Crimes Against Liberty Page 2
Moreover, Obama appointed Dawn Johnsen to head the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which provides authoritative legal advice to the president and all the executive branch agencies. This office should be staffed by professionals who will render their legal opinions free of political influences or bias. It is, according to former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, “the last place in government where we would want a hard-edged ideologue—and while that would be true at any time, it is especially true with the current Justice Department, which is political to a fare thee well.”4 Yet Johnsen is a radical’s radical. She wrote that one of Obama’s first orders of business as president was to “order an immediate review to determine which [Gitmo] detainees should be released and which transferred to secure facilities in the United States” for civilian trials.5
Obama promised us he was a “fierce advocate for the free market,” but proceeded to demonstrate just how hostile to it he actually is. On behalf of the federal government, he took over GM and Chrysler and unilaterally extended mortgage bailouts to those who had little prospect of repaying, thus magnifying the existing problem. He tried to handcuff the entire private sector with his onerous cap and trade bill, bribed and coerced Congress into assaulting private healthcare, and used every conceivable opportunity to redistribute wealth and increase the dependency classes to the point of covertly reversing the immensely successful welfare reform of the 1990s. Along the way he demonized corporations, private sector executives, the Chamber of Commerce, oil companies, “fat-cat” banks, pharmaceutical companies, and others who had the audacity to engage in private business.6
He promised he was a true “democrat”—a man of the people who would govern according to the popular will. But he has governed like a dictatorial autocrat, issuing a plethora of executive orders and flagrantly ignoring the manifest will of the American people on such crucial issues as healthcare reform and implementing guidelines that would force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research. He has proven himself wholly disinterested in the true wishes of the American people, doggedly fixated on his own ideological agenda and his monomaniacal ambition to change the country. Writer Quin Hillyer suggests “there is something way off balance in the character of Barack Obama. . . . All presidents . . . think at some level that they know best about policy choices. But almost none of them (Woodrow Wilson perhaps excepted) were so willing to disdain, in pursuit of such radical policy upheavals, such intense and overwhelming public opinion as has been evident in the current health takeover attempt.”7
Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter gives us an inside view of the extent of Obama’s ideological arrogance in his book The Promise: President Obama, Year One. Alter wrote that Rahm Emanuel spent almost a week during summer 2009 trying to dissuade Obama from pressing forward with ObamaCare. “I begged him not to do this,” said Emanuel. But Obama reportedly ignored his advice, arguing he had not been sent to the White House to do “school uniforms.”8
Obama has chosen to misinterpret the obvious rejection of his agenda through such objective benchmarks as the Republican takeover of Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat. He insisted the public hadn’t rejected his policies; merely that he hadn’t explained them enough—after giving speech after self-indulgent speech (including at least fifty-four healthcare speeches as of March 19, 2010)9 to browbeat the American people into climbing on board. He said, “I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we’re making a good rational decision here, then people will get it.” Impervious to the widespread rejection of his agenda, he also blamed the Massachusetts election results on the public’s general frustration with incumbents. He told George Stephanopoulos, “The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry and they’re frustrated, not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years but what’s happened over the last eight years.”10
We were told we were getting a cool, calm, steady leader who could rise above emotional impulses to deliver classic statesmanship and prudent governance. But all too often we witness in him a petulant and vindictive bully who doesn’t seem to understand why anyone would challenge his omniscience. On more than one occasion when challenged, Obama has cavalierly shot back, “I won, I’m the president.”
He pretended he was a moderate on social issues, including abortion and homosexuality, but has been an ardent supporter of the homosexual agenda and is militantly pro-abortion, which is not unexpected considering his record on the issues. In fact, he was almost willing to jeopardize his sacred ObamaCare over his extreme pro-abortion views.
His handlers held him out as a brilliant, eloquent wordsmith who would restore class and elegance to the Oval Office, following President Bush’s allegedly countrified demeanor and awkwardness with words. Instead, when the teleprompter is stripped away, we often find someone given to incoherent ramblings and verbal blunders that dwarf those of his predecessor. The best example was his unscripted answer to an unanticipated question at a meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. A lady named Doris asked whether it was wise to add more taxes onto the public with his healthcare package. “We are over-taxed as it is,” she said. Obama’s answer was 2,600 words and took more than seventeen minutes, with no one ending up the wiser. It was a rambling, incoherent mish-mash of barely related talking points from a man the elites assured us possessed a “first rate” intellect.11 During another public address, our Commander in Chief mispronounced “Navy corpsman” as “Navy corpse man,” an embarrassing gaffe the mainstream media would have endlessly ridiculed had it been uttered by a Republican president.12
Obama has been an unmitigated disaster on national security, downplaying the terrorist threat and politicizing security policy, including his publication of national secrets—such as disclosing details on our nuclear arsenal and our highly sensitive, enhanced interrogation techniques for the purpose of embarrassing, and perhaps incriminating, Bush administration officials. He has gutted essential weapons programs and threatens to unilaterally reduce our nuclear stockpiles, saying the United States is the only nation ever to have used a nuclear weapon—meaning we need to atone for it.
He told us America had lost favor in the international community because of our arrogance and military imperialism, and that he would restore our good reputation with a fresh, conciliatory approach. He proceeded to bow and grovel to our enemies and gratuitously snub our allies. He has castigated America on foreign soil and pandered to the Islamic world, implying Islamic terrorism is our fault. Meanwhile, oppressed dissidents struggling in Iran and other autocratic nations have received the cold shoulder from Obama, who seems to view them as a nettlesome obstacle to his attempts to curry favor with their repressive governments.
He insisted that our policies in the war on terror were serving as a recruiting tool for terrorism. He would close Gitmo and outlaw “torture”—as if we were engaging in it in the first place. He even began to talk about the war as if it weren’t a war, invented new euphemisms to describe acts of terrorism, and reverted to our pre-9 /11 law enforcement approach to terrorism. But our own intelligence services report that terrorism is on the rise globally and domestically. All his liberal theories have failed utterly in practice.
Obama turns a blind eye to aggression around the world, from Russia to North Korea to Iran, opposes truly democratic movements, and supports the world’s dictators and thugs. In exchange for appeasing and coddling tyrants, he has endured consistent ridicule from these very despots. After vowing to employ “bold and aggressive diplomacy” and to “do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he ultimately reverted to the policy of sanctions for which he harshly criticized Bush.13 In the process, he set a deadline for Iran to discontinue its nuclear program, let the deadline pass, and then denied ever having set it.
While cozying up to terrorists, he has shunned our ally Israel, strong-arming it to prevent Jews from living in the West Bank and ev
en in parts of Israel’s own capital city of Jerusalem, while painting Israel’s justifiable acts of defending its people and sovereignty as morally equivalent to Palestinian terrorism.
While criticizing the Iraq war from the beginning, he has claimed full credit for the major gains we have achieved in Iraq thanks to the surge, a policy Obama had vehemently opposed.
He has held himself out as a believing Christian, but has rarely attended church since his inauguration, has snubbed Christianity and Christian symbols at every turn, and has consistently championed values inconsistent with the Biblical ethic. By contrast, he has glorified Islam, including falsely crediting it for major contributions to American society, overstating the Muslim presence and influence in America, and even describing Islam—in his Cairo speech—as a “revealed” religion, a curious thing, indeed, for one professing authentic Christianity.
On the campaign trail, Obama projected his own image as messianic—from the way he conceitedly thrust his chin out during his speeches, to the deliberately choreographed echo effect with his microphone, to his patently absurd, delusional boasts that “generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” and that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
Based on his behavior as president, it is clear he truly believes his own hype, for we have discovered that instead of messianic, Obama is acutely, perhaps clinically, narcissistic. He behaves and governs as though he has been sheltered all his life, or at least since he was a young adult, living in a bizarre bubble, hearing only positive reinforcement and made to believe in his own supernatural powers. This is a major reason he cannot bear opposition; this is a major reason he is not, in the end, a man of the people and deferential to their will, but a top-down autocrat determined to permanently change America and its place in the world despite intense resistance from the American people themselves.
This book chronicles the words and policies of President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party and their devastating effect on America and its founding principles. Unless stopped—and reversed—the casualties of Obama’s systematic assault on this nation will be our prosperity, our security, and ultimately, our liberty.
PART I
OFFENSES AGAINST AMERICANS
Chapter One
THE NARCISSIST
CRIMES AGAINST STATESMANSHIP
ME, MYSELF, AND I
Who is Barack Obama? To say that he has an enormous ego is an understatement. Many commentators, including psychological analysts and foreign leaders, have described him as a narcissist. Columnist Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist by training, marveled at Obama’s conceit in speaking at Germany’s Brandenburg Gate during his presidential campaign, asking, “What exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Europe, the creation of what George Bush the elder. . . called ‘a Europe whole and free’? . . . Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself. . . . [H]as there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?”1 Jack Kelly of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette told FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren that his sources close to French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Sarkozy thinks President Obama is “incredibly naïve” and “grossly egotistical”—“so egotistical than no one can dent his naivete.”2
Obama’s patent self-confidence is not just posturing. It’s evident he truly believes he is special. He did, after all, pen two largely auto-biographical books before he had accomplished much of anything. He once told campaign aide Patrick Gaspard, “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that . . . I’m a better political director than my political director.” Gaspard said after Obama’s first debate with McCain, Gaspard sent Obama an e-mail saying, “You are more clutch than Michael Jordan,” and Obama replied, “Just give me the ball.”3 According to the paperback version of Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s book The Good Fight, after Reid once complimented Obama for delivering a “phenomenal” speech, Obama simply replied, “I have a gift, Harry.” Amazingly, Reid is so entrenched in Obama’s personality cult that he interpreted the boast as a sign of “deep humility.”4
Obama’s belief that he is a gift to the world is a theme he would carry forward into his presidency. He truly believes he alone has the power to reverse the mess America has allegedly made of world affairs, and that only he can restore America’s supposedly tattered reputation. In his speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2009, he declared, “I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world.”5 When asked on the campaign trail whether he ever had any doubts, he retorted, “Never.” As columnist Jeff Jacoby pointed out, when Obama’s presidency began he used the royal “we” in describing his preferred policies, but by the time he addressed Congress around a month later, he was already using “the naked ‘I.’” Jacoby noted Obama used “I” thirty-four times in his speech on the federal takeover of General Motors alone.6
Indeed, it often seems that for our president, American policy, and even American history, is not about the United States, but about him personally. At the Summit of the Americas, Obama sat through a 50-minute harangue against the United States by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who eviscerated the United States for a century of “terroristic” aggression in Central America. When it was Obama’s turn, he did not defend the United States, but made himself the issue: “I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old.”7
During the contentious debate over Obama’s unrelenting push for socialized medicine, many Democratic congressmen were running scared, fearing a 1994-style electoral thrashing. The White House, however, saw it much differently. Democratic congressman Marion Berry noted incredulously, “They just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all. They just keep telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’”8
Obama’s numerous self-references soon became legendary. According to Kevin Hall of the Des Moines Conservative Examiner, Obama referred to himself 114 times in his first State of the Union. He said “I” ninety-six times, and used “my” or “me” eighteen times.9 By September 23, 2009, FOX News reported Obama had given forty-one speeches so far that year, referring to himself 1,198 times.10 At his West Point speech in December 2009 (where soldiers were asked before he spoke to show enthusiasm), he referred to himself forty-four times.11 In a speech in Ohio on jobs on January 22, 2010, Obama referred to himself no fewer than 132 times and, in the same speech, had the unwittingly humorous audacity to proclaim, “This is not about me.”12
“IT’S NOT ABOUT ME”
That phrase, “This is not about me,” cropped up in many of Obama’s speeches, signaling that whatever “this” is, it’s precisely about him—his ego, his ideology, his agenda, his legacy, or his unbending ambition to have his way. In his mind, it seems, everything is always about him, no matter how much he protests otherwise. The rhetorical device, “It’s not about me,” is a long established pattern in which he self-servingly pretends to project an air of humility to leave the impression that he is modest about accomplishing great things—thereby shamelessly seeking credit both for his modesty and his greatness. He used a variation of this theme at a February 2010 meeting with Senate Democrats, telling them, “It is constantly important to remind myself why I got into this business in the first place; why I’m willing to be away from my family for big stretches at a time. . . . You don’t get in this for the fame. You don’t get in it for the title.”13 Yes, Obama is always about a cause bigger than himself—so big that it’s worth his
enormous sacrifices.
Likewise, on February 15, 1990, after becoming the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama proclaimed, “I realized my election was not about me, but it was about us, about what we could do and what we could accomplish.”14 On November 2, 2004, when he visited the campus of the University of Illinois during his U.S. Senate campaign, he declared, “Ultimately, this election is not about me. . . . It’s about the willingness of our citizens to get engaged and get involved.”15 On December 11, 2006, in New Hampshire, he again insisted, “It’s not about me.” (But an NPR reporter covering the event remarked, “It really is all about him.”)16 On December 10, 2007, Obama argued, “This campaign is not about me; it is about the hundreds of volunteers . . . in Rhode Island . . . and the millions of people across the country who want change we can believe in.”17
On December 13, 2007, he said during a Democratic presidential debate, “I want to remind myself constantly that this is not about me, what I’m doing today.”18 (Apparently, he feels the need to keep reminding us as well.) And in his acceptance speech in August 2008, he said, “This election has never been about me; it’s about you.”19 President-elect Obama issued a pre-inauguration video statement in which he said, “This election is not about me. It’s about all of us.”20 On a visit to the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. in July 2009, responding to Senator Jim DeMint’s comment that ObamaCare could be his “Waterloo,” Obama pleaded, “This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses, and breaking America’s economy.”21