contend that Obama does not want us to know when he is literal, because being literal does not appeal to him, because he does not know himself.
Obama speaks in metaphors because it motivates him. He is motivated by symbolism, grand ideas with indefinite form. He is excited when his ideas ‘transcend’, and appeal to everyone, instead of any one individual.
This ‘high’ rhetoric allows him to equivocate about important issues, and insulates him from forming a detailed model of the world. Effectively, he practices an unintentional form of self-deception. Failures must not be all that bad for Obama, if he believes that we are on ‘the right path’ leading to his prescribed success.
It is a matter of time before individuals realize that Obama does not share their definition of success. Obama probably already knows this, and a sense of imminent failure may be a reason why he is performing so poorly as President.
How can he be performing poorly, if he accomplished Obamacare? Obamacare has been ruled unconstitutional by federal judges, and for the most part, has not been implemented, as it was designed to be phased in well into the future. Therefore, jury is still out. Taking ‘credit’ for Obamacare is like signing a predated check and hoping that the check will not bounce years from now.
If only time corrects this episode in the world’s history, then what have we learned? Will important lessons be lost in the traumas that ensue from the Obama administration? Will history remember Obama with the infamy that is required to avoid repeating his failures in future generations? An electorate does not like to believe that it was wrong about some things, much less everything. It may take several generations to see that the last electorate should not have given Obama the benefit of the doubt.
I share the affliction of Mr. Solway. I remember that early in 2008 my liberal friends were all for Hillary Clinton. They all had the “Hillary!” (with exclamation point) bumper stickers and buttons. They were all gearing themselves up for the big “A Womans Place is in the White House” schtick.
Then suddenly, like throwing a switch, it was “All Obama – All the Time.” It was like Billy Sunday had blown into town and saved all the sinners. Poor old Hillary! She was kicked to the curb faster than an old beer can. When Hillary’s camp released the info on Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright the same people who had been in her corner a few weeks before started equating her with George Bush (the horror!)
My point is that Mr. Solway has marshalled all the facts and arguments very persuasively but it doesn’t matter. In the case of the liberal establishment and Obama we are dealing with a lover and his love-object. To them Obama isn’t simply a congenial political figure – He is an object of passion. This is Dante and Beatrice, Abelard and Heloise, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde. When Chris Matthews talks about Obama he talks like a a man yearning for his beloved. When the NYT editorial staff defends Obama its like a knight-errrant coming to the aid of the damsel in distress. Everybody has known a man or woman who has fallen for someone just awful. Ever tried to talk them out of it? It just doesn’t work. The illusion is more important than the reality.
Here in Chicagoland, I watched my wife and all her liberal friends travel to Springfield (announcement), and to Grant Park (election night) as they swooned and guzzled the cool aid. An old Vietnam buddy of mine, now a very successful soldiers’ rights lawyer, when asked prior to the election what he thought of Obama, sagely said “I have never fallen in love with a politician”. And I believe that’s what’s at the crux of the sad fact that we can’t now, and I believe that we never will be able to rationally discuss this president/administration with our now/former liberal friends. They are betrayed lovers, and carry all the baggage of a cheated-on, betrayed lover.
Read The Obama Timeline, almost 3,000 pages and more than 17,000 references that outline the entire sordid history of the current temporary occupant of our Oval Office. Part I (638 pages, covering August 4, 1961 through the first 100 days in office) is in book form; Part II is online at http://www.colony14.net and is updated on a daily basis. It is impossible to read the Timeline and maintain any respect whatsoever for the thug-in-chief.
Thank you so very much, Mr. Solway. I read this and thought,” I am not so alone,” I have also had a conversion experience, having voted for every single Democratic for President over the past 30 years.I even voted for John Edwards in the primaries. I am sorry for and understand-because it happened to me-for both the loss of your friends and your obsession with Obama. I am glad that you can return to your reading and writing poetry again. Through my religious faith as well as my interest in reading and drama I am returning to sanity again.
Best to you.
My own view of Obama is that he is a pathological, clinical narcissist. This isn’t a mild ‘egotistic’ psychological state. It’s a severe psychological state which he probably moved into as a young boy.
Effectively, Obama does not and cannot interact with the Real World. Indeed, he has no interest in it for that reason. Obama lives in what I term a ‘virtual reality’. This is a fictional realm of which he alone is the author. That’s why he’s a pathological liar; truth- that external face of the real world – has no existence for Obama. His ‘reality’ is what HE authors and makes up.
The agenda of Obama’s virtual world, which exists solely within His Words, is to control you. That’s the sole agenda.
By control – I mean that he needs you to be in a state of adulation of him. You cannot exist – as a separate entity, capable of direct self-directed interaction – with Obama. Obama must direct the interaction. You just bow to His Will.
Obama’s tactics of controlling how you interact with him – as His Willing Slave – are basic. The first is Misinformation. As I said, he’s a pathological liar. That’s because Obama, as noted, has NO connection to the real world. He is insulated and isolated from the real world by His Words.
Then, Obama is emotionally manipulative. He’ll attempt to control you by using Fear. Or Hope. He’ll threaten apocalyptic scenarios to the economy or the people if you don’t immediately do His Will – and pass his ‘stimulus’ (which wasn’t about economic infrastructure but about public service jobs)…or his health care (which isn’t about health but is govt control of 1/6th of the economy)…
And of course, he’ll spread hope and future-oriented images constantly.
Then, there’s racism. Obama bases his control over you on maintaining you in a lower-than-him position. If you reject him, you are racist; he used that during the campaign. If you reject his Will, it’s because you are ignorant. Or politically biased. Or religiously bigoted. Or…But you are the problem.
And if you continue to reject His Will – then, for Obama, you literally cease to exist. In Obama’s world, he can only deal with people and events that he Controls. If he cannot control them – they do not exist.
As someone who lives within a Virtual World that he himself writes and controls – Obama is alienated from the real world. His aloofness isn’t intellectual! It’s a psychological inability to connect to the real world and to real events that happen to people.
That’s why – with the Ft. Hood shooting – Obama’s reaction was delayed; he first gave a speech to natives praising them..and then, in the middle, referred to the Ft. Hood. Same with the Gulf Oil Spill; Obama couldn’t connect to its economic and personal disaster. These events were not ‘authored’ by him, within His Virtual Bubble..and thus, had no reality for him.
He thus has no knowledge of history, of economics, of the real world. None. He’s swum through life using those tactics: misinformation, emotional manipulation, accusations of bias.
He’s never written an academic article – he can’t; he can’t connect to theories and facts outside of his own Bubble. He’s never formed a policy; indeed, he can’t even sit through policy discussions at the WH. He leaves it all up to others – and the radical Democrats who run Obama – write up those agendas.
Is he a socialist-marxist? He is psychologically both – because his need to control others requires that when he’s in the political realm, he has to be a socialist…for that ideology sets up Rulers and Ruled. But ideologically, Obama is empty. Totally empty. After all, even knowing the theories of socialism requires that he interact with a text written by someone else. And Obama can’t do that.
As someone who is completely empty – he has no principles, no ideology – Obama has only ‘programs’ or agenda instilled in him by others. That is, he operates because he is programmed to operate in a certain way. Notice that Obama always requires a dominant woman around him: his mother, grandmother, wife. They are all radical socialists – and Obama operates that way because he is ‘programmed’ to do so. Not because he thinks about the ideas; he doesn’t. They were and are anti-American, anti-white, anti-capitalist…and Obama is all of this. He couldn’t explain why; he just is. And all his actions are thus harmful to the American people. All of them.
I don’t think that people understand how pathological Obama is; after all, he ‘seems normal’, they say! They ascribe his aloofness to his ‘cool intellect’..ignoring that he’s never made an intellectual analytic statement in his life. They swoon over his rhetoric, ignoring that his ‘the oceans will cease to rise’ and ‘hope and change’ are empty words. They ignore, totally, his constant lies – for they cannot believe that he would lie and smile at the same time.
They refuse to criticize him for his hostility to any who confront him – his attacks on FOX, on various pundits; his exhorting Hispanics to go out and get ‘your enemies’; his attacks on doctors, on wealth, his insistence that you ought to feel guilty for working into wealth.
They ignore that Obama aligns himself with various symbolic esteemed figures – because Obama lives in a virtual world. So, he comes to his inauguration locating himself in a Lincoln-text. He wants you to ‘read’ him as the new Lincoln. He’s now aligning himself as Reagan.
Such an amorphous figure, as Obama, someone who cannot live in the real world – it’s hard for anyone to see how pathological and destructive he is.
And changes his accent and inflection to suit the audience, my favorite.
“These events were not ‘authored’ by him, within His Virtual Bubble..and thus, had no reality for him….He’s never written an academic article – he can’t; he can’t connect to theories and facts outside of his own Bubble. He’s never formed a policy; indeed, he can’t even sit through policy discussions at the WH.”
nice extensions of your previous thoughts. There’s a book in this line of thought. If you don’t write it, someone will steal it.
One of the smartest things they did was the smiling monkey thing. Someone said he never says angry words with angry body language, and he never has angry body language when he says angry words. Ayer’s biography says that he “learned early how to be non-threatening” (while living in a political universe based exclusively on violence and threats). And his relaxed posture while lying through his teeth in those rare instances when somebody slips through the gendarmes and actually asks a pointed question is masterful. He was doing something in those 20 years when he was supposedly going to school and writing his brilliant tomes, and it looks to me like it was acting school instead of studying and writing. Of course, with your thesis, he isn’t acting at all, he really believes his shit smells sweet.
That’s right, rightly so. Just one example ,notice the smile when George Snugaflufobamalous asked him about taxes, hiding his anger at being questioned he smiles through his admonishment. You see this when his handlers have to let him actually answer a few questions he doesn’t like, just because well he’s the Prez and he does have to answer a couple questions now and then!
I agree obama is just the public face of the organism. he isn’t clever enough on his own.
they want to destroy society …meaning they want a mass die-off and start over. (there is no other reason to mess up a system that was working out pretty well for most people, referring to the USA)
…the education system was indoctrinating for this for generations and it has become an ideology not unlike islam. there is no room for reason or discourse, why would people still want unions when the union does nothing for it’s members? How could so many people in Wisconsn be so willing to jump of a cliff?
why ? I guess the top guy or guys are delusional. there is no logical upside to it. this is a personal game for someone or some group.
Proreason I always like to link to this comment every once in a while, in case anyone has missed it:
The very astute Richard Epstein, professor of law at University of Chicago, noted that “I like Obama but I reject the suggestion that he is an intellectual. He is an activist merely mimicking the mannerisms of an intellectual.”
In response to the question, “How good is Obama’s mind?”, Epstein replied: “His mind is pretty good, but it is a clever ‘means-ends’ mind. He has never written a scholarly article in his entire life. ”
And someone here once said the following:
obama = no class and not a discernible shred of gentlemanly instinct; in other words, he just doesn’t know how to act; couple a poor education in manners and etiquette with unbounded ego and narcissism, add to that Chicago-style thuggery and, “Houston, we’ve got a problem.” A huge, embarrassing problem.
Thanks for sharing Epstein’s take with us! His opinions are respected by many, me among them!
he has ideology. and it isn’t pretty.
that would be like saying Gaddaffi Duck in Libya doesn’t have ideology or the Kim in N. Korea. they just don’t have to abide by it, they are above it. (in their own perverted minds)
it’s good to be the king.
ps. what do you think about the prospect for democracy in egypt now?
I can’t help thinking that, perversely, the danger that Obama represents is exactly what the country needed – and the world too, come to think of it.
The opportunistic and slightly more sensible Hillary or the RINO McCain would have allowed all the nice people to hope for the best and go about their business as best they could. This fellow has made that impossible.
Mouthing as he does, every feel-good socialist mantra, every green piece of nonsense, every time-honoured racist trope while embodying the exact opposite, he has forced people to think about what it means to be a US citizen and what duties that requires. To the astonishment of the left and the world, it turns out a majority of the American citizenry care enough to give up whatever they must to save the country. Yes, it will take years to undo the damage but the undoing will be done with keen insight into what is the right way to structure the government and limit its reach.
Similarly, surely it is the current weak posture of the US on the world stage that has been a factor in the rebellion of the Arab street against their intolerable governments. Whatever happens in Tunisia and Libya and Egypt and elsewhere, from now on, nobody believes that the US can be counted on to come to the rescue of populations that feel free to take help with one hand while heaping calumny with the other on their protector and benefactor. We have all seen that they are perfectly capable of rising up and accepting their responsibilities. From now on, countries that want help from the US will be required to demonstrate their bona fides.
All in all, we are looking at the end of hypocrisy and its first cousin, political correctness.
I hope you are correct, the jury is still out.
Little lenin has certainly brought the conflict to the forefront, but the American people are notoriuosly slow to react (i.e., still sleeping in 1940); too much good stuff for too long to even consider fighting for a very long time.
The maniacs are betting that they can sieze the moment before enough of us wake up. For that reason, I’m really surprised at the Wisconsin deal. They didn’t have to do it. Maybe their success since 2008 is going to their heads.
Mr. Solway:
That was an absolute masterpiece on the child
Mr. Solway;
Do you remember seeing all those trash bags in the alley when the Dalai Lama was ushered out of the White House?
Those bags contained Obama’s shorts which he soiled every day after he got the job as President.
The only thing he’s prepared for, even after Harvard, is picking his nose. Which has been documented, also.
Since last winter, I was (and still am) convinced that Obama closely resembles an automatron, pre-programmed with every hard-left dogma line of code, utterly incapable of processing new input.
It’s almost possible to imagine some programmer writing his speeches from a basement in the Kremlin with a direct line to his teleprompter.
Oh and let’s not forget his ‘win the future’ trope. THAT one was written by Beijing. What hit the cutting floor from that speech: “American happy lucky long time joy now vote democrat union glorious”
I am actually thinking the Kremlin is starting to worry about what is happening in the USA.
they don’t need this much instability. It will be beyond anyones control soon and they don’t like that.
Gosh, I’m glad to know there is someone else out there like me. I’m tired.
Dear David:
A fine, comprehensive essay. Thanks for your kind mention of my writing and the link.
Yours,
Mike McDaniel
Maybe it’s my contrarian streak, but I never liked him. When my liberal friends were waxing ecstatic about him, I was saying that he was calling for Marxist redistribution of wealth, and you couldn’t trust what he appears to say. To many of my friends I am now saying, “I told you so!”
O-o-o-oh, Mr. Solway, the reference to Scaramouche cracked me up. I will never think of Barry again without envisioning him getting thwacked by Punch or Judy.
I had the “pleasure” of running into The Won when he supposedly waas organizing housewives to address asbestos issues in their housing. Then he was trying to pass the Motor Voter law, then he was attending meetings of the Socialist coalition in Chicago, then he went to law school, then he was expanding the reach of the Community Reinvestment Act, then he was working with Ayres to introduce social democracy in the schools, then he was composing a book to set him up to run for mayor, then…you get the idea. He has the the attention span of a gnat. Somebody else is pulling those puppet strings.
It’s 10:44. A third go around for David’s article, before bed. It has that erotic release effect. So much of what i wanted to say for the last few years, all summed up in one place. I guess he can just keep adding to the article as events unfold when necessary, so yes, he can return to writeing his beautiful poetry and filling young minds at the University with the beauty that was hounded out of art years ago.
I voted for Obama, but knew that he was just another guy. He has not been the saviour that some imagined, but one would have to be naive to start with to believe such things. He is a politician, got it? We have elected politicians throughout our history; most disappoint because they all promise too much, and our problems are not easy ones to solve.
Evidently, a preponderance of you guys and gals are a bunch of frantic drama queens, creating a non-stop soap opera about the guy. Whether Obama screws up or not, we will have another President in less than two or six years. He will win some, he will lose some. You give the guy far too much credit/blame for what is happening, but you revel in telling these stories to each other around the campfire. This could be the end of western civilization as we know it, blah, blah. Get grip, but then, that might be too boring.
Yes, our economic problems are deep and we may be past our peak. Our standard of living may well decline over the next fifty years. Knock yourselves out blaming that on Obama; it is the result of our whole culture, how it consumes, how it values money, how it makes money, how it does not balance budgets whether there is a righty or a lefty in office, how we like nice things that we can’t really afford, but, oops, CAN afford for another few years if the Chinese make them for us. How we want great health care, but only pretend that we are paying for it with health insurance that can’t cover the real costs. It was already a Ponzi scheme before Obamacare and will continue to be so either way because we have a more expensive machine or procedure to extend our lives every day, a treatment too expensive for anyone of reasonable means to really pay for, so we fake it and hope that somewhere in the loop, someone picks up the tab.
Or….all medical prices are negotiable, as are deficits. We can always borrow more, print more money. Maybe China will implode with its own problems. In any case, Obama is just a small piece of it.
Can I refresh your cool aid, sir?
Your comment is a ‘cop-out’. You’ve reduced and trivialized the role and function of a president of a nation to irrelevance. Therefore, since the role and function are totally irrelevant to the operation of a nation, you can say – oh, he’s just another guy’ and what he does is irrelevant’.
That’s a neat, if fallacious, tactic to get out of holding the president of a nation responsible and accountable. Heh – all you have to do is say, ‘oh, he’s irrelevant’…and there goes all responsibility.
Nope. It doesn’t work that way. The role has responsibilities. That’s why it’s an elected rather than appointed role. Even when Kingship was inherited, that role had ‘noblesse oblige’; it had obligations.
The role is beholden to the people and the nation. Obama is failing, badly, in that role. The decisions he made and allowed: the stimulus and its massive deficits, buying GM, the health care and its statist takeover rather than reform of health care..; his actions in Europe and missile protection, his inaction in the Gulf Oil, his support for the anti-constitutionalism of Zelaya, his refusal to acknowledge the reality of Islamic fascism, his refusal to allow oil drilling in the gulf, his refusal to protect the borders, his attacks against states – such as Arizona; his hostility to wealth; his lies and manipulation….On and on.
These are decisions HE made and as such, since they affect the nation, they are not trivial matters – akin to an indifference to whoever throws crumbs to the pigeons. They are vital issues – and your refusal to critique and think about them reveals only your own refusal to act as a citizen in a democracy.
Presidents do matter, Dwight. They matter a lot. Since Reagan we’ve had four of them in a row that turned out to be inadequate in various ways and degrees. And even Reagan made mistakes. But making what appear to be deliberate mistakes based on ideological fallacies means only one of two things. It either means that you are a blithering incompetent or that you know exactly what you are doing and you are trying to deliberately harm the country. We know that Obama is a Leftist. We know that he purposely deceived voters by portraying himself as a moderate. He is anything but a moderate. If you look at Obama’s past, from his runs for state senator, US senator, and president, you see him doing any and everything to subvert the political process to his advantage. Do other politicians do this? Yes, they do, but the very worst of them are supposed to get properly vetted first before they ever get anywhere near the Oval Office. Sometimes this doesn’t happen. In Obama’s case the people that should have been doing this didn’t even try. The numbers of people raising alarms about this guy during the campaign were few and far between. The pre-Oval Office info on Obama was scant compared to what we know about him now and the picture is anything but pretty. It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that the nicest thing about Obama is his smile. So, go ahead and research some of the information now available about him, Dwight, and then come back to PJM and tell us we have nothing to worry about.
Presidents do matter, Dwight. They matter a lot. Since Reagan we’ve had four of them in a row that turned out to be inadequate in various ways and degrees. And even Reagan made mistakes. But making what appear to be deliberate mistakes based on ideological fallacies means only one of two things. It either means that you are an incompetent or that you know exactly what you are doing and you are trying to deliberately harm the country. We know that Obama is a Leftist. We know that he purposely deceived voters in 2008 by portraying himself as a kind of moderate. He is anything but a moderate. If you look at Obama’s past, from his runs for state senator, then US senator, and then president, you see him doing any and everything to subvert the political process to his advantage. Do other politicians do this? Some do, but the bad apples usually get properly vetted first before they ever get anywhere near the Oval Office. In Obama’s case this didn’t happen. The people that were supposed to do this didn’t do their job. The numbers of people raising alarms about Obama during the campaign were few and far between. What we knew about the pre-Oval Office Obama was scant compared to what we now know about him and the picture is not pretty. It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that the nicest thing about Obama is his smile. You only have to research some of the information available about him, Dwight, and then come back to PJM and tell us we have nothing to worry about.
Shortly after 9/11 and the run up to Afghanistan and then Iraq the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church came out with a couple condemning statements against not those who killed over 3000 people, but against those who opted to fight back. While I personally thought it was dubious from a strategic standpoint to go to Iraq, I was incredibly distressed by the statements from the Presiding Bishop. You see I was at the time attending an Episcopal church. I was brought up and believed in the more liberal side of the Protestant church, but had stopped attending the liberal end of the Lutheran church, the faith I was brought up in because I thought they had driven off the cliff having little resemblance to what I had grown up with.
In short order after 9/11 the Episcopal church did the same thing, ordaining Gene Robinson despite his active homosexual life. My husband, a staunch Baptist who humored me had had enough. My epiphany occurred when the church’s womens group did a naked calendar to raise funds for the lightening struck steeple. This occurred a few months after Gene Robinson’s ordination. Taken all together it was simply too much,and we left the church, though truthfully my husband had intellectually left much sooner, and had went the last few and far between times with me simply because he loves me enough to let me figure things out for myself.
I cannot express the anger and the feelings of betrayal I felt over what was going on. It was that sense of betrayal that lead to me begin researching the left liberal protestant side of the church. It led me to the convergence of liberal protestants and socialists, it became clear to me that large chunks of history were deliberately not taught to us in schools. History that is disturbing and intimately connected to liberalism, the old left version of liberalism. When the New Left came around the old left were turned into conservatives by the newer version. It is not hyperbole to say the old left were fascists and the new left are Marxists. And true Americanism, which is neither has not been seen since the days of Woodrow Wilson.
I learned and read who Henry Saint Simon was, the Frenchman who originated the theories of socialism and I came to know his students, including Auguste Comte, the originator of Social Science. I read books that are old and which I bought for a little bit of nothing because no one cares about them anymore, and the more I read the more fearful I became over what was happening to my country. Fearful because while the information was right there, we had abdicated the teaching of it. I have loved history since my grandma gave me a book on Lewis and Clark when I was but 8 years old and I have a book in my hand every day of my life, most often something history and yet I had not known so much of what I was now reading.
The further away from Christian Orthodoxy we became, the closer to socialism this country moved. Those bad industrialists we all learn we had to be saved from, actually embraced progressivism and funded it, and in the case of George Pullman, building a model community that earned him accolades in the national press until a economic downturn and the economic realities of having to cut wages but not rents crept in. The famous Pullman strike then ensued. The fact that Pullman ran his community with an iron fist like a feudal Lord had not mattered a lick until then, he was instead a visionary and a man who loved his workers.
I have not the space to go into all that I learned and which figuratively took my breath away, suffice it to say that at one point it occurred to me that despite some of the more crazy aspects of the John Birchers, they had been on to something. Yet one doesn’t want to say it too loud for fear of being thought entirely crazy. The other thought that occurred to me as I read about eugenics and who actually funded it and supported it was that true evil, devils, demons or otherwise, existed. How many of us are aware that John Foster Dulles, Sec. of State and his brother Allen Dulles, head of the CIA were supporters of eugenics? That the land that was donated for eugenics research was donated by their families, that they were intimately connected to the Rockefellers who funded vast amounts of eugenics research here and at the Kaiser Wilhelm institute in Germany were Joseph Mengele worked?
So much more that is not widely known. Which brings me to Obama. From the moment the man come onto the stage I knew who he was, he fit the profile I had come to know so very well. And he made me fearful. I too lost friends because I would not shut up about what was wrong, about what knowledge I was gaining, my oldest child having gone away to college came home indoctrinated into the far left view, and while he had come from a moderately liberal home, I was still shocked by what was coming out of his mouth. I urged him to read what I had been reading, to look beyond what he was being told and got exactly no where. I wondered what had happened to the critical thinking skills I thought I had instilled in him. Where was his ability to reason, what had happened to it? It got where I absolutely refused to discuss politics or philosophy with him at all because he made me so angry I wanted to duct tape his mouth. My daughter, despite the typical growing pains of being young, is much more reasonable. Part of that has to do with being marrying a young man who was running his own landscape business and who lives a very reality based life. She too had spent some time in college, but she was the kid who told her math instructor who was going on and on one day about Iraq, that she wasn’t paying him to babble about his politics but to teach her the required math.
3 years ago we opted to home school the youngest child. It had began with him asking to be home schooled 2 years previous to that. Eventually we opted to do so in order to raise a child who has the ability to think for himself, and to actually know and use critical thinking skills. Doing this has been a joy that I am amazed at. How I wish I had home schooled the other two. The home schooled child is well ahead of his peers both in his intellectual abilities and his maturity. He truly teaches himself. I provide the appropriate material and he learns it, any questions we go over together, anything I can’t answer a search engine will eventually yield the needed information. He has learned how to find information and truth without a gatekeeper.
And you know what frightens me the most about Obama and what is happening? Its not the fiscal mess, and so much that is going to cause all sorts of problems, I have great faith in the American people once roused. It takes alot to get us there, but finally we have started on the necessary path. It is the foreign policy end of things. As I watch the middle east blowing up and the inevitable taking advantage that will come from the radical I become almost paralyzed with fear that we will see WWIII and that it will consume my boys, but most especially the youngest. I want to literally grab the Commander in Chief and shake the everliving sh*t out of him and scream at him, YOU ARE RISKING THE LIVES OF MY CHILDREN!
I know many are tired, but we must press ahead, our children’s futures and lives depend on it. Thank you Mr. Solway, your obsession has been wicked important.
Wow, well-put.
“It got where I absolutely refused to discuss politics or philosophy with him at all because he made me so angry I wanted to duct tape his mouth.” Your problem or his? I’m sure that my parents felt the same way when I came back from college, although they had not just “discovered” the vast liberal-religious conspiracy that continues to wash over you.
If only Jesus hadn’t sounded like such a progressive liberal so much of the time, then maybe so many of the flock would not have been led astray. Certainly, one way to shield your children from ideas you despise is to home school them, but then it becomes your responsibility to lead them to diverse points of view which would permit them to actually make some choices, not just fear the same bogey-men that you do.
A lot of rock-ribbed Christianity has been very conservative, with the Civil War Southern Baptists being a prime example. Much of “modern” Christianity and related bleeding hearts have long since gone in a different direction, which never ceases to amaze and horrify you.
“If only Jesus hadn’t sounded like such a progressive liberal so much of the time, then maybe so many of the flock would not have been led astray.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! LMFAO. hooooo weeeee. I gotta go home and get drunk now.
Thanks mere citizen for your thoughtful commentary. I too was shaken to the core and rudely awakened to the disturbing facts of our missing history around 4 years ago. It took me about 2 years of reading obscure publications and digging below the surface to finally accept and embrace the fact that the world as presented is an illusion and under constant manipulation by an invisible hand of –no other way to describe it–evil. This is why the world needs a Savior. I’ve yet to find an effective, non-offensive method to parlay this info to even some of my conservative friends, who while somewhat alarmed at Obama, refuse to believe that “the whole world [including the Church] is under the control of the wicked one”. I’ve concluded my liberal friends are a lost cause and simply impenetrable.
Hey, a Powerline reunion!!
Well, whadda you know. I see you’re still enjoying stirring up the pot while staking yourself as the only cool head in the room.
mere citizen, many thanks for your post. We seem to be on the same page.
@ # 29, in response to proreason, who wondered why all this is happening, I wrote:
“Perhaps because the West has turned its back on its Judeo-Christian roots, as in no respect for either God or His Ten Commandments . . .
“In his fine essay ‘The Abolition of Man’, C.S. Lewis wrote . . . ‘In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.’”
Like you, I’ve left the Anglican (Canadian for “Episcopal”) Church: I’m now a Roman Catholic and haven’t regretted my decision for a nanosecond. I’ve also noted before that most of my “observant” Christian friends smelled a rat re Obama, on sight and sound. Having lost their moral compass, all too many citizens are easily duped. Kyrie eleison.
Don’t forget when Obama was giving a speech at a company with ORION in its name. The company bigwigs standing behind him were hilarious to watch squirm every time Obama mispronounced ORION as “OREEON”
I wasn’t going to comment, but I can’t let the laser-brain in #52 have the last word. His “argument” seems to be, “Obama sucks, but so what? Yeah, I voted for him.” No reason given for voting for this excrescence; no attempt made to justify any of the man’s actions that have been so provably destructive to our nation.
Dismissing that pitiable effort, I’ll just say that I’m another ex-Democrat who has been appalled by the Vicious Party ever since their behavior after the 2000 election. I voted for Gore and even demonstrated in DC during Bush’s election–but for a very different reason, I subsequently realized, than did my Leftist confreres. I was upset that (as I’d been told by our Quisling Fourth Estate) the Republicans had “stolen” the election. My Leftist friends just hate all patriots and conservatives.
When the Washington Post et al. came out a few months later with a “never mind!” Emily Latella retraction of the charge, I was livid. Because I realized in that moment that the Left were so ruthless, so utterly without principle, that they would destroy the citizens’ faith in our electoral process merely for partisan advantage. I knew then that they would piss on the checks and balances I’d been taught were so essential to keeping our ship of state in balance; that they were determined to destroy any effective opposition; that they didn’t give a rat’s hairy posterior about our Republic.
Then came their treasonous response to the Islamic mass murders of September 11th. Which has only gotten worse over the years: they’ve done everything possible to make a fetish of Islam and absolute pets of the Muslims, falling all over themselves to kiss our enemies’ rear ends and give them extra goodies, advantages, deference (this one really makes me retch) and access. That made me despise them.
And now, with the most despicable Quisling, the only QUISLING to ever make it into the White House, destroying so much of our great nation, and the Republicans offering some resistance but not nearly enough, I really fear for our future as a free people. So much of our freedom has already been whittled away by these goons over the decades! and now Hussein is accelerating everything.
Our biggest problem isn’t the Fifth Columnists, though they are a big one: it’s the Propaganda Arm of the Fifth Column; namely, the organs of indoctrination and “information.” They have become almost wholly diseased with America-loathing Leftism, like flesh-eating bacteria. THAT’s where we need to turn our attention and direct our fighting.
Having one network that gets some of the information “out there,” plus the internet and the radio, is better than nothing, but our main problem is that all these channels have been “siloed” by the Leftists. They’ve made a very effective Great Firewall of ridicule and lies and shame, backed by shunning, that works to keep even the middle of the road types from listening to someone like Rush Limbaugh (not a three-headed monster, but more temperate than much of the conservative blogosphere, when you actually Listen to him). I first tuned in to RL a few months ago–even after my Damascene conversion, I wasn’t ready to go That Far. I didn’t even know he was on the air in New York (AM 770).
I was expecting to hear the modern-day equivalent of Father Coughlin. To my surprise, he was actually … you know, making sense. What a shock. But most people won’t even stick their toes in that bathtub. And what if the neighbors overhear? The same is true for all the conservative outlets. People who want to be part of the “cool crowd” shun them. It’s an idiotic problem, but it’s the one we have.
Because, if most of our fellow citizens KNEW what the hell was going on, they’d be outraged. If you only watch the Big Three or CNN, you have no freaking idea.
I am a pragmatist who thinks that it is more important that Obama kept on Gates as Sec of Defense than his unfortunate reference to the Cambridge Gates. That his droning and surging in Afghanistan is more important than the fact he didn’t give McChrystal everything that he wanted. GWB did a small stimulus and a bailout; Obama did a much bigger stimulus and a bailout.
He was a healer in Tucson. This does not make him a successful President at all, but it puts the lie to Obama is the worst ever Commie Muslim birther bs that tends to stink up the room here too much of the time.
It is not a rational weighing of pluses and minuses, but rather a righty freak-out, not a bad replication of the left’s reaction to GWB.
Imagine Rush as President.
Sorry, to have to tell you this, Dwight, but even with half his brain tied behind his back Rush would make a far better president than Obama.
And unfortunately we’ll never find out because every time a strong conservative raises his head, communists like Dwight are there to scream at the top of their lungs that said conservative is there to murder black people, seniors, the children etc… and that forces the democrat dupes back onto the plantation.
It is so strange for the United States to have a President that does not love his country. How could this be? I am old enough to remember quite a few American Presidents, and I can not remember one who was so clearly ambivalent and even hostile to his fellow American citizens. Maybe this is what drives the “birthers”; this gnawing sense that here is an American President who does not love his country or his countrymen therefor he must not be an American.
“a man so refreshingly different from his predecessors and contemporaries”
That indeed was a big lie. He’s far too similar to his predecessors, may their names never be mentioned, and is contemporaries, may their schemes never fall prey to investigative reporters, PBUO.
Anyone who cares about this country and is not of the left knows that Obama was a very big mistake. But unmitigated disaster, as the author says? I, too, was worried that Obama might get the time, and thus the chance, to change the country. But that was before last year’s election. The people have put a down payment, an earnest money fee in political terms, on Obama being a one termer. To be sure he will do more damage before he is through. But the good news is that his party will be a disaster area for decades to come; long enough, one supposes, to set the country right and restore it to good health before, or if ever, the next presidential disaster of Obama magnitude comes along. I might add that we will probably be getting better quality presidents for now on out because the better qualified, who have been shying away from the presidency for the last two decades, now see how much damage a bad president is capable of inflicting on the country. At the very least everyone understands how important it is to keep showy flimflams like Obama out of the Oval Office.
Further to my comment in #42 – I notice that Obama is withdrawing from the union-state labor disputes in the various states. Remember how he came out on the side of the unions – and was blasted for interfering. Then, the WH began to withdraw – and now, even more so.
With Obama, if he feels he can’t move an external reality into the virtual bubble that he controls – that situation ceases to exist. He totally ignores what he cannot control. I suspect that the union-state situation is one where he feels he can’t control the outcome..and so..it no longer exists for him. He’ll go play golf.
Same with Libya. Obama has no principles, no basic beliefs of ‘what is good’ – that he follows. He has only one force that drives his life: can he control whoever/whatever comes into his surroundings. The only type of interaction he can permit with the outside world is one of its submission to him. If he cannot achieve such a reaction, that person, that situation does not, to him, exist.
Libya has no reality to Obama. So, he waits until it becomes slightly clear which side is winning; then, he aligns himself with the Winner. Watch him. He does it every time.
In answer to General Malaise and Egypt – yes, democracy will emerge in Egypt. Absolutely.
Obama was a liberal orgasm.
He is the casual, one-night stand who looked so good at midnight…and we are stuck here in the morning after.
Dwight and the apologist trolls are in the kitchen making bacon and eggs, sloughing off the guilt and swimming in the cesspool of denial.
Others feel dirty and used.
The rest of us are roommates watching the train wreck of reckless behavior leave yet another oily spot on the pillows. Dwight could care less. Leftists have long ago decided that a conscience was not useful.
His hangover from imbibing the spiked Kool-Aid of mindless leftism allows him to feel no pain, his …or ours. His vacuous homilies about “you people” are there to make him feel better about the loss of his soul.
He comes here, to vent his spleen and spew his bile…because he has nowhere else to put it all. He is being eaten away from the inside.
Pity him, my friends. A life spent as a permanent antagonist, spewing venom and lecturing others about their ignorance is all he has left in his puny, myopic life.
Sorry, but when it come to spewing spleen, bile, and venom, I am just not in the same class as some of you. You can spew it because you feel it is righteous wrath, but it is venom, nonetheless.
Not to generalize too much, but as a rule, I go for a balanced view of history back to the Founders, and maybe a little wit; you go for anger, bluster, and venom, as you have just demonstrated, once again.
Cheers,
He gets no positive feedback.
Nobody agrees with him.
He is regularly attacked; from up and down the scale of anger.
He makes no sense to anyone but himself.
He spends a lot of time patting himself on the back.
He explains why nuts like himself are so much better than the wingnuts.
Most of what he writes is designed to infuriate conservatives.
He can’t let anything go without a rebuttal.
And he spends hours a day posting the same drivel to virtually every article on PJM
You really have to wonder what motivates a guy like dwightmatthewlawrence.
Sometimes I think he’s sick. Other times I just fee pity.
a preponderance of you guys and gals are a bunch of frantic drama queens
but it puts the lie to Obama is the worst ever Commie Muslim birther bs that tends to stink up the room here too much of the time.
Can’t get enough of that balanced view…and wit.
Your glass house has no mirrors, obviously.
Wow D-White, who put a turd on the Ping Pong Ball? Or did someone pull that nasty trick of putting some Atomic Balm on one of the pickets that Pick It Fence But sits on. Mmm, mmm, mmm!
As Mr. Solway says –
“I had finally amassed enough documentation to determine that he was not the centrist he affected to be but a far-left ideologue…”
Red Pencil Neck goes Def Con Purple on those who might smash his idol. After all, both were/are “teachers”, and you know that tweed underwear does not show skid marks, at least to a fellow “educator’s” eye.
Cut the Ping Pong Tongue Rap, you know that Mr. President is not just another politician. He’s your answer to your pension. If there would just be a little less scrutiny, well, Big Union For The D-White Class of Those Most Deserving of Your Money could pull it off.
Really now, Ponzi? Ponzi? You mean, we take care of you children because the law mandates it with no competition and we take your money by force and we don’t get results by our own admission so we take more of your money and use some of it to promote out personal well being and we only want more! And more!
What the hell? Make it right, D-White! You’re naked now, and the picket is showing.
Red Pencil needed. Put you head in the sharpener and get sharp Red Pencil Neck.
The Thin Man is won’t work here. How about –
I like Fidel Castro and his beard.
As RR said to JC, there you go again…. your obsession with butts and nakedness. “Goes def con purple” is somewhat humorous, especially given my general moderation. OK, occasionally I may have to rouse myself to swat at some of the buzzing gnats about the orifices.
But let’s stop to admire Proreason’s, oh so reasoned analysis of my situation. My favorites:
“He makes no sense to anyone but himself.
Most of what he writes is designed to infuriate conservatives.”
Hmmmm, is that “going def con purple” or just nonsensical?
Nevertheless, I should salute you, because as odd and obsessed as you are, you usually take a deep breath (or probably something stronger) to arrange your images into an at least the semblance of coherence, even if it is usually an extended “reference to a non-existent plot” which so exorcised one Yvor Winters when he felt the tectonic plates of literary culture shifting beneath him many years ago.
But, you are the music mixer; can you come up with a theme song for the Three Sputterteers: rfbleachers, Prorabid, and Lucky Strike?
Cheers,
Interesting D-White. Amassing an enemies list. And wanting others to get their hands dirty for you. Can impeachment proceedings be near? Break out the D-White 1974 8-track proclamations! A tune? Careful, you might get privately rich and then have to answer to the faculty lounge Troika.
Anyway Red Pencil Neck, looks like you’re just plain envious of Mr. Solway’s literary ability as well. The Ping Pong Tongue “competes” in the tweed lined faculty lounge, not being prepared for the outside the lounge wider range of ideas. The simple jumbled together Ping Pong scraps reminds one of phone junkies standing in line anywhere twitting away. Like say, a high school tax payer supported cafeteria line. You’ve learned well.
Mistaking butt for But. Shame on you Pick It Fence But. Whether or not an actual picket is causing you stimulus, is a matter for you and your fence. And to help you along, “But” defines basic D-White confusion. “Butt” is what your eyes gravitate to when Sarah walks by in D-White world. See, you learn something new everyday! You could learn more Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
As for nakedness, weren’t you born too?
Mark v is quite succinct when he states –
“As always, the leftists are completely unable to understand the plain language of metaphor and irony. Sometimes they can recognize sarcasm, if it’s heavy enough.”
So how about those Wisconsin Public Employees Unions? Don’t they have The Great Washed Club in Mass too? Talk about it, rather than dead white men. And how did that turd get on your Ping Pong Ball?
You’ve been with the professors
And they’ve all liked your looks…
Unless we are able to put political rivalries aside and start concentrating our efforts on the relentless efforts of an enemy intent in resurfacing the Islamic empire that was defeated and forced underground in WWI, we will be unable to protect the country and the West until it’s too late.
We have to wake up people and alert them as to the dangers we are facing.
Look at the sudden jump in the creation of mosques (including the aggression of the Cordoba House project.) Look at the number of adds in Craigslist asking for Arab-speaking radio and TV announcers, publicists, etc., and the defiant attitude of the Muslim American community after September 11.
As Pamela reported yesterday, even the ABA is getting involved in issues related with Sharia law.
We have to get together, join efforts and put aside issues that divide the American people. We are facing the worse possible enemy, religious fanatics with a goal that was set decades ago, and toward which they have been working since the first quarter of the 20th Century.
Let’s stop divisive actions and start pulling our efforts and resources together.
230 Million Americans did not vote for Obama.
To understand and get a sense of who and what Obama really is:
All Obama’s connections:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2453087/posts
Meeting young Obama:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/meeting_young_obama.html
One of the meetings Obama had:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/934675–the-federal-government-deliberately-kept-negotiations-on-a-border-deal-with-washington-secret-canada-kept-u-s-border-talks-under-wraps-document?bn=1
What Obama is doing:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/obama_completes_his_trifecta.html
We all know what Obama did when Egypt erupted–flip-flopped. And when Libya blew- Nothing.Why?
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/02/gaddafi-obama-is-muslim-descent-he-is-a-friend/
and:
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/02/figures-obamas-marxist-mentor-jeremiah-wright-is-linked-to-gaddafi/
Yesterday this website was put up:
http://shariah4america.com/
Now what do you think Obama’s agenda is? There is much much more about Obama’s shady connections.
“230 Million Americans did not vote for Obama.”
I was one of them-
If you are not queasy enough, consider this: unless something changes, there will one day be an aircraft carrier named the Barack H. Obama.
We can just hope that the administration at that time decides to use that slot to restore the name ENTERPRISE to the rolls (as the current ENTERPRISE will be retired by that time).
Well, we knew it was going to be bad as soon as the let started putting up pictures of Obama with a halo behind his head. It is America Bizzaro, totally threw away, with a serious amount of joy and zeal, the concept that we don’t DO “anointed” leaders. at least, that’s what we said in the Declaration of Independence.
apparently a “dead” document as opposed to the “living” constitution.
“Obama has cost me dearly.”
Au contraire, mon frere, I see the loss of these so-called “friendships” as a blessing in disguise. Who’da thunk that some whom I once viewed with respect were, at the end of the day, merely puling, gutless, wussy little Nancy-boys and sissy-girls who fear the consequences of personal responsibility? What this empty suit has done is separate the wheat from the chaff and through his deliberate divisiveness opened a window of opportunity for a rebirth of the Republic.
That is, if those who believe in the fundamentals upon which the United States was intended to be based continue to fight with both their dollars and at the ballot box and to societally hold others accountable for their actions (versus the ever-failing attempts to simply legislate morality).
Eli Cohen, wasn’t he the advisor to the Syrian Defense Ministry who recommended planting trees to shelter the Syrian soldiers manning the batteries on the Golan Heights before the 1967 Six Day War ?
Then the Israeli Air Force knew exactly where to bomb when the war began.
To your point, there is a story floating around the web that a visitor to the new Russian Federation in the 1990s was told that a black man from Chicago was being groomed for the presidency.
BO is probably one of several who have had their way paved with media interest stories and yeast money to bake their early electoral runs.
Not surprising, as we have identified and supported those in foreign countries who are friendly to our side.
It is totally believeable that he has allegiances to the wretched of the earth, and is financed by those he believes share his sympathies,
It’s incredible how Obama has met and surpassed all expectations. He has outmaneuvered the slow thinking Republicans and now they’re running with their tails between the legs.
The most stupid move they can make is trying to eliminate Social Security and downsize Medicare. The hard working citizens of this country will nor allow it. They will remember the idiotic moves of right wing legislators at election time. The Silent Majority is still alive and well.
The problem with right-wingers optimism is that they listen to the distorted news in conservative radio abd cable. They live like Lady Gagas inside an eggshell . . .