A message from President Obama to Tea Party America
Warner Todd Huston , Bio and Archives--March 24, 2010
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“But today, we are affirming that essential truth -– a truth every generation is called to rediscover for itself –- that we are not a nation that scales back its aspirations. We are not a nation that falls prey to doubt or mistrust. We don’t fall prey to fear. We are not a nation that does what’s easy. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we got here. We are a nation that faces its challenges and accepts its responsibilities. We are a nation that does what is hard. What is necessary. What is right. Here, in this country, we shape our own destiny. That is what we do. That is who we are. That is what makes us the United States of America.”Capehart then says that the love that tea partiers have for their country is a “twisted, exclusionary kind of love.” And so, he wonders why “what the president said does not resonate” with tea party folks. Well, I have an answer and it is one that shows why leftists are so easily fooled by lies and the cynical machinations of those “Manchurian candidates” Capehart scoffs at so. It’s because liberals value flowery talk and good intentions above truth and actual outcomes. Looking at Obama’s words and taking them all by themselves one will find a few paragraphs of bland rhetoric that might at first seem inoffensive. The problem is, however, not with the words themselves but what actions behind those words. What is Obama saying we are refusing to “scale back,” for instance? What “aspirations” is he striving to implement? What effort that isn’t “easy” is he reaching for? If all these actions Obama’s praising are efforts that are in keeping with our culture, our history, our principles and our laws, then that’s all good. But, if those “hard” actions he’s talking about are essentially un-American actions, then we have a problem. Without the qualifiers telling the listener what actions his flowery rhetoric is being used to cover, these words are empty bits of fluff without meaning. And that is just the problem. Capehart hears all the fluff free of any substance and he doesn’t mind it a bit. In typical Obama-speak, the president uses soaring rhetoric that, upon closer examination, slips right through your fingers like air for its weightlessness. Oh, yes, we Americans do what is hard. Certainly we want to control our own destinies. But does this socialist healthcare bill help us do that? Not one bit. In fact, Obama’s actual actions take away our freedoms, they destroy our ability to control our destiny. In truth, his soaring words are in direct contravention to his actions. Yet it is the lofty rhetoric that Capehart and his fellow left-wing, Old Media cohorts love. They don’t pay any attention to actions. Just the fluffy, lovely words Obama speaks. But it is the actions, Mr. Capehart, the actions that tea partiers are against. Call us racists, call us hatemongers, call us evil all you want. But we understand clearly what Obama’s policies will do to this great nation. And none of it is in keeping with the American character of which Obama spoke so highly. And that, Mr. Capehart, is why Obama’s empty words do not warm our hearts.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.