Deception & Misdirection
Leader of the Free World—not
[Continuing our series on deception in politics and public policy.]
When they held a march in Paris against “terror”—really, against the kind of terror perpetrated methodically by Islamofascists—the turnout was massive: millions of people, including presidents or prime ministers (or the equivalents) of Germany, Israel, the U.K., France, Italy, and Turkey. Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Norway, and Ukraine were represented. The king and queen of Jordan were there. Even the Palestinian president and the Russian foreign minister, hypocrites respectively on Islamic extremism and freedom of the press, were there. French Muslim leaders were there, as were the leaders of Qatar, the UAE, and Tunisia.
But not President Obama. Not Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, who was in Paris but left early. Not the secretary of state, so obviously proud of his ability to speak French. Not the principal designated attendee for funerals and the like, also known as the Vice President. Nobody ranking higher than the U.S. ambassador to France/Monaco, who got her job mainly because she was a big bundler of campaign contributions.
It was a rally intended to send the message that the leaders of the Free World (et al.) stand united against the Islamofascist assault on what we in the U.S. call First Amendment rights. The Founders considered the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, including Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, and Freedom of Religion, to be the birthright not just of Americans but of all mankind. Indeed, the Bill of Rights can be considered as the first universal declaration of human rights. When Islamofascists target a satirical newspaper for mass murder, they are waging war on humanity.
“You let the world down,” declared the headline in the liberal New York Daily News. Liberal reporter Jake Tapper of CNN wrote of the absence of a major U.S. official, “I say this as an American—not a journalist, not as a representative of CNN—but as an American: I was ashamed.”
In Egypt, the president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, stands up to the Muslim Brotherhood thugs who, inspired by President Obama, hijacked his country and almost destroyed it. “We are in need of a religious revolution,” he told imams in a New Years Day speech commemorating the birthday of Muhammad, whom most Muslims believe was God’s ultimate prophet. “You, imams, are responsible before Allah [God],” he said. “The entire world . . . is waiting for your next move . . . because [the Islamic world] is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost, and it is being lost by our own hands.”
The Obama administration refuses to call Islamofascist terror what it is. The President, when he talks about the terrorists, refuses to identify them specifically; they are “extremists” and the like. He and his supporters use the same terminology to describe the Islamofascists and members of Christian conservative groups or members of the Tea Party movement—“fundamentalists” (even though, by the traditional definition, only Christians can be fundamentalists), “Far Right” (even though, everywhere they are involved in politics, Islamofascists are allied with the Left), “extremists” (even though both Christian conservatives and Tea Partiers are in the political mainstream, especially compared to Obama-style authoritarians/Progressives). Meanwhile, the Fort Hood shooting was classified by the Obama administration and its media allies as “workplace violence.”
It’s very important, though, that Americans don’t get the wrong idea from all this. Barack Obama is no coward. He takes the actions he takes, and does not do the things he does not do, out of ideology.
When a Copt, outraged by acts of genocide against his community (one of the world’s oldest Christian communities), posted a crude anti-Islamic video on YouTube, President Obama and his Secretary of State at the time, Hillary Clinton, framed the man for causing the Benghazi attacks in which an American ambassador and three other brave Americans were killed, and they had him imprisoned on an absurd parole violation charge. Hillary promised the victims’ families to “get” the man. The President then went before the United Nations to proclaim that “The future must not belong to those who would slander the Prophet of Islam”—the equivalent of a President declaring that “The future must not belong to those who would slander the Savior of the World, Jesus Christ.” (Remember that, to most Muslims, declaring that Muhammad is/was not the ultimate Prophet of God would be considered slander.)
The President and others in his administration have also repeatedly declared their support for “freedom to worship” (or “of” worship) in countries around the world. To most people, that sounds fine, because most people don’t understand the legal concept of “freedom to worship.” Basically, it’s the Freedom of Religion with the Freedom of Speech/Freedom of the Press subtracted. It’s the idea that you can have any religion you want, as long as—like Christians must do in countries with strict Islamic law—you keep your mouth shut and keep your religion to yourself.
The President declared war on the First Amendment after the Citizens United case, in which the Supreme Court protected the right to make an anti-Hillary film. (Progressives, who seem to have a hard time understanding Constitutional law, have focused on the idea that the decision “gives” First Amendment rights to corporations, but, of course, if corporations and their components—if the New York Times, Planned Parenthood, Sony Pictures, Harvard University, et al.—didn’t have such rights, neither would any newspaper, advocacy group, movie studio, university, or almost any other organization of significance.) The President denounced the decision during the State of the Union address, disrespecting members of the Supreme Court to their faces and drawing a silent reply from Justice Samuel Alito in response to one of the President’s falsehoods (Alito mouthed the words “Not true”). The President campaigned across the country demanding that Citizens United be overturned, and some 42 U.S. Senators, all members of the President’s party, actually proposed amending the Constitution to remove this essential protection from tyranny.
This administration has attempted to turn over control of the Internet (specifically, of the domain name system that underlies the Internet as we know it) to international regulation—that is, to dictatorships and kleptocracies, special-interest “nongovernmental organizations” and UN/EU-type bureaucrats.
Under President Obama, the IRS was sicced on the President’s critics. A Fox News reporter was accused of being a spy so that he could be spied upon. His parents, too. A CBS News reporter, investigating administration corruption, saw her computer hacked in a manner that strongly suggested the involvement of a government entity, and was pushed out of her job (her boss being the brother of one of the key figures in the administration’s Benghazi cover-up). This administration has investigated more journalists than any other in U.S. history.
Meanwhile, Obama sycophants have gone after people who criticize Islam. As I’ve made clear in the past, I respect all peaceful religious people and have worked with pro-freedom Muslims on many occasions, and would not choose to, say, draw a cartoon or create a video that showed disrespect to Muslims. But, just as I defend the right of an artist (of sorts) to create “Piss Christ,” as long as it’s done without taxpayers’ money, and just as I defend the right of a David Duke or Al Sharpton or other bigot to speak in public, I defend the right of a pastor to burn a Koran or a Copt to post an offensive anti-Islamic video. I’m an American—an American by belief—and defending people’s rights is what we do.
Not so the President and his friends. When a pastor in Florida threatened to burn the Koran, the Obamaite media waged a holy war against him and suggested that he would be personally responsible for any violence that followed. ABC’s “Nightline,” noting that the pastor reported receiving death threats, treated it as a humorous case of chickens-coming-home-to-roost. When Charlie Hebdo published the Danish cartoons of Mohammad that sparked riots around the world, it was criticized by Jay Carney, then the White House press secretary.
It’s been long established that the President doesn’t believe in American Exceptionalism. That’s the idea that the United States—as the birthplace of the concept of universal human rights—as, for most of its history, the freest place on earth—has attracted the most talented, hard-working, and freedom-loving people from around the world, and that our unique characteristics make us the greatest country in the world. “I believe in American Exceptionalism,” the President noted sarcastically, “ just as I suspect the Brits believe in British Exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek Exceptionalism.”
Beyond that, he doesn’t see anything special about those Western nations and others who have adopted Western values such as Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. He’s a multiculturalist, one who refuses to see some cultures as superior to others. Yes, some countries systematically murder homosexuals and sexually mutilate women and run slave-labor camps and practice genocide, but, as he pointed out, we have Ferguson. As USA Today reported in September:
“I realize that America’s critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals,” Obama told the UN General Assembly, “that America has plenty of problems within our own borders.”
He added: “This is true. In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri — where a young man was killed, and a community was divided.”
On the one hand, the dismemberment of Ukraine. On the other hand, a convenience store robber killed when he assaulted a policeman and tried to take his gun away. Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. (Should I mention that the Obama administration sent three officials to the funeral of the convenience store robber?)
It was because of American Exceptionalism that the President of the United States was seen as the Leader of the Free World. But President Obama doesn’t see the country as anything special, and he doesn’t see himself as the Leader of the Free World. It’s hard to be the Leader of the Free World if you don’t believe in the Free World.