Columnist.
If you read The New York Times "conservative" columnist David Brooks, you might better grasp the chasm between true and phony conservatives, between Reagan conservatives and establishment Republicans. In his piece "I Miss Barack Obama," Brooks unwittingly humiliates himself in his latest paean to the president, just as when he revealed his perverse attraction to Obama's "perfectly creased pant." Let me just share Brooks' words rather than trying to characterize them, for he does much more damage to his own credibility than I could. He writes, "As this primary season has gone along, a strange sensation has come over me: I miss Barack Obama.
It amuses me that certain people are convinced that Christians are angry scolds but totally miss the humorlessness and angst of certain Christophobic secularists. When I wrote the book "Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity," secularists panned the notion that Christians, being in the majority, could be the subjects of systematic discrimination. I found that an odd argument, especially from people who routinely argued that women are victims of gender discrimination.
There is a misplaced fear — shared, I'm sad to say, by many on the right — that Christian conservatives are zealots, theocrats and all-around bogeymen. Ever since the advent of the moral majority during the Reagan years, establishment Republicans have been leery and sometimes contemptuous of them.
I keep hearing from supporters of other GOP candidates that Ted Cruz can't win the general election because he is too conservative and too preachy. These same people criticize him for not being authentically conservative and also support others who are preachy. I have long lamented the conventional wisdom, swallowed whole by many nominally conservative Republicans, that a true-blue consistent conservative can't win a general presidential election because he can't attract moderates, centrists, independents, Perotistas, Trumpsters, disaffected Democrats and certainly not women or minorities.
I believe Donald Trump's meteoric and sustained rise is a direct result of Obama's largely successful campaign to fundamentally transform America and the establishment Republicans' unwillingness to fight back. Grassroots conservatives have wanted someone to stand up to Obama and stand up for our nation — and they are sick and tired of Beltway politicians and pundits alike patronizingly assuring them that nothing extraordinary is occurring and to calm down. "We'll take care of it after we're re-elected." Sure. Yes, some of these establishment, moderate or, if you prefer, unexcitable types have finally come around, belatedly acknowledging Obama's intentions but failing to admit they were slow on the uptake, much less that they're sorry for branding the rest of us who caught on years before they did as mean-spirited, extremist or kooky.
Some time ago I said that many establishment Republicans dislike Ted Cruz so much that they would even back their nemesis, Donald Trump, if necessary to keep Cruz from winning. This is one time I wish I had been wrong. The establishment has long held Cruz in contempt but didn't believe he had any realistic chance of securing the GOP nomination. Now, with his campaign success, he's scaring their pants off. Former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole has issued apocalyptic warnings against nominating Cruz, and I've just received an email that Sen. Orrin Hatch prefers Trump over Cruz as well.
Remember when universities used to encourage freedom of academic inquiry and were seen as intellectual and social preparation for the transition into adulthood? I know; that was a long time ago — before the left infected these institutions. Everyone knows about the leftward slant of most American universities: their monolithic biases; their bent toward politicizing their curricula; and their practice of indoctrinating students. But increasingly the results of leftist community organizing — the toxins of political correctness — are seeping into university disciplinary rules.
In their State of the Union speeches, all previous presidents presented their policies in the most favorable light, but did they go so far as to distort reality? Did they use them to trash their opponents? I don't think so. But in his last one, Obama did, and adding insult to injury, as always, he pointedly decried partisan sniping right before launching into another episode of partisan sniping. It's as though he doesn't even realize he's being hypocritical on steroids.
The liberal media seem perplexed that President Obama plans to deviate from his usual State of the Union practice of "asking" Congress for a laundry list of policy proposals and "not talking about himself." You heard me right; the narrative is that Obama hasn't talked about himself in previous SOTUs. If that's their perception, can you imagine what an ego-fest — a virtual orgy of self-congratulation — this could be? But enough about that for now. I just ask that you sympathize with those of us who feel as if we have to watch it because it promises to be even worse than the preceding ones — and that's a very high bar.
I've long marveled at President Obama's calls for bipartisanship right before viciously tearing into Republicans. It's creepy, because he is either too self-absorbed to know he's doing it or arrogant enough to assume we won't see through it. I'm referring not to the routine partisan rancor between politicians in the course of debating an issue but to those occasions when there is no time between Obama's demands for cooperation and his tongue-lashing of Republicans — when he waxes eloquent about getting along and then immediately pummels his opponents. It's so strikingly inconsistent that I am surprised even conservative commentators don't make more of this.
I have long marveled at liberals' air of superiority and lack of self-reflection, which have always been particularly evident among liberal media elites and journalists. They tend to view themselves as sacrosanct and above scrutiny. Perhaps this attitude sprang from the British and, later, American tradition that the press is the Fourth Estate. It doesn't just serve to inform the people and make them better contributors to the democratic process. It is the virtual fourth branch of government, operating as a watchdog on the formal branches to further check their potential abuses of power.
Tough Feminist Hawk or Feminine Victim?
President Obama's reckless neglect of America's national security is a rapidly growing malignancy on this nation, and there are no signs it will get better. Some might attribute his arrogantly inaccurate assessment of the Islamic State group as "a JV team" or his delusional assertion, hours before the terrorist massacres in Paris, that the Islamic State is "contained" to personal pride or political posturing. After all, he never admits his policies aren't working, and he is perpetually partisan.
I've long said that the differences between so-called establishment Republicans and grassroots conservatives are about more than tactics in budgetary battles with President Obama and congressional Democrats. The current Cruz-Rubio flap validates my position. Establishment Republicans have been enormously frustrated with the grassroots for wanting to call Obama's bluff in these budget battles to the point of allowing the government to shut down. They have maintained this is a fool's errand that will only help Democrats because shutdowns will always be blamed on the GOP, supposedly the party of limited government.
The Obama administration is not only at odds with America, as founded, but also woefully out of touch with ordinary Americans, and it is deceitful or delusional (or both) on guns. President Obama twisted himself into a pretzel to deny that the San Bernardino, California, massacre was committed by Islamic terrorists. Even as facts accumulated — making the obvious undeniable — he continued to cling to the preposterous narrative that it was workplace violence. It's those high-stress jobs, you see, that cause otherwise peaceful people to fire up their time machines and go back to buy weapons to kill dozens of people who have nothing to do with their workplace grievances.
As the Christmas season approaches, I want to explain why I am so enthusiastic about the subject matter I've written about in my new book, "The Emmaus Code: Finding Jesus in the Old Testament." As I came to Jesus Christ kicking and screaming, I have always been passionate about sharing the epiphanies that led me to become a believer. I love to relate my excitement about the Bible and encourage others to give it a chance — really give it a chance — and to avail themselves of the full riches of God's Word.
Once again, President Obama emerged from his permanent sabbatical on the war on terror to inform us, in a bizarre address from the Oval Office, that he has things firmly under control and there's no need for us Americans to be concerned. Excuse me if I'm not comforted. Obama has made quite clear that he is blind to the threat that radical Islam represents to America and the rest of the civilized world. He obviously believes that Islam produces no more or worse terrorists than any other religion or cult and that it is wrong to focus on the radical strain of Islam because it leads to discrimination against other Muslims — discrimination he seems to see under every rock.
On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Andrea Mitchell accused Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of divisiveness. Trump's alleged divisiveness aside, this is rich from an acolyte of the most divisive president in history, Barack Obama. Mitchell was referring to Trump's disputed claim that thousands of American Muslims celebrated the terrorist attacks on our soil on 9/11. Mitchell said: "It's not only that the facts are wrong. It's that what he is saying is so emotionally and politically powerful. He is lighting fires. He is turning people against people. ... The kinds of facts that he is misstating are so ... incendiary."
How could America have twice elected a president who not only can't stand America but also won't perform his constitutional duty of defending it? Even some former administration officials and rank-and-file Democrats are finally recognizing that there is something strange about a commander in chief who declines to listen to his advisers on terrorism, won't read their daily briefings and is uninterested in their threat assessments.
Unbeknownst to many in our culture, including even some Christians, the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. God, the Bible assures us, is unchanging. Our secular culture mischaracterizes Jesus as a hyper-tolerant, nondiscriminatory liberal who is indifferent to sin and passes judgment on no one. But Jesus is not a milquetoast pacifist. In his Sermon on the Mount, which many cite as evidence of his unique moral teachings, he set out nearly impossible standards of human conduct. He didn't say, "I don't care how you live." Rather, he said, "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Indeed, the Bible depicts Christ as the ultimate judge of mankind. He discussed the subject of hell more than any other.
