Columnist.
It was an otherworldly experience to watch President Obama delivering his State of the Union speech. Even after watching him for seven years, I can't decide who the primary victim of his deceit is, him or us. Is it even possible for this guy to extricate himself from campaign mode? Is there ever a time when he's not puffing his product? His incessant salesmanship would be bad enough if he truly had a stellar record. If we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he is just self-deceived, then the culprits are probably his blinding ideology and his narcissism.
If we can't have a wholly unified Republican Party, can the GOP at least agree on some major issues that are essential to the Republican brand and, more importantly, help to get this country back on the right track? If we can't come together on some of the basic issues that have always defined us, how do we effectively oppose President Obama's ongoing destructive agenda? How do we sell ourselves in 2016 as not just a plausible but an imperative alternative? Part of our problem, especially in presidential races, is that too many among us are fearful that if they advocate truly conservative solutions, we'll be scorned by the media, the PC culture, the finger-wagging Democratic Party and the liberal establishment and lose elections. They simply don't believe in the power of our ideas anymore.
I am guessing you don't know one of the major things President Obama was doing while snubbing France and world leaders who convened in Paris to express solidarity in the civilized world's war against radical Islamic terrorism. I assure you it was something close to his heart -- as opposed to fighting Islamic jihad. It was something that will thrill the anti-business, anti-energy extreme environmentalists but will not warm the hearts of American businesses and energy producers, and it is not good news for America's currently overhyped economy. Yes, you heard me right; despite all the faux euphoria projected by the administration and the media, this economy is not bouncing back. According to Gallup CEO Jim Clifton, for the first time in 35 years, the United States is no longer first but 12th (12th!) among developed nations in business startup activity. More businesses are closing than opening. Four hundred thousand businesses are being born each year in America, but some 470,000 are closing. That's because America, under this president, is a business-hostile zone.
In the wake of President Obama's pathetic disengagement over the Islamic jihadist attacks on Paris, people are once again decrying his lack of leadership, but the problem is something more fundamental than leadership. Even if Obama were a gifted leader, when it comes to many issues, especially confronting radical Islam, he wouldn't know where to lead us. If you misapprehend a problem, you can't possibly navigate, much less lead, toward a solution. From the beginning of his term in office, Obama has evidenced a deep moral confusion, a distorted worldview perhaps based on a bizarre upbringing. It's not that he doesn't distinguish between good and evil; it's that he often doesn't clearly recognize which is which.
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a fascinating op-ed by William A. Galston, "The Christian Heart of American Exceptionalism," much of which I agree with but some of which I don't. Galston argues that the idea of American exceptionalism should not be discounted and that its primary source is the "durability of American religious belief" -- mostly Christianity. Bravo. This will doubtlessly come as a shock to zealots for the blurry concept of multiculturalism, which on its face dictates that all cultures are equal and that all who disagree with the notion are more or less bigoted. At a deeper level, the concept is actually rooted in resentment toward Western and American culture.
My daughter asked me my opinion on an article she read in Vanity Fair attempting to debunk the presidential record of Ronald Reagan. I happily responded. The writer of the piece is veteran liberal commentator Michael Kinsley, who used to be a regular on William F. Buckley Jr.'s "Firing Line" and CNN's "Crossfire." It's not as though he appeared out of nowhere, studied the evidence anew and shared a novel theory. He's been dissing Reaganomics for decades along with other Democrats and liberals, whose only recourse is to distort the Gipper's phenomenal record.
Newsweek has outdone itself in its pre-Christmas issue with a vitriolic assassination of the Bible, under the title "The Bible: So Misunderstood It's a Sin," by Kurt Eichenwald. This isn't, by any measure, a balanced piece. It doesn't approach fairness. Eichenwald doesn't even attempt to hide his bias, though he seems oblivious to how it compromises his own fairness and objectivity and how hypocritical he is in condemning Bible believers for allegedly allowing their biases to influence them. It is an unusually long article, by which one might infer that Eichenwald and the magazine consider the subject a matter of major importance that must be addressed.
God became a man to save us from our sins, which he did finally and completely on the Cross. We commemorate his death and resurrection on Easter, but his suffering on our behalf began much earlier than that. We would do well to remember that at Christmastime, when we celebrate our savior's birth. Seminary professor Bob Tuttle, in his 2006 book, "Shortening the Leap," puts that in perspective poignantly: "The Jesus of glory still bears the marks of the Incarnation, and not just in his hands, his side and his feet, but in his navel, because the suffering began in the manger, not on the Cross."
Honestly, sometimes leftist thought police surprise even me, not so much with their unreasonableness, extremism and tyrannical tactics but with their brazenness in openly showing who they are. Each new day's headlines trump yesterday's. A few weeks ago, Fox News' Todd Starnes reported on a Marquette University student's encounter with his ethics instructor. The professor, Cheryl Abbate, was leading her "Theory of Ethics" class in a discussion about the application of philosophical theories to controversial political issues. Among the issues listed on the blackboard were gay rights, gun rights and the death penalty. Professor Abbate removed gay rights from the list before the discussion began, with the summary explanation, "We all agree on this."
America's Christophobes have been plenty busy lately. Maybe the Christmas season makes them especially nervous. A few weeks ago, Atlanta Fire Rescue Department Chief Kelvin Cochran was suspended for a month without pay for the unforgivable sin of self-publishing a Christian book in which he expressed his disapproving views about homosexual behavior, among other things. City spokeswoman Anne Torres said: "We understand that (Cochran) was distributing the book to other employees. We are still not sure yet what the circumstances surrounding that are. ... The bottom line is that the (Mayor Kasim) Reed administration does not tolerate discrimination of any kind."
Instead of using this space to pretend the newly released CIA "torture" report confirms that the United States is the most evil nation in the history of the universe, I'm going to address Jonathan Gruber's confirmation that he believes we're all stupid. Assuming you are not under any rocks or haven't been in an underground bunker without access to media, you will have heard that Gruber, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the principal architect of Obamacare, made some unflattering comments about his fellow Americans. At a panel event last year, discussing how the administration was able to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, Gruber openly admitted that the administration deceived the American people in numerous important respects about the legislation, bragged about the administration's lack of transparency in the process and outright called the American people "stupid," which I think is arguably the least of these three sins, though it's the one getting the most airplay.
I am concerned that certain Republicans just can't take yes for an answer. To borrow an old adage, they can't handle prosperity -- with prosperity being defined as the voters rejecting Obama's agenda (and thereby embracing theirs). This is partly because of the fact that many grass-roots conservatives mistakenly believe that their only obstacle to moving a conservative agenda forward in Washington is the so-called Republican establishment -- GOP centrist politicians and their institutional supporters. But I believe it's more than that.
Evidence mounts that President Obama is reacting with greater defiance and lawlessness despite Americans' repudiation of his agenda in the November elections, and the word is that Republican leaders in Congress are relaxing their resistance. Isn't it axiomatic that if you reward bad behavior you'll get more of it and that if you punish it you'll deter it? Then why would certain Republicans choose to reward behavior they are on record condemning? I'm talking about not the president's making policy choices we disagree with but which he has constitutional authority to implement. Increasingly, he has become a law unto himself, rewriting substantive provisions of laws Congress not only opposes but has expressly rejected.
I wish there were a way to address the Ferguson controversy without generating further controversy. But that's not an easy task. I have believed for some time that the Obama administration has fanned the flames of racial tension in this country rather than attempt to extinguish them, despite its claims to the contrary. President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, in my view, have been the main culprits, which is exceedingly unfortunate, considering the opportunity their historic roles present for making great strides toward racial harmony. The question is: Do these gentlemen truly want to promote racial harmony?
Whatever we do, let's not allow ourselves to be distracted from the continuing nightmare of Obamacare by the other nightmare of President Obama's latest abuse of power in furtherance of a terrible policy decision -- this time on immigration. I would be remiss if I didn't provide my periodic update on the Affordable Care Act, lest you grow complacent to its unspeakable egregiousness. So let's review some recent tidbits, shall we? First the good news. Customers who enrolled in the most popular Obamacare plans for 2015 shouldn't expect to see major hikes in their out-of-pocket health expenses compared with 2014, according to a new analysis. But wait. Those individual and family plan customers will still have substantially greater deductibles than people with employer-provided plans -- and more limited networks. So even for these customers, things are still terrible; it's just that they're not expected to get too terribly more terrible next year.
Time and time again, President Obama demonstrates his contempt for the Constitution and for the American people, whose integrity and will must be subordinated to his personal prerogative and hijacked sovereignty. Obama has admitted on several occasions that he had no authority to act unilaterally, via executive order, to grant amnesty to millions of immigrants who came here illegally, so his doing so is, in his own opinion, flagrantly illegal. Daily he proves to us that his words mean nothing. They are utilitarian tools to serve his political purposes. When traveling the country to rally support for the DREAM Act, he confessed that he had no power to pass it on his own, but shortly thereafter, on the heels of his failed efforts to secure sufficient congressional support for this legislation, he issued an executive order implementing provisions of the act anyway.
Do President Obama's adamant denials that he misled the American public on various important aspects of Obamacare stand up to scrutiny? No, and it's not even a close call. In the past several weeks, there's been a major uproar in the alternative media -- the liberal media doing their usual best to cover up stories damaging to this administration and the cause of progressivism -- over recordings that have surfaced of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber. Gruber essentially admitted that the administration duped the American people, whom he called "stupid," on certain issues and the Congressional Budget Office as to the cost of the legislation.
It's hard to conceive of a presidential administration more cynical than one that would delay putting off issuing a lawless executive order on immigration until right after the congressional elections, but President Obama is doing just that. If he were sure the American public would support his unilateral action, he would not have hesitated to issue it prior to the elections, but he knew it wouldn't. Even if many people agree with the substance of his policy, which is hardly a foregone conclusion, he knows they don't agree with his method of thwarting the Congress, the Constitution and the rule of law.
Recently, a very disturbing video emerged that contains the metaphorical smoking gun concerning President Obama's many lies about Obamacare. This should remove any lingering doubt that we're dealing with a fascist-type administration. Of course, there should be no need for a smoking gun, because it is now undeniable that Obama lied on his major selling points about the Affordable Care Act. Unlike many Democrats in falsely accusing President George W. Bush of lying about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, I don't use the term "lie" lightly.
President Obama's remarks at his postelection news conference were instructive on his attitude about the election results and his approach going forward. He always pays lip service to hearing the voters' message when his side loses but then reveals he hears only what he chooses to hear. He said that what stood out to him was that the American people had sent the same message they had sent for the past several elections. How can that be?
