There are paranoid moments when I think Barack Obama’s rise to power was the trick of a conscious malevolence. The timing of the financial crisis, the long-faltering war, Obama’s expert but empty rhetoric and the feckless stupidity of the Republican campaign seem to have combined with almost preternatural precision to lift him to the presidency.
But then I remember, no, it was everyday human misfeasance — in the form of dishonest media reporting — that really sealed the deal. And it’s that, more than any supernatural deviltry, that continues to represent the most clear and present danger to the republic.
Obama is a radical, as his lifelong associations and statements amply demonstrate, and a radical leftist to boot, which means even if he were more moderate, he would still be wrong. He is a narcissist with a dangerously overblown sense of his own understanding and capabilities. And he is an intellectual, which makes him approximately fifty percent more likely than a simple man to be a fool.
He has spent massive amounts of our money to no effect and steamrolled over the Constitution and the majority’s protests to vastly expand government power. He has been contemptuous of our allies, reckless and cynical with our military, and clueless in his reaction to the turmoil in the Middle East. In facing the debt crisis, when he has not been obstructive, he’s been useless.
And yet now, as the opposition begins the process of choosing which candidate will, God willing, replace him, the media minions of centralized power —the New York Times, CBS, NBC, ABC and the rest — have set about the business of attempting to destroy those candidates most likely to do what clearly must be done.
This past week or so, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has been the case in point. Since her strong performance in the most recent GOP debate made her candidacy viable, the administration’s media servants have attempted to portray her as “fringe,” a “flame-thrower,” “a flake,” gaffe-prone, and, in a genuine mangling of moral logic, a hypocrite for believing in small government while serving in government. (Our journalists may be dishonest, but at least they’re stupid.)
I don’t know the congresswoman, but I’ve met her a couple of times and I’ve heard her speak. Once, I wangled my way into one of these VIP gatherings where a small number of big shots had a private audience with her. Speaking off the cuff and answering questions, she was impressively intelligent, straightforward, serious-minded, and well-informed. As for her principles…
A recent Rasmussen poll showed that a plurality of likely voters believe “the gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them is now as big as the gap between the American colonies and England during the 18th Century.” Sixty-nine percent are angry with government policies. And a mere 23% believe that our Washington overlords have the “consent of the governed,” from which, the Declaration tells us, their just powers derive.
This means that Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party that supports her are nothing if not mainstream.
Who are the flame-throwers and the flakes then? Who are the radicals? Clearly, it is those who are sharpening the long knives against anyone who opposes the government’s reach for more power. It is the misnamed “mainstream media” who in fact represent the radical fringe.
A recent Time magazine cover showing the Constitution being shredded serves as an unintentional but apt representation of the MSM’s ultimate goal. That’s who they are: enemies of the sharply limited government the Constitution demands. In the upcoming election, those who support our founding principles are going to have to defeat not just Obama, but them: the media, their distortions, and their lies.
We can only do this by standing together against them, resolving our disagreements without public feuds, and answering every untruth quickly with the facts. Most importantly, we should at no time — ever, even partially — accept the MSM’s campaign coverage as representative of anything other than their own agenda, the age-old agenda of power for the elite few.
The media were always biased. Now they are ideologically corrupt. Exposing and overcoming that corruption is the central political task of the day.
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