Was George Washington ‘Paranoid’ Too?
Does our president hate us?
That, sadly, is an appropriate question to ask on this birthday of our first president, even though esteemed “moderate” conservative talk show host Michael Medved says it’s “paranoid” to even entertain the question.
George Washington’s famous “Farewell Address” — too little read these days — offers a stark contrast to Barack Obama’s view of the presidency. Washington offers words of caution that we would do well to heed. Referring to himself as a “dutiful citizen” and “old and affectionate friend,” Washington writes:
In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me: and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal.
Washington opens and closes with such expressions of humility. He attributes any successes he may have had as president to the “constancy of your support.”He calls for a unity rooted in an American allegiance and identity, respect for the Constitution, and a morality based on religious belief.
But Barack Obama, with his conquering calls to “fundamentally transform” America and repeated proclamations that “we won” — before his 2010 “shellacking,” of course — has proven himself to be the antithesis of the “dutiful citizen” Washington. Obama’s policies and associations show a distinct desire to “transform” the republic into a socialist state. His statements and actions demonstrate contempt for the American people and the American form of government.
First, Obama has demonstrated his contempt for free elections, beginning with his association with ACORN. His Justice Department ignores voter intimidation, dismissing the contentious New Black Panther case from the 2008 election. Most recently, Obama has used his political arm, Organizing for America, to organize anarchists from various states of the union to protest against lawmaking in Wisconsin’s capitol. He has inserted himself into a state issue by opposing the lawful actions of a freely elected Republican governor.
What would George Washington — who cautions against factions rooted in the “strongest passions of the human mind,” and warns of forces that agitate “the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms,” kindle “the animosity of one part against another,” and foment “riot and insurrection” — think of such behavior?
But this is not the first time that our “community organizer” president has used mobs to intimidate. Remember his warning about the “pitchforks” in his meeting with bankers? Remember his groups that mobbed a bank president’s private home? (Now they are going to the homes of Wisconsin lawmakers.) Remember the imperious claims of “we won” to the Republicans he was supposedly going to “negotiate” with — over the unpopular health care bill that never did get the public airing he promised, which was passed with unprecedented legislative maneuvering in the dead of night?
Barack Obama’s contempt for Americans became apparent as early as the campaign itself. Remember the haughty reference to a “plumber” after a citizen dared ask an honest question when the microphone was put before him? When commentators noted the distinctly Marxist flavor of Obama’s response of “spreading the wealth” to Joe the Plumber’s concerns about taxes, Obama decided to attack the commentators and vilify the one cable news station that dared to criticize him. Obama supporters then released the personal records of Joe the Plumber.
And who can forget Obama’s condescending statements about Pennsylvania primary voters who “cling” to their “guns and religion”?
Contrast such contempt with George Washington’s words: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensible supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.”
Meanwhile, Stanley Kurtz was doing research showing Obama’s connections to the terrorist Bill Ayers and laying bare the archives that would prove Obama’s socialist ties. Obama’s henchmen organized to overwhelm the phone lines at a Chicago radio program when Kurtz was a guest. But even though Kurtz’s 2010 book Radical-in-Chief is painstakingly footnoted, using information already reported upon by Cliff Kincaid and Trevor Loudon, and concludes “Obama is a socialist,” Medved insists that Obama is not a socialist. “Moderate” conservatives choose to ignore such information for fear of being smeared a “red-baiter.”
Truly one of the most paranoid screeds I have ever read. Acorn? New Black Panthers? “organizing anarchists”? talk about scraping the barrel of political discourse… The Acorn scandal was a non-tempest in a teapot. Acorn organized, so they were a threat to the Republican Party. But selective editing from a conman did them in… To ask if Obama “hates us” is to ignore your own eyes and ears. There’s a reason the left is not very happy with the President. (hint: it’s his willingness to compromise on so many issues… the main example being his dropping of the “public option” in the health care debate… and the “medicare for all” non-starter. Any true lefty would have held out for either one.
“Acorn organized, so they were a threat to the Republican Party.”
Which is why the left hates the Tea Party movement, as proven during the last election?
“…it’s his willingness to compromise on so many issues… the main example being his dropping of the “public option” in the health care debate…”.
Nice try, but short memory. Compromise had nothing to do with it. The Democrats knew they could not get the public option to pass. They could read opinion polls. Even with the bill they ended up with they eventually had to make concessions (buy off) to their own party members. Even then, the bill was passed under strange circumstances, “deemed to pass”.
you do realize that “deemed to pass” has been used by Republicans, don’t you?
…and they didn’t actually use it this time. They were talking about it, though.
Second… I don’t know what opinion polls you read, but the Public Option enjoys majority support in my polls I’ve seen on the subject. “Medicare for All” would be popular, as well… The point was: If you read any left-wing blog sites, you’ll know how mad the liberals were with Obama on this issue. He was hardly some “radical”… especially since a lot of the language used in this bill was supported by or written by Republicans like Bob Dole, Mitt Romney, etc. This is not some “government takeover.” (Giving private insurance companies another 39 million people is hardly socialism.)
That is the problem with your argument, some Republicans but no Conservatives supported the Health Control bill. No doubt the Republicans that did will rot in hell for it.
A selective reading of this excellent piece, Mr. Mav. Welcome to earth. May you soon learn our ways.
…actually, I read the whole piece. There was far more paranoia contained within the column that I didn’t even mention. (shall I provide a laundry list?) Although I do love a healthy debate, if learning “your ways” includes accepting this swill as “truth,” I’ll pass.
…by the way… I’m not trying to anger people around here. I don’t troll. I just like to read what the other side is thinking about different topics. I hesitated on posting, but thought “why not?” I’ll try to be more careful about when to kick the hornet’s nest in the future. ha ha…
All in fun, Mr. Mav, but I don’t see the paranoia to which you refer. Ms. Grabar’s points seem very clearly based in the record and hardly “swill.”
Forcing insurance companies to insure more people under conditions dictated by government and constructing a vast new bureaucracy with bewildering lines of authority, reporting, and consultation isn’t naked socialism but it is it’s kissin’ cousin, fascism, to a T. Fascism is, as you know, the same thing as socialism just that the state achieves the same objective by threatening private businesses not nationaliziig them. You can bet your 401(k) that bureaucracy isn’t intended as the final deal and in it’s present form — and certainly in its future one — it comes close to (and will) swallow whatever there is left by way of meaningful private ownership. Ergo, socialism. QED.
While nominally the president of the United States, Obama doesn’t seem to understand that he is NOT the president of each state.
Has there ever been a worse president?
2012…counting the days.
~ The Infidel Alliance
So happy to see you have taken on Medved’s sanctimonious posturing. Noticed lately that as the right is putting more clarity into their positions, the faces of the “acceptable” right are becoming more and more critical. Medved reminds me of Peggy Noonan who is still trying to salvage her reputation after her support for Hussein O. revealed her to be just another chat show media whore who wanted to fit in and remain hip and cutting edge with her support of the fraud. I had thought better of Medved. His opinion reeks of superiority as if he can offhandedly dismiss the observations of millions of Americans as being just another collective paranoid reaction. Really? Medved is the idiot because he has demonstrated his inability to think OUTSIDE THE BOX. The box being his previous experience of former presidents and those he has familiarized himself with by reading history. America has never seen nor experienced the species of human called B. Hussein and with God’s help, he will be the last. So Medved, without actually seeing and thinking about what is taking place has relied upon his past experiences and understandings, blinding himself to the truth. Someone once gave another definition of the word paranoid. And in this instance it fits regarding many of us who have taken the sum of this cretin’s measure and have concluded rightfully so that he is the enemy within, a man so emotionally warped and bent, so filled with racial rage, so pedestrian in his own intellectual abilities that he is a veritable robot of his ancestors and upbringing and he is incapable or unwilling to alter the slightest bit from how he was PROGRAMMED to REACT. Paranoid: ONE WHO IS IN POSSESSION OF ALL THE FACTS.
WHY?
This is nothing new! This is vintage elitist Medved!
Good one!
I disagree that the President’s comments are nuanced – quite the opposite, he simply seems to put his foot in his mouth by unintentionally revealing the 2 great themes that occupy his mind: the debauchery of an imperialist and colonialist West, and his own casual disdain for white people who he considers endemic racists.
Whoever or whatever is the ostensible opposite of these things is an ally by default.
I don’t think Obama wants to bring Democracy down because he simply ignores the process as much as he can when it suits him and uses it as much as he can when it is to his benefit; in his world, Democracy is irrelevant since he moves in privilege and not the real world. Although Obama puts himself forward as someone who is racially neutral he in fact favors black folks plain and simple.
Obama is not an intellectually deep guy. He is the person you see with Che Guevara t-shirts bought with a credit card and with “Free Palestine” posters on his wall and who thinks muslims are cool. Obama is a nearly perfect example of an unthinking politically correct liberal on the Left who lives and breathes every stupid stereotype one can imagine emanating from that quarter but with no real understanding of the world he moves in or its history. In fact, Obama won to the Presidency on themes no more nuanced than Palin seeing Russia from her porch and Faux News and by black Americans who couldn’t stop thinking of themselves as hated and screwed by whites if you gave them each a million dollars for life.
Take away Obama’s own blithe racism and stereotype of imperialist America and there is not much left to the man. Since Obama has no experience that would qualify him for the Presidency we have had to watch him learn on the job while presenting no vision for America as a whole – none. Obama has been pushed from one unforeseen event to the next including the results of his own specific legislation like a pinball bouncing around the inside of a brightly lit box.
Like all brainwashed and historically challenged liberals, Obama despises the story of America, from beginning to end and inside out. Obama has some lame idea, like his white liberal brethren, that all minorities are Einsteins waiting to be unleashed once taken from under the boot of whitey.
The recent call in Detroit to close half its schools and stuff the kids into the other half and an adjunct currently playing itself out in the Memphis school system can be looked at by faith and hope as being the fault of European Americans. By those who simply observe and call it like they see it, you are seeing the future of America in Detroit as immigration legal and otherwise is demographically bringing large sections of the country to the same fate as Detroit eventually.
Thinking everyone is a potential Babe Ruth or Einstein is polite but reality has different ideas on this score and they mostly involve utter failure. Deal with it and kick Obama to the curb so he can get on with his next career at giving speeches to inner city kids and the NAACP.
Excellent comment.
Very well articulated! I believe that you – and Mary have naled this President and this Talk Show host.
Oh well, what can one expect from Medved, after that nonsense about how “Saudi Arabia is such an important, if not the most important, US ally on this planet?”
“But this is not the first time that our “community organizer” president has used mobs to intimidate. Remember his warning about the “pitchforks” in his meeting with bankers? Remember his groups that mobbed a bank president’s private home? (Now they are going to the homes of Wisconsin lawmakers.) Remember the imperious claims of “we won” to the Republicans he was supposedly going to “negotiate” with — over the unpopular health care bill that never did get the public airing he promised, which was passed with unprecedented legislative maneuvering in the dead of night?”
But this is what thugs from Chicago do. When you put a socialist in the White House, you get all of the tactics socialists use to not only obtain power, but also to retain power. This is EVERYTHING the Founding Fathers were afraid of. Obama is nothing more than a European-style socialist who is very comfortable using European-style socialist tactics, threats, and blackmail to achieve his ends. This is not what the American public wanted. Remember during the campaign his claim to being a centrist? What a liar and a fraud. Now that we know who Obama really is, the next step is to get him out of office next year. It can, will, and needs to be done.
Good analysis of the “pitting moderates against conservatives” tactic.
But it’s not the strategy.
Obama is but a slickly prepared and under-educated marionette.
The question remains: Who are the puppeteers?
I can only listen to Medved in small bites. Even when we agree on an issue, he has the ability to piss me off. If you exempt Obama’s policies, Medved sounds like a big Obama supporter
Excellent article, Mary. I was disgusted by that Medved article myself. A few years ago I visited Mt. Vernon where the tour takes you into the daily life of the man, George Washington. I was so impressed by his disciplined and godly lifestyle. I pray we are raising up young men and women of equal character, today. Thank you for your participation in the “culture war”.
Well said Mrs. Grabar. Michael Medved used to be insightful and a valuable commentator, right until he decided to back McCain in his push for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. It seems Mr. Medved took that defeat even worse than did the Senator. Since then he has been intolerable and seems to specifically pick issues that will dig at the conservative wing of his party.
Medved’s problems go back much farther than that!
Mr. Medved is absolutely the best of the talk show hosts in courtesy shown to guests. He’s very fair in letting his callers speak their piece and always worth listening to. He’s very knowledgeable about politics and history but has a strange tendency to go ballistic if a caller dares to suggest that whites or Christians have valid interests of their own (or objects to illegal immigration, IIRC). He immediately and tendentiously cranks the gain knob all the way over and goes into full neo-Nazi alert mode. I write from memory of distant programs but believe I am accurately portraying this tendency of his.
You have to consider that Mr Medved is a member of a group that definitely has its own interests. If you haven’t noticed (see ACLU), American Jews are always on the attack against any public expression of Christianity. They don’t try to legally suppress private religious worship, for now, but the tiniest creche or moment of silence in any non-private space gets swarmed by hordes of ACLU and People for the (atheist) American Way shysters. Just as they view the Christian religion as having no interests that government can recognize, they view Christians as having no rights that are worthy to be asserted in the political process. But rather than say this, they attempt to convince Christians that they have no common interests at all. It is exactly the same message that is promoted among whites in general — that they have no legitimate interests to assert against minorities, who are given preferential treatment in employment hiring, promotion, retention, college admission, grading, and discipline, and even law enforcement (racial profiling? voter intimidation?). You must admit that they have been very successful at this strategy, as any white person who mentions affirmative action is immediately labelled today’s Bull Connor. Anyone who questions the legal intolerance of the Christian faith is the next Torquemada. I can’t say with any certainty, but I guess that this attitude is the result of the history of Jews in Europe, which has been one of intolerance and periodic expulsion (e.g., their expusion from England from 1295 until 1655). It’s natural that they defend themselves and their interests against Christians. What is impressive the Jews’ ability to convince Christians that they have no common interests.
Jacobite,
Although I agree with the substance of this article, your criticisms of Mr. Medved are completely unfair. Michael Medved regularly backs religious Christians on his radio show, and often has Christian guests on air to talk about Christian issues. He feels that he shares a common culture and common moral values with them.
Just as any other group of people, Jews are not a monolith of thought. Your little diatribe against the Jews is completely unrelated to anything I’ve ever heard from Michael Meved. It sounds to me that you are describing secular liberals in general. There are many religious and politically conservative Jews who are just as appalled at these trends in society as you are. I would point you to Dennis Prager, Mark Levin, Bil Kristol and Charles Krauthamer to name just a few well-known conservative Jews.
It’s a nice try, but Medved has never really come out against ‘Christian America’, as far as I know. That Jews have legitimate concerns about your beliefs is just, well, legitimate. If some go over the top about this, then the history you cite is certainly part of the reason. There remains an unsolvable divergence that all the ‘Judeo-Christian’ talk doesn’t solve. This is of course that even pro-Israel Christians have their own agenda when it comes to Israel. The real question is what will happen to Christian support for Israel on the day that Evangelical Christians understood that we intend to maintain Israel as a Jewish state, and would never convert en masse on the big day your texts describe.
Although I count myself among former Medved listeners now, I must tell you that DDK is right. An observant Jew, Michael has said on innumerable occasions that Israel and the Jews have no better friends on earth than American Christians (and especially evangelical Christians!). He considers America a Christian nation and is glad of it.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it undoubtedly has the best interests of the nation at heart. NOT. I am constantly amazed at the intelligentsia who perform mental gymnastics to explain why the quacking, flapping, waddling bird in front of us is not a duck. There is an axiom in science that the least complicated explanation is often the most likely explanation. So to with Obama. Even Carter is looking great compared to this danger occupying the White House.
Human nature is a constant of the political equation;
You know what they say about people who insist that
it will vary this time.
So the Russian monarchy was restored in 1917?
Obama defines himself by the people he appoints and choices to represent him. Look at his Czars and you will see his treacherous soul. He acts the weak, compassionate, every man’s friend while his advisors, friends and allies do the dirty work. Only the simple-minded, gullible class are the targets for this scam.
a quick search on google or wikipedia will tell you that “Czars” in the American government did not start under President Obama and was used frequently by Republican presidents… so… so much for “treachery”
Would it be as easy to obtain Obama’s records from kindergarten on as it was for Jennifer Brunner to broadcast Joe the Plumber’s records?
My thought on this was as a Ohio resident, Jennifer Brunner is no longer in office. She, who received nothing more than Charlie Rangel received for tax evasion.
I wish that Julian Assange would have been able to obtain Obama’s records as easily as he did the other.
Michael Medved is not the only one. Bill O’reilly pats himself on the back for his ‘tough’ interviews of Obama. I have never seen this but he says it is so.
I feel, Mary Grabar, that our America is lost. Political correctness,so-called diversity in the military, etc.
What amazes me is the left’s constance referral of the Tea Party and every conservative as being a Nazi.I wonder if these people actually know what the Nazis really stood for.
A word from James Madison on the Constitution;
“Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government’
How very close we are to this.
If you want to determine a persons underlying life-arc go to the source. Medved and others should read Dreams from My Father, Obama’s own memoir subtitled, A Story of Race and Inheritance. In a nutshell, Obama, schooled in black racial identity by many mentors even more militant than Jeremiah White, decided that antagonizing and frightening whites wouldn’t achieve his people’s goals, i.e., getting whites to pay the bills. Quite reasonably and dispassionately he took a different approach. Rather than mau-mau the flak-catchers he would help enlarge the existing welfare, ACORN, leftist charity, government-industrial complex. His real talent is to placate.
“Obama is a socialist”
See also the brilliant work at American Thinker by Jack Cashill, detailing his analysis of Obama’s writings – and showing pretty definitively that it was all ghost-written by Ayers.
Who Wrote “Dreams From My Father”?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_wrote_dreams_from_my_fathe_1.html
all articles at
http://www.americanthinker.com/jack_cashill/
Sorry, that’s Jeremiah Wright not White. Too much black/white reading for me.
Obama’s genius is to dissemble and work from within. SWPL people love this sort of thing. They can prove their superiority to other whites by voting for the non-threatening Negro and still live in all-white neighborhoods.
I can understand a person who chooses to rise above the fray and not directly criticize Obama. For example, I thought Hannity was too much of a bulldog with Scott Brown last night. Brown obviously has made a personal decision that he isn’t going to sharply critize the boy king in public, probably because he comes from an extremely liberal (voting-wise, at least) state.
But frankly, you just have to question the motivation or psychology of a man like Medved, who has certainly been exposed to the tsunami of information about little lenin’s background and actions in office.
People like Medved were the same types who were arguing in 1934 to give Hitler the benefit of the doubt.
It is highly improbable that Obama is going to become a megalomaniacal mass murderer, but because of the constitution, traditions and people of the United States, not because of Obama’s background or political philosophy.
No rational person can deny that everything about Obama is an extreme outlier: his family, his life story, his education, his “work” history, the people who have influenced him, his associates, his belief system, his personality, his governance once elected president, his appointees, his veracity. Maybe you are a leftist and just love what he is doing, but to deny that he is extreme in almost every way is evidence that you are mentally unbalanced yourself.
I don’t think the comparison to people arguing that Hitler should be given the benefit of the doubt is apt. I think we too often ascribe to observers of Germany in the 1930s what was known about it in 1945. My knowledge of 1930s Europe is slight but I’m inclined to believe that the National Socialists looked much like other authoritarian regimes of the time.
Mr. Medved sounds like a conservative a lot of the time but I think there is a side of him that is firmly rooted in the left and, hence, you see him exhibit the blindness to the agenda of the left that Ms. Grabar documents so well here. Reading through her points, I can’t but conclude that Medved is positively obtuse in failing to see the reality of Obama and his disdain for or indifference to (charitably speaking) the essence of the United States. He appoints a communist to his staff, attended a “church” whose pastor declares “God damn, America,” and grabs his crotch when the national anthem is played but Medved sees the ghosts of Washington, Jefferson, and McKinley.
Well, ok then.
Great point about the “extreme outlier.
little lenin does have blood on his hands now. it was his and the democrat’s policies that started the unrest in tunisia, egypt Libya with more to follow.
QE2 was the final blow to the working poor in those countries. obama knows these policies will cause “disruptions”. it isn’t over by any means and his meddling has caused countless deaths already.
I am reluctant to compare Obama to Hitler, however the public’s response to Obama is similar to the German public’s response to Hitler in the 1930s. So many people looked upon Hitler as a sort of rock-star. Compare the Obama euphoria of 2008 to this. Hitler’s speaking style was incredibly powerful and magnetic. As for Obama’s speaking style, as long as it is scripted, Obama is quite good.
Early on, Hitler participated in an overt attempt at government overthrow, for which he was jailed. Hitler learned that in order to succeed, he had to appear more palatable to the electorate. Early on, as a youth Obama was an outright Communist. In order to succeed, however, he learned he had to appear more palatable to the electorate. Hence, he is now a Progressive, now a Centrist, forever a mere Democrat. As for the larger picture, even though Hitler spelled out his agenda in his book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), many people in Germany and throughout the world just could not believe he would pursue his radical agenda…that is, until the entire world was in flames of one sort or another.
We so want NOT to believe our eyes. We are rather like Little Red Riding Hood as we reluctantly and with reservation note “Grandmother” has such big eyes, such a long snout, and SUCH BIG TEETH!
God save our Republic from being devoured by this wolf in sheep’s clothing.
When I first heard Obama, I was impressed with with his oratory. But still somehow, to me, he came across as contrived. And I realized he had a propensity to sloganeering, without saying anything definite. While watching him speak, I thought to myself, if I wanted to be a successful orator or politician, what speakers would I study? My first thought was Hitler, then Kennedy, then Reagan. And, I wondered whether Obama actually studied Hitler’s oratory.
Demagoguery isn’t about studying successful practitioners but having the same monomaniacal focus. Focus comes from commitment to principles which we assume like so many in Germany did, will produce good outcomes – so much better than the messy muddling through! Obama is focused on the same kinds of issues that animated Hitler – race, revenge, rewriting history – for very similar personal and psychological reasons. Focus is not the same as reason. Hence it is much more compelling. Fanatics have focus.
Very well said, sir.
There are many many similarities, and we shouldn’t shy away from stating them. “Never again” should be the guiding principle.
Brown Shirts, contempt for the law of the land, fascist control of business, expoitation of the labor movement, massive stimuluses, interest in cult science, encouragement of a cult, unaccountable governance, easy ability to throw allies under the bus, demonization of sub-groups, Jew hatred, desire for revenge, willingness to exploit crises, appeals to ethnicity, angry rhetoric, central position of propaganda, socialism, image management, control of the media, manipulative autobiographies, neither ever held a job, careers as organizers, messianic images, stange family backgrounds, absent fathers, mysterious sexuality, corrupt and extreme associates, many more.
Yes, there is an intensity level difference about the similaries, but in America, Obama simply can not be as ruthless as Hitler could be in the 20′s and 30′s in a humiliated, festering, authoritarian country. We don’t really know how ruthless little lenin is willing to be
It’s actually easier to itemize the differences than the similarities. Mainly, there are two. Obama has chosen to construct a personal image as a family man (despite no evidence that he has ever had a relationship with a woman other than his queen), whereas Hitler saw more value in pretending he was married to Germany. And of course, Hitler resorted to violence early, often, and with prejudice. Obama, so far, has only used voilent political rhetoric. It’s tempting to say that he is non-violent, but since he has lied about every other detail of his life and guiding philosophy, it really isn’t possible to draw a conclusion about his willingness to use violence to get his way.
does the president hate us !
well he does you Mary and I suppose me too.
obama is an evil manipulative narcissist. the left know only hate.
there are a lot of evil hateful people among us today and this is becoming more evident when they attack all the american institutions and subvert individual rights.
they are now confident that they can come out into the open to attack freedom and liberty.
Funny how we let the left frame discussions and then the “moderate” conservatives align themselves slightly to the right of where the left has marked the center. Thus Obama isn’t a socialist despite his background and the evidence of the last two years. Glen Beck has demonstrated the collaboration of the left, Islamists, and even hard core Marxists in the Middle East unrest through their own words and actions and yet “moderate” conservatives join the “crazy conspiracy” meme of the left.
Unable to shake the 60′s
I find much to admire about Michael Medved. He has a solid command of fact and a seemingly prodigious memory. He is wonderfully articulate, and his arguments are carefully reasoned. I agree with him far more often than I disagree. Medved, to be sure, is an elitist, but unlike all but a very few in that company, he has the fides to be seen as truly elite. Why, then, is he so often wobbly in regard to calling things (and persons)by their names?
In my view, Medved — like Noonan, Gingrich, et.al. — internalized the (still) dominant meme of the 60′s which pretends to deny the possibility of nefarious (dare I say evil?) motives in their fellow men. Multiculturalism is rooted in the same meme. But, in truth, motives are irrelevant. In the Western Tradition men must be judged by what they build or destroy rather than the character of their motives.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the many insightful posts above. But they all assume that Medved is sincere in his defense of Obama. But look at him from another direction. He is a radio pundit in a very competitive business. If he tries to appeal to the same people who love Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck, he’ll always be a third stringer. If he moves to the left, no one will listen to him. That’s already been demonstrated to be a loser. So his tack is to move to the center on a limited range of issues, such as the nature of Obama’s presidency, hoping to capture pro-Obama listeners, without alienating conservatives. It’s also possible that he is motivated, too, by a desire to draw moderates to his program so that he can pull them to the right. Just sayin’.
I wish the right (of which I am part) would stop referencing comments such as ‘bring a knife to a gunfight’, the ‘pitchfork’ comment, etc. as it begins an endless cycle of argument over somewhat trivial phrases we all use and sometimes regret (I do it once a week, at least). The REAL Obama, however, does show himself in the Gates situation when he said without facts, the officers acted ‘stupidly’. This is clearly a man who is the eternal victim. The MAN, whoever it might be, is always conspiring to bring US down, whether it be white cops, CEOs, bankers, limb-chopping doctors, etc. The answer for Obama is to legislate equality. Cut salaries of fatcats, health care for all, etc. While this sounds good, most adults know it does not work. Obama has the real-world sense of a 19 year old college student. Seems cool at first, but once he starts talking off the teleprompter, he is a fool who just wants to be liked by the girls (the rest of the world, in Obama’s case).
I think Johninohio is correct. Medved keeps his finger in the commercial wind. It is all of a piece with his approach to politics and principle.
Medved has a strong bias toward pragmatism, and he argues with some merit that by dancing around certain clear-cut conservative positions he may attract independents — even liberals — to the right. Trouble is on some issues he allows pragmatism to trump principle. I question how reliably conservative will be his audience? Will they be similarly pragmatic and willing to compromise for the sake of imagined political expediency?
As the Republican establishment has seen (but apparently not learned), avoidance of clarity for political reasons does not attract voters. Clarity of principle, reflected in plain language and with no hint of politically corect elitism, may be the most valuable asset that Rush Limbaugh and a sympathetic Tea Party Movement bring to the conservative table.
From The Obama Timeline, Part II:
Medved reasonably argues, “Regardless of the questionable pop psychology of this analysis [that Obama is intentionally trying to destroy the nation], as a political strategy it qualifies as almost perfectly imbecilic. Republicans already face a formidable challenge in convincing a closely divided electorate that [Obama] pursues wrong-headed policies. They will never succeed in arguing that those initiatives have been cunningly and purposefully designed to wound the republic. In …Obama’s case, it’s particularly unhelpful to focus on alleged bad intentions and rotten character when every survey shows more favorable views of his personality than his policies.”
On the other hand, it is not unreasonable for Palin, Limbaugh and many others to question Obama’s motives when he is following clearly destructive policies. As an example, it is obvious that the federal government’s current massive deficit spending is unsustainable and will destroy the nation, yet – as has been made clear by his proposed 2012 budget — continuing those deficits is Obama’s official policy. Obama is therefore either intentionally following a policy that will destroy the nation — or he is too dim-witted to understand that his spending will do so.
But the media claims that Obama is brilliant. If a brilliant person engages in activities that are clearly destructive, what other conclusion can one come to but that those destructive actions are intentional?
Medved has a particular hard on for libertarians, both large “L” and small “l”. From a political marketability standpoint, a Frummish “centrist” with hard core social conservative views is the worst of both worlds. He’s kind of like the offspring of Joe Lieberman and Mike Huckabee. There’s a reason why I bailed on listening to his show years ago. That, and parade of moonbats he always has on. What’s the point in listening to that?
“Was George Washington ‘Paranoid,’ Too?”…I think that’s the funniest headline I’ve ever seen.
Reminds me of an old joke: this crank is defending himself by saying, “They laughed at Galileo! They laughed at Einstein!”
And a heckler shouts, “Yeah, an’ they laughed at a lotta wackos like you, too!”
It is very cynical, but characters like Medved and O’Reilly are working hard to curry favor with many new and disenfranchised listeners who are now tuning them in. I suppose they convince themselves that they ultimately serve their right-leaning sensibilities best by spreading their net as wide as possible, and exhibiting extreme equanimity to those on the moderate Left. No doubt they hope to reel these new listeners in, with an eye to the post-Obama period. From a self-serving perspective, perhaps it’s a good idea, and maybe some persuadable Lefties might come into the tent and switch sides…
But in serving their interests to garner new and more listeners, these hypocrites also regularly throw patriots and good men under the bus in the process, and that is just plain, craven cowardice. Repeating the slanders of the Left to curry favor with the Left is grotesque, and I believe it is ultimately self-defeating.
He has inserted himself into a state issue by opposing the lawful actions of a freely elected Republican governor.
Oh, a Republican governor. Would it make any difference if the governor were a Democrat? And can you explain how has he “opposed” the actions of the gov.? Was it by saying he disagrees w/ the bill? The President isn’t supposed to have an opinion on anything political?
Rational people know who the paranoid is here. It’s someone who thinks the President is some kind of “socialist.” Check w/ Wall Street on that.
A microphone, 3 hours 5 days a week, close to 5 million listeners each week, 15 years.
What would George Washington do with such time? Mary Grabar has answered by suggestion from inference of Mr. Washington’s words and acts, and by comparison with the stance of Mr. Medved in regards to his comments to his listeners and regarding their feelings and concerns about a persona known in name as Barack Hussein Obama.
Would Washington call his listeners fools? Does Mr. Medved? Sometimes! Exclamation point on that “sometimes” because it is quite painful to be a fan and listener of Mr. Medved’s three hours a day and hear our fellows in rebuked such a harsh and unfair manner — the fondness for Mr. Medved makes any words of rebuke from him so much more harsh. And he is, on such occasions, more than intemperate, he is unfair. Unfair in that he has the microphone, at arbitrary point the listener can be cut off without making an adequate argument — that cut off is a necessity of radio hosting, sure — but to then not make the best of what they might have said for themselves when their points are known in the currency of common discourse, that is what is unfair.
Make the best of you opponent’s objections. Make them as well as you do your own, even when your opponent is unable to do so. That would be the way of transcendently great men like Washington, but of few few radio hosts. Only Rush Limbaugh does so consistently. Medved has been heard to fail in this regard and fails in this in a remarkable and sad way, and sadder still, imho, he has been consistently so. What saves him? Medved’s stunning brilliance and scholarship on other matters very important to us, his appreciative audience.
At times it seems that Medved is comes off as disloyal to and publicly scornful of his listeners and fans on some key issues. Issues dear to them, issues upon which there is considerable commentary, ideas, themes, facts and postulates gathered already in the common discourse.
Disloyalty to his fellows and public scorn of others are two things George Washington took great efforts to avoid. We know that because Washington. himself not only shone by example, but wrote down those rules at the young age of 16. He then did something as transcendental as almost anything else he did — he LIVED BY THEM.
Rule 1: Every action done in company should be with clear respect to those that are present.
Rule 17: Do not be a flatterer, do not associate in the company of flatterers.
Rule 40b: Always submit your judgment to others with modesty.
Rule 41: Do not be so bold as to try to teach (aka “preach to”) your fellow in the subject at hand when that fellow professes to be your equal in the subject because it presents as arrogance.
Rule 45: Before offering advice or rebuke to any one, consider whether it ought to be in public or in private. Consider it has to be done now or at some other time. When rebuking another show no sign of anger or upset, do it will all sweetness and mildness.
Rule 46: Accept all rebuke thankfully at the time and places they are given. However, if you are not to blame for what was rebuked, find a convenient later time and place to correct the the one who offered rebuke.
Rule 67: Don’t detract from others, and don’t be be excessive in commanding them.
Rule 86: In disputes, don’t be hot to overcome, but do give each the liberty to deliver his opinion. Then submit to the judgment of the majority especially if they are judges of the dispute.
Think outside the box again. After watching Obama’s moves post “Shellacking” and then his interview with O’Reilly, I came to the conclusion that Obama’s most important objective is to maintain POWER regardless of whatever policy he comes up with. It is all about Obama. The “Acorns”, “Ayer’s” and “Wright’s” of the world are nothing but puppets for Obama’s objectives which is OBAMA. He is an out of control Narcissist. PERIOD. As long as he is the subject and the focus regardless of the issue then Obama is in ecstasy.
The obvious evidences of Obama’s hate side of a love-hate relationship with America are many and long. The evidences of the love side are fewer, but those too are there. Obama is not indifferent at all to America — as a young child in grade school he committed to becoming President of that then very very distant country.
His teacher was an Indonesian woman, his home in Indonesia, and it is likely he was adopted and himself, at that time, as likely to remain Indonesian all his life. Yet he committed, like MacArthur, that he would return. And he did. We know very very little of what caused Stanley Ann Dunham-Soetoro to divorce her husband Lolo, but given present circumstance — the passive-aggressive dynamic of Obama — isn’t it possible that the young Barry-Barrack pushed his parents apart with all his passive-aggressive might? In any case he did make his way back to Hawaii and the United States.
His ultra-expensive manner as President is also not a sign of a lover of America — it’s a form of hate too. Especially when combined with the hypocritical hectoring he and his wife impose upon us.
The rudeness to our long allies, the cozying up to enemies — hatred.
The kind of love Obama shows America is that of a spurned wife who hires a vicious divorce lawyer to break the ex-husband.
His declaring he wanted to be president, if it’s even true, is an early sign of narcissism, and an indication that he was already under the influence of adults who were shaping his thinking.
It’s simply not something that an 8 or 9 year old boy would say, particular ones of mixed race living in a foreign and dangerous country, and with zero indication in his childhood surroundings that the possiblity was even on the map.
If he said it, the thought was put in his head by his trainers.
And what kind of mother would take a child to a foreign country that had just beaten back a communist insurrection? Not a normal one, that’s for sure. Of course, Indonesia would have been a great place for people to indoctrinate him any way they wanted to. Nobody could ever trace anything that happened in that dangerous place, 40 years later.
Medved is intellectually dishonest, obsessed with avoiding what he perceives as “looking foolish” and is not particularly conservative.
A typical Medved moment: A caller accurately pointed out that Medved is a “Huckabee apologist.” Medved’s response: “That’s not true, because Mike Huckabee has nothing to apologize for.” Dishonest and an insult to his audience, who he assumed would not know the meaning of “apologist” in the context.
He is especially disgusting on the subject of any conservative boycott or mass action, which he always labels “doomed to failure” and therefore “embarrassing.” this is typical of his pathological anxiety about what others might think and his willingness to sacrifice principle for perception. In addition, although he is a gaduate of Yale Law School, he routinely misstates the law.
I used to subscribe to his podcasts but cancelled my subscription when he tried to give Huckabee cover for his bigoted questioning of Mitt Romney’s faith (and I am no Romney fan).
Finally, he can’t hold a candle to Dennis Prager for courtesy and pateince with dissenting callers. Don’t waste your time on Medved.