Two Years Later, WND Still Lying About Obama's 'Civilian National Security Force' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Back in 2008, we identified one of the earliest lies WorldNetDaily told about Barack Obama: that Obama's reference to a "civilian national security force" was a call to create a police-state apparatus. In fact, Obama was referring to an expansion of the foreign service.
More than two years later, WND is still spreading that lie.
An Oct. 27 WND article announcing the latest edition of its Whistleblower magazine begins this way:
While running for the presidency, Barack Obama made a mysterious and bizarre campaign promise.
He said that as president he would create "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the U.S. military, to advance his "objectives" for America.
The astonishing announcement, made July 2, 2008, to an audience in Colorado Springs, was ignored by virtually the entire media – except WND. Nobody bothered to ask Obama specifically what he meant, or how he could possibly assemble and fund such a massive civilian army, or why – and he never spoke of it again.
WND is still lying. Obama did explain what he meant -- WND simply chose to ignore him.
This time around, WND furthers the lie by claiming that the "civilian army" is a reference to unions:
America's largest labor unions – especially the huge government employee unions like the 3-million-member National Education Association and 2-million-member Service Employees International Union – provide battalions of ground troops in the ongoing war to "fundamentally transform" America into a socialist utopia.
"But wait," you might ask. "I know most unions lean left, some engage in street tactics and their dues strongly support Democrats. But what about Obama's statement that his civilian army would be 'well-funded' by the government?"
As the scathing November 2011 issue of Whistleblower proves, "OBAMA'S ARMY" is very large – and very well-funded.
In fact, from Day One the Obama administration has been generously "funding" the union army. From the General Motors bailout, which blatantly favored union workers, to Obamacare, whose burdensome new regulations don't apply to many unions thanks to special White House waivers exempting them; from Obama's early executive order requiring all federal agencies to accept construction bids only from contractors who agree to use union workers, to packing the D.C. bureaucracy with union officials – the Obama regime has been characterized by non-stop union payoffs, special treatment, insider access and blatant power grabs. All in return for their undying loyalty and service in "OBAMA'S ARMY."
[...]
"Every army has its generals, its politicians, its propagandists and its behind-the-scenes chess-masters," said WND Managing Editor David Kupelian. "But in Obama's army, who are the ground troops? This issue of Whistleblower dramatically and definitively answers that question."
Kupelian is lying. WND is lying. There's no reason to take WND's word for anything.
To paraphrase an old journalistic saying: If WND tells you your mother loves you, check it out.
Still Waiting: When Will NewsBusters Correct $16 Muffin Claim? Topic: NewsBusters
Back in September, NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard pounded out a post criticizing Jon Stewart for not being aware of the controversy over alleged $16 muffins paid for by the Department of Justice, as revealed in a report by the department's inspector general. As we noted at the time, both DOJ officials and the hotel that hosted the DOJ conference where the muffins were served disputed the claim, asserting that the amount covered much more than muffins. Even the DOJ inspector general started backing away for its claim.
A few days later, NewsBusters highlighted a Washington Post article refuting the $16 muffin claim -- but Sheppard's erroneous post was not corrected.
Now, the DOJ inspector general has officially retracted the claim, admitting in a revised version of its report that "the Department did not pay $16 per muffin."
Will NewsBusters now finally issue a correction to Sheppard's erroneous muffin claim? Or will it be content to let a false claim stand on its website?
Pat Boone writes in an Oct. 28 WorldNetDaily column ranting about Occupy Wall Street:
This should not surprise us. Our community organizer in chief learned his techniques from Saul Alinsky in Chicago. In the "Rules for Radicals" playbook, the organizer creates or greatly exacerbates a crisis, fans it into rabid, angry, violent protests – and then presents himself as the one who can resolve it, often accusing the ones who helped him aggravate the crisis.
In fact, Alinsky died in 1972, when Obama was 11 years old and living in Hawaii.
CNS Defends Cain, Doesn't Disclose Major Conflict of Interest Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com was swift to defend Herman Cain against allegations reported in Politico that, while head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, he was accused of sexual harassment by two women, which resulted in confidential settlements with them.
CNS kicked things off by pulling one of its favorite stunts, rewriting the headline of an Associated Press article to add right-wing bias. The article the AP sent out with the headline "Cain denies report of sexual harassment"...
... came out of the CNS bias machine with the headline "Politics of Personal Destruction? Cain Denies Liberal Media Report of Sexual Harassment."
At no point does the article mention either "politics of personal destruction" or the "liberal media." Indeed, given how much of Politico's early promotion strategy was based on getting its articles linked at the Drudge Report, a much more plausible case can be made that it has a conservative bias.
CNS followed up with even more kneejerk liberal-bashing in an article by Susan Jones that uncritically repeated Ann Coulter's assertion that this revelation about Cain shows that “Liberals are terrified of Herman Cain.” At no point was it demonstrated that either Politico or the source of its story is "liberal."
Jones penned another article repeating Cain's defense that "I have never sexually harassed anyone -- anyone. And absolutely, these are false accusations."
Meanwhile, CNS was touting Cain's statement attacking Planned Parenthood as "planned genocide." Terry Jeffrey promoted Cain's attack in an Oct. 30 article published before the sexual harassment allegations were made public, and Michael Chapman followed up the next day that Cain's assertion that Planned Parenthood wants to prevent "black babies from being born" was "indirectly confirmed by data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
Missing from all of these articles, though, was a crucial bit of disclosure.
Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Center and publisher of CNS, ranted in an Oct. 31 press release that the Politico article was "unsubstantiated and thoroughly hypocritical" and showed that “In the eyes of the liberal media, Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation. So they must destroy him, just as they tried destroying Clarence Thomas." As with CNS, Bozell offered no proof that Politico is part of the "liberal media."
He did, however, include a statement at the end of his press release:
Note: Herman Cain is both the former National Chairman for the Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute, and a personal friend of Brent Bozell.
It's relevant that the person who is ultimately in charge of CNS has a close personal relationship with the person that CNS is trying to defend. As such, CNS should be disclosing that relationship to its readers. After all, the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics states that journalists should "Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived" and "Disclose unavoidable conflicts."
Then again, just the other day, the MRC seemed to absolve conservative journalists from doing actual journalism. Does the MRC also believe that its so-called journalists at CNS are exempt from ethics codes as well?
Interesting that the MRC's activist wing would make such a disclosure while its "news" wing has so far refused.
UPDATE: CNS has posted Bozell's press-release rant, including the disclosure of his relationship with Cain. But that disclosure still appears on no other CNS article.
WND Shows Some Love to Santorum Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily took a break over the weekend from its Cain-gasm to show alittle love to fellow right-wing presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
An Oct. 29 article by Drew Zahn uncritically repeats Santorum's remarks at a right-wing Republican gathering in Iowa. This was followed by another article by Zahn on the same gathering, which endorsed Santorum for president.
Terry Jeffrey concludes an Oct. 30 CNSNews.com article touting Herman Cain's hatred of Planned Parenthood by writing:
According to a fact sheet Planned Parenthood has posted on its website, the group did 332,278 abortions in 2009. That same year, according to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, it also received $363.2 million in government grants and contracts.
As we've documented whenever Jeffrey dishonestly juxtaposes these two numbers, the two have nothing to do with each other. The federal money Planned Parenthood receives cannot and does not pay for abortion services.
Jeffrey has shown himself to be just as willing to deceive about Planned Parenthood as he has about President Obama, with the goal of advancing a right-wing agenda over the truth.
WND Publishes Doubly Anonymous Attack on Obama Adviser Topic: WorldNetDaily
An unbylined Oct. 29 WorldNetDaily article begins:
An influential Muslim adviser to the White House who has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood has succeeded in canceling a meeting between President Obama and the leader of the persecuted Maronite church in Lebanon, according to the Beirut news agency el Nashra
The Arabic-language report cited an unnamed U.S. source who said Dahlia Mogahed, "the highest adviser on Arab and Islamic Affairs in the State Department," sought to block a White House meeting with Patriarch Beshara Rahi, according to a translation by blogger El Cid at BigPeace.com.
Let's unpack this. We have an anonymous source telling an Arabic-language news organization for which virtually nobody in the West, including WND, can vouch for its veracity or lack thereof. This article is then translatedby an anonymous blogger at a right-wing website, whose veracity is as unknown as his credentials for analysis and translation.
On top of that, WND spells Dalia Mogahed's name wrong, and the first paragraph is missing a period at the end.
So, to sum up: We have a doubly anonymous claim that WND is simply regurgitating and has made no apparent effort to verify. And its copy editing sucks too.
MRC Absolves Conservative Journalists From Doing Actual Journalism Topic: Media Research Center
In an Oct. 27 Media Research Center item, Matt Hadro writes about a CNN interview with ambush journalist Jason Mattera. After noting CNN interviewer Carol Costello's question to Mattera -- "So you're tough with Joe Biden. So why not be a bit tougher with Republican candidates, even though you work for a conservative web site?" -- Hadro responded that Costello was "apparently unaware that since Human Events is a conservative publication it markets itself to a more conservative Republican audience."
So there are different journalistic standards for conservative journalists? They aren't required to be tough on their fellow conservatives, only on their ideological opposites?
Hadro continues by noting that "Mattera affirmed that Human Events has a conservative worldview and does hit Republicans, but from the right." Still, Hadro's presumption that conservative journalists aren't being held to the same standards as non-conservative ones is a bit odd.
WND's Farah Keeps Up Anti-Gardasil Paranoia Topic: WorldNetDaily
In keeping with the fearmongering, science-denying tone of his website's so-called reporting, Joseph Farah's Oct. 27 WorldNetDaily column is all about attacking Gardasil.
Farah complains that GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann "in the unfavorable light of the anti-science zealot" for raising questions about Gardasil. He then joins Bachmann in anti-science zealot land by repeating unverified claims of "adverse reactions" to the vaccine and asserting that "no one is even sure whether the drug, peddled by Merck, is even effective at preventing HPV and, thus, reducing cervical cancer."
Later, Farah asserted again that "some doctors have even challenge the link between HPV and cervical cancer." But the only doctor WND has cited as making that claim is Christian Fiala, whom anti-abortion websites have denounced as "Austria’s most notorious abortionist," which makes WND's embrace of him rather curious.
Farah also takes a unrealistic view of adolescence by claiming, "HPV, like all other sexually transmitted diseases, can be prevented 100 percent of the time simply through abstinence from promiscuous sex by teenage girls." That fixation on female behavior -- Farah makes no mention of the role teenage boys play in spreading HPV -- is reminiscent of WND's obsession with female teachers who have sex with their students, which similarly ignores the behavior of male teachers.
Newsmax Denounces Obama Spending $750 Million On Re-Election -- As Newsmax Demonstrates Why He Must Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's Christopher Ruddy wrote a tsk-tsking Oct. 26 column complaining about the money President Obama is expected to spend on his re-election:
New York magazine’s John Heilemann, co-author (with Mark Halperin) of “Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime,” an inside account of the 2008 presidential campaign, says Obama’s strategy is for a “demolition job” against the Republican nominee.
“He and his campaign [will] spend $750 million to make whichever Republican he’s running against unacceptable to the American people, the same way that George W. Bush did to John Kerry,” Heilemann recently said on Chris Matthews’ MSNBC show, “Hardball.”
“That’s a lot of money. And whoever they get is going to have real flaws. It’s possible they can accomplish that, but it’s going to be a demolition job.” Heilemann has predicted an “onslaught of negative advertising” against the Republican candidate, nothing less than a smear effort, in my book.
How depressing that Obama’s re-election has come to this, from a man who sought to present himself as a great uniter and healer of our nation.
[...]
With the election fast approaching, Obama seems to be desperate and employing a $750 million wrecking ball to demolish the Republican opponent next year will confirm it.
Ruddy doesn't mention one reason why Obama will be spending that kind of money: He and his Richard Mellon Scaife-funded Newsmax will be running its own wrecking ball against the president, trying to demolish his chances for re-election. Ruddy is simply complaining that his own anti-Obama propaganda will be countered by Obama campaign spending.
Just a few days after Ruddy's column appeared, the organization he heads sent out the following message to its email list:
If you're including Obama's middle name, you are most certainly aiming to demolish.
The link in the email leads to a lengthy video read by Newsmax's Ashley Martella, attacking Obama's "lack of leadership" and asserting that "you need to ask yourself, can you trust President Obama?" This turns into a solicitation for Newsmax magazine, in which you are promised four "special reports" on Obama featuring "new secret information you've never heard before" -- but it later becomes clear that Martella is talking about four back issues of the magazine.
That in turn links to a solicitation for those "special reports," including the usual throw-in of three free issues of the magazine that you must actively cancel when the free issues end to avoid being charged $39.95 for a full year's subscription.
And even then, the claims are misleading. For instance, Martella asserts that one of the "special reports" is about Obama's "attempts to quash the tea party revolution." In fact, the copy provided on the solicitation page describing the tea party issue makes no such claim; it's clear that the magazine takes a broader look at the tea party movement and how it "must find a way to translate electoral success into effective governance." The closest it gets is a line stating that one highlight of the report is "The Obama vow that can make the movement grow stronger."
Another report claims to be about "Barack Obama's war on Fox News." Nowhere is it mention that Fox News started it by declaring war on Obama from the day he took office and asserting that was the "voice of opposition."
Make no mistake: Ruddy has earmarked a significant portion of Newsmax's Scaife-bolstered budget to attacking Obama at every turn with the goal of getting him out of office. His complaints about Obama doing similar spending are just crocodile tears.
WND Misleads On Foundational Birther Text Topic: WorldNetDaily
One of the key tenets in WorldNetDaily's belief that Barack Obama is a "natural born citizen" who is not eligible to be president is the 1874 Supreme Court ruling Minor v. Happersett. For instance, Joseph Farah writes in his Oct. 25 WND column:
Any serious debate about Obama's eligibility should have ended a long time ago. He's not eligible. It matters not where he was born – which, ironically, is still very much in doubt. What matters is that he was not born of parents who were American citizens at the time. That's what "natural born citizen" means. It does not mean "born in the USA," much as Obama and his protectors in the media would like you to think.
[...]
"Natural Born Citizen" was defined by an 1875 Supreme Court ruling (Minor v. Happersett) as children born of two U.S. citizens – regardless of the location of the birth. It found: "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners."
[...]
We need only ask ourselves one question: "Were both his parents U.S. citizens when he was born?" By Obama's own admission, and also by the questionable documents he has provided the public, the answer is "no." And that settles it. Obama is not eligible to be the president.
But Farah and WND have largely overlooked the inconvenient fact that Minor v. Happersett's definition of "natural born citizen" had nothing to do with eligibility for the presidency and was incidental to the legal issue at hand.
As the Obama Conspiracy blog details, Minor v. Happersett involved a woman who was suing for the right to vote. The court ultimately ruled that while the woman was a natural born citizen, that didn't make her eligible to vote. The blog states regarding the section of the ruling Farah quoted:
The most obvious point is that there are two and exactly two kinds of citizens discussed here: ” natural born” and “naturalized”. Take a minute and reread the citation and verify this for yourself. You will see no distinction made between those who are born a citizen and those who are a natural born citizen. Note: “all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens” — not “natural born citizens” but “citizens” but natural born implied because they are born citizens.
The issue addressed in this section is not who is a natural born citizen, but who is a citizen. So when the court talks about “some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents” they are saying that there are “doubts” as to whether the children of aliens born under the jurisdiction of the United States are citizens at all. This is the point glossed over when trying to use this case to create a third type of citizen (the non-natural born, non-naturalized citizen).
[...]
The distinction is not between “plain citizens” and “natural born citizens” but between “natural-born citizens” and aliens (e.g. not citizens).
All of the preceding discussion is related to the situation before passage of the Fourteenth Amendment (“To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment”). The reason for this digression to the time before the Fourteenth Amendment was the question of whether Minor was a citizen apart from the Fourteenth Amendment. The court said that she was: “she has always been a citizen from her birth and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship.” She was such a citizen because her parents were citizens and she was born under the jurisdiction of the United States, and the pesky argument about those not born of citizen parents before the Fourteenth Amendment “it is not necessary to solve”.
I don’t know if this question was ever solved for those born before the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, but it is not necessary for us to solve either because there are no more persons living born before the Fourteenth Amendment, and because it was solved for those born after by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wonk Kim Ark. Wong, born in the United States of alien parents, was declared a citizen. It is hardly reasonable to quote the dicta in Minor as casting doubts while refusing to recognize the dicta in Wong which resolved them.
When will Farah and WND report the full truth about Minor v. Happersett? Probably about the time that it acknowledges the existence of John Woodman's birther-debunking book.
These Are Bozell's 'Jewish Leaders'? Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell's big fit of right-wing activism this week is to brand the Occupy Wall Street and related protests as anti-Semitic.
In an Oct. 25 Media Research Center press release, Bozell demanded that the TV networks cover a video theMRC's Joe Schofstall shot of some guy'srant, declaring it to be "real, documented evidence of anti-Semitic slurs coming from an OWS participant." Bozell went on to assert that there is "scintilla of video or audio evidence" of racism in the tea party movement, which is categorically false.
That falsehood and dishonesty notwithstanding, Bozell tried to up the ante in an Oct. 26 MRC press release declaring that "three prominent Jewish leaders united with the call for the TV networks to cover the anti-Jewish hatred." But what sort of "leaders" are Bozell's buddies?
First on the list is Don Feder, who heads something called Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, a group most people have never heard of until now -- indeed, we found that when you click on the link provided in the press release to the group's website, it returns an error saying it cannot be found.
You may recall Feder as being more famous for non-Jewish concerns, such as spewing hatred and smears at the New York Times for Accuracy in Media and his concern that not enough white babies are being made.
Second on Bozell's list is Rabbi Daniel Lapin of American Alliance of Jews and Christians (even though the website is under the URL rabbidaniellapin.com. Lapin was a useful tool for convicted felon Jack Abramoff -- as we've noted, Abramoff is the former chairman of Lapin's now-defunct organization Toward Tradition, through which Abramoff funneled money to influence politicians.
Bozell's final "Jewish leader" is Michael Medved, who is much better known as a second-tier right-wing radio host.
Meanwhile, actual Jewish leaders at the Anti-Defamation League -- which does not shrink away from highlighting anti-Semitism -- have a different, reality-based view than the constituency-less hacks Bozell has backing him up. From The New York Times:
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, urged the protest organizers to condemn any expressions of anti-Semitism, but said, "There are manifestations in the movement of anti-Semitism, but they are not expressing or representing a larger view." He also pointed out that, according to his organization's periodic polls, roughly one in six Americans believed Jews had too much power in Wall Street and the American government.
"So it's not surprising that in a movement that deals with economic issues you're going to get bigots that believe in this stereotype," Mr. Foxman said. "The movement is not about Jews; it's not about Israel. It's about 'the economy, stupid.' "
Bozell also repeated the lie that allegations of tea party racism are "unsubstantiated." Maybe such lies -- and the apparent requirement of bending to his partisan right-wing agenda -- are the reason Bozell can't attract any actual Jewish leaders to stand by him.
CNS Forgets That David Duke Supported the Tea Party, Too Topic: CNSNews.com
An Oct. 27 CNSNews.com article by Erick Hamme begins:
David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has joined President Barack Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in expressing support for the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose protests have been marked by anti-Semitism.
Unmentioned by Hamme: Duke also supported the tea party, to the point of defending the movement against charges of racism:
Tea Party people are called racist because the vast majority wants to stop the massive non-European immigration that will turn America into a crumbling tower of Babel. Most Tea Partiers believe that we in America have the right to preserve our heritage, language, and culture, just as every nation has that human right. The vast majority of Tea Party activists oppose affirmative action and diversity, which are nothing more than programs of racist discrimination against white people. The vast majority of Tea Party enthusiasts despise Hollywood and the mass media.
You know, the unelected media bosses have far more power than any senator or congressman, and are far more alien to America than the British were at the time of the American Revolution. At least the British were of our own, Christian cultural heritage, while the non-Christian ethno-religious minority who dominates Hollywood sees itself as very distinct from the 98 percent of the rest of us.
Tea Party activists are true populists who see the powers that control international finance and the Federal Reserve as the biggest threats to American prosperity and freedom.
[...]
The Tea Party movement is made up of American people who have watched in silent anger while the nation of our forefathers has been destroyed. The Tea Party movement, as the original Tea Party, is about preserving our heritage and our freedom.
Funny that Hamme wouldn't be interested in telling the full story about Duke. That suggests he's not a real reporter but simply a tool of CNS' anti-Obama agenda.
We conservatives, libertarians and people of faith have even stronger grievances with the establishment than do our leftist brethren, particularly given all that President Obama and his socialist minions have done not only to dismantle the vision and reality of our Founding Fathers, but also based on their own dastardly and incompetent performance in office. While even the left, at home and abroad, now recognize that blowhard and corrupt establishment leaders like Obama have failed them and are, as a result, taking concrete actions in the "street," we conservatives have not been so bold and courageous.
Secondly, although much of Freud's psychoanalytic theories have been ruled fraudulent, unsustainable and untrue by modern science and psychiatric literature and scholarship, nevertheless Freud's maniacal atheism and hatred of religion, history, hierarchy and moral traditions have been wholly adopted by modern-day liberals, progressives and socialists, into whose education atheism has been infused not only in every aspect of public and private education curriculum and the academy, but also Freud's legacy is found permeated throughout American politics, law, popular culture and society.
For example, progressives, the Democratic Party, President Obama and his administration have been zealous advocates of taking Freud's perverse legacy to brand new nihilistic ends. How else could one explain contemporary social policies like abortion on demand, same-sex marriage, the homosexual and LGBT revolution, the radical feminist movement, support of Occupy Wall Street protesters and the modern amoral trends to exposing our children to greater and more extreme forms of psychopathy and psychosexual depravity?
Apart from the obvious double standard of the person who ran for office promising full transparency, this is unquestioningly suspicious. More importantly, no matter what is argued to the contrary, this administration makes the Capone organization (sans murder) look legitimate – so there is no question that if this legislation is successful it will also be used to prevent access to his personal life before taking office.
What is it that Obama is so desperate to keep concealed? And don't tell me it's a birth certificate–citizenship thing. Because even if that is true, my instincts tell me there is something much more devastating that he doesn't want known. Perhaps it has to do with mental health – who knows? But there is something chilling enough for him not to want it known – ever.
Obama is arguably the most narcissistic president in history – it stands to reason that for him to spend over a million dollars in legal fees to keep his background hidden means whatever it is is not just image-altering; it must be a death knell.
The media and investigative press should hang their heads in shame for working to keep the Melchizedekian magic Negro's background secret. The media that were able to uncover and expose Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's dalliance and subsequent child, born secretly outside of his marriage, within days is unwilling to unearth Obama's history? Why? Is it possible they know and aren't talking?
With his records sealed forever and access to his past successfully forbidden, the only thing left to go into his presidential library will be pictures of his wife's opulent taxpayer-funded vacations and him on the golf course.
Frankly, Gadhafi's death should heighten the GOP's criticism of Obama. To the degree the U.S. military was involved in Gadhafi's death the killing was an illegal act of Obama. After all his preaching on the "rule of law," when Bush was the object of his rebuke, Obama arrogantly unleashed the killing power of the U.S. military in Libya without the authorization of Congress.
[...]
Conservatives understand the left's love affair with and predestination of Obama. We understand that almost nothing could have prevented the installment of Barry Soetoro, aka Barack Obama, in the White House. We understand that the Constitution's eligibility clause was viewed as archaic and really having no place in our postmodern society as related to the beloved savior of the left.
But the establishment could have at least given us a mock hearing on Obama's constitutional eligibility. The Senate or a federal court could have a least ruled that only one U.S. citizen parent is necessary to confer the highest class of citizenship, which is required for eligibility. The legal body could have at least ruled that an unbroken chain of natural allegiance to the United States is not required to meet the definition of "natural born citizen" as applied to Barack Hussein Obama II.
Of course the intellectuals of the left know that the weight of the law and history says otherwise. But, at least with a hearing, the appearance of lawfulness and legitimacy would have been projected to a dumbed-down public. A perfunctory hearing would have at least given the appearance that Obama was a man under law and not above it.
Like Apollo, Barack Hussein Obama appeared before us, early in his path to power, before Greek columns that presaged his hubris. Nose in the air, contempt on his face, Obama and his fellow travelers have done nothing but reinforce their peculiar – and brittle – autocratic attitudes. Foreshadowing the sense of hypocritical entitlement that would mark her tenure as first lady, Michelle Obama – who adores eating junk food and spending taxpayer money on vacations while lecturing Americans on what to eat and how to live – told us that she had never been proud of the United States. (That was, of course, until her husband Barack sat in the catbird seat of political power.)
Much more recently, both Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have snarled at reporters who had the temerity to lob something other than softball questions at their beneficent masters. Obama had nothing but sneering contempt for Ed Henry, when Henry dared to quote candidate Mitt Romney's criticism. Joe Biden went so far as to demand an investigation of Human Events' Jason Mattera this week – for having the audacity to press Biden on his absurd threats of rape should Obama's "jobs bill" not pass.
All this happens as Obama prepares to make good on his threats to work around Congress in making law "administratively," forcing his policies down our throats regardless of our protests. Meanwhile, his supporters cheer these dictatorial moves, for they abhor their fellow citizens' rude insistence on disagreeing with Glorious Leader Obama.
Underlying every action and every despotic proclamation by Obama and his ilk is their unspoken outrage: How DARE you? How dare you disagree? How dare you resist? How dare you criticize? Don't you know what is good for you?
The arrogance and cavalier comportment President Obama and his minions (Attorney General Eric Holder springs to mind) display as they engage in blatantly criminal exercises is not unique to them. It is indicative of the mentality that has been cultivated by American politicians over decades. It is ironically antithetical to the egalitarianism advanced by America's founders (as opposed to the empty social-justice doctrine of the left). The only difference is that this administration possesses said arrogance and cavalier attitude in spades compared to their predecessors.
Mother Jones, details how prior to his emergence as an anti-Muslim activist and current adviser to Mitt Romney's campaign, Walid Phares was a top official in a Lebanese sectarian religious militia responsible for massacres during that country's civil war.
