FAMED AUTHOR STEPS IN to pay Barack Obama’s Brother’s Hospital Bill. “One of Obama’s favorite phrases comes right out of the Bible: ‘We are our brother’s keeper.’ Yet he has not contributed a penny to help his own brother. And evidently George does not believe, even in times of emergency, that he can turn to his brother in the White House for help. So much for spreading the wealth around. Obama’s refusal to help George is especially surprising because George doesn’t just live in American-style poverty but rather in Third World poverty. He lives in a shanty in the Huruma slum in Nairobi. He gets by on a few dollars a month.”
UPDATE: Reader D.J. Schreffler writes:
The first thing that lept out at me was the mis-quote of Genesis 4:9. Depending on translation, it runs: Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother, Abel?” And Cain replied, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
To be fair, Cain’s trying to dodge trouble for murdering his younger brother at this point, but what do we see?
Mr. D’Souza thinks the phrase ‘We are our brother’s keeper[sic]’ is in the Bible. If he’s accurate in his assertion, President Obama thinks so as well. Nothing of the sort. There are admonition to be generous with the unfortunate, to take care of family, and to not let justice be changed depending on wealth and power (and insider access, I suppose), so they can be forgiven thinking that the quote comes from the bible, because you can find the sentiment there.
Where I do remember seeing the phrase ‘We are our brothers’ keepers’ (which might be a slight mis-recall, but at least is grammatically correct), is in Atlas Shrugged, with various people using it as a political slogan, or even as the new guiding principle of the Twentieth Century Motor Company after management goes to the next generation.
Which, of course, leads to another interesting possibility: Mr. D’Souza has read Atlas Shrugged, or other works of Rand, if the phrase shows up in them, and has ascribed the sentiment, as Rand uses is, to President Obama. This, I find depressingly accurate.
Indeed.