Obama vs. America

The multiple burgeoning scandals now emerging from the Obama Administration help to reveal an ugly reality about the president and the people who surround him.

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The Benghazi scandal involves lying to the American people about the nature of an attack on our consulate that killed four of our own, and about the reasons they were not fully protected. The IRS scandal involves abuse of government power to harass political opponents of the president. It is less recognized as a scandal, but the train wreck that is the implementation of ObamaCare - even to the point where HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is attempting a shakedown of the health care industry to pay for it - is the result of wanton dishonesty on the administration's part during the selling of the law back in 2009 and 2010. The numbers they offered about the costs of ObamaCare were almost entirely made up, and now they're scrambling to cover their own asses and somehow keep the beast alive.

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We have yet to see how bad it will get that the Department of Justice seized phone records from the Associated Press. If it was done to plug leaks that threatened national security, I might have some sympathy for the motive, but as is usually the case with this crew they just take what they want and rationalize it later. What they all have in common is this: The Obama crew is on a mission to remake this country into a left-wing utopia, and they have no patience for annoying people who have the audacity to question this. Lying and obfuscating are necessary in their minds because hey, they've got a country to change, and if the American people shared in their sophstication then it wouldn't be so necessary for them to act in our own best interests in spite of us. The apparent violation of the AP's journalistic independence is particularly instructive. The news media in general, and the AP in particular, usually licks Obama's boots because they support his left-wing agenda. Yet he has contempt for them too. Their job is to be the dutiful soldiers, parroting his talking points and spewing innuendo about the meanness and ignorance of Republicans. Generally speaking, they perform their duty pretty dependably. But Obama nevertheless reserves the right to tread on them too - holding press conferences only when it suits him, preferring purveyors of fluff when he grants sit-down interviews, and even trying to restrict the access of media sources who don't tow the line. I've never seen an entire industry so pliant in its devotion to one man, only to have him treat them like indentured servants. I wonder if the revelation about the DOJ's action will cause a permanent change in that dynamic. I sort of doubt it but I guess it bears watching. This is nothing we haven't said before, but it bears pointing out at a time like this. The Obama Administration - and to a large extent, the Democratic Party in general - consists of people who have a very high opinion of their own intellect, and a very low opinion of the average person's. The pundits who support them are exactly the same way. A better example has scarcely been seen than when Thomas Friedman of the New York Times lamented aloud that we can't be China for a day.

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If you read Friedman at all - well, if you read Friedman at all, you poor thing - but if you do, you know where this comes from. Friedman and people like him think they really know what this country needs, and if not for those annoying little gnats called The People, they could "authorize the correct solutions" like the Chinese Communists. Dare to dream. That is the way Obama thinks, to a T. When he lies, abuses his power, or shoves down our throats an insane health care law we don't want, it's with an attitude that says, "You little people don't deserve me and my brilliance." Hillary Clinton thinks the same way. So does Joe Biden. So do most of the people who surround Obama in the White House. And to be honest, so do most of the news media, which is why they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into covering Benghazi and only started to do so when the clear nature of the lies became so obvious they feared for their own credibility if they continued ignoring it. The IRS scandal is much the same. Most of them secretly share Obama's contempt for the Tea Party. The New York Times is such a contemptible bunch of journalistic hacks that itopenly cheered the IRS's harassment of Tea Party groups. But for most of the media, the use of the IRS to harass political opponents is far too Nixonian to wink at - if only for the sake of their own credibility. All these scandals are the inevitable result of what happens when a) people like this rise to power; and b) people just like them dominate the news media that is supposed to keep them honest. They get arrogant, they get overconfident and they start doing things that shock the rest of us when they come to light. What needs to happen now is that those who are in a position to keep the pressure on - House Republicans, alternative media, mainstream media who have a shred or two of self-respect remaining - need to do so at the maximum level on all fronts. You can call it political if you want. Everything Obama does is political so I hardly see how that is such a terrible indictment. The objective is to expose these people for what they are, and to make the American people understand that they messed up and elected leaders who hold them in contempt. Look. A lot of Republicans are just as arrogant. And I know Democrats who are outstanding people and, I'm sure, are appalled by this sort of thing - although they may not admit it on the record to me because I'm a conservative journalist and they'd rather find a way to fight it from the inside. The point is that while arrogance and dishonesty are not the exclusive domain of the left - and not everyone on the left is guilty of it - the culture of the political left in this country is so beset with it, and is enabled by a pliant news media that stopped doing its job a long time ago, there is simply no way to deal with it anymore but to completely destroy it. If that means Obama loses all ability to govern for the next three-and-a-half years, fine. We've never gotten effective governance from him anyway. At least now everyone will see that for what it is. None of this, by the way, guarantees future political success for Republicans, who certainly have their own problems. But the most urgent thing right now is to expose these elitist frauds for what they are and shatter the illusion that they can or will do anything positive for this nation. Barack Obama is a disaster as president. Hillary Clinton would be just as bad or worse. The evidence of this - as if the state of our economy and our fiscal nightmare were not enough - is unfolding before us right now. Let's not miss the opportunity to show the nation what it means, and why people like this must never be allowed to win another election.

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