by Neil W. McCabe
The State of the Union address delivered to Congress by President Barack Obama this week is a sad, sad
exercise. The president has become a dreary man, blaming his failures on others and taking the successes of others as his own work.
The SOTU is a window into the hall of mirrors also known as Obama’s mind. In his mind, the economy is at the same time recovering because of his policies and faltering because of the Republicans meager attempts to rein in spending, taxes and regulations.
In his New Yorker interview the president told David Remnick that he does not believe in human relationships, so there is no reason to deal with Senators and members of Congress, who will do what their parties or factions require.
Obama said he does not believe in the Great Man Theory of history—unless, he is talking about Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela, all men he talks about when he is really talking about himself.
But, in Obama’s mind there are always two realities. One that denigrates his enemies and the other that bolsters his greatness.
He is a president who regularly apologizes for other presidents, but cannot spit out an apology for the hundreds of innocent civilians by his drone strikes or the thousands of guns he trafficked to Mexican drug cartels.
Obama describes an Al Qaeda on the run. Asked about Al Qaeda in Iraq, the new owner-operator of Fallujah, as junior varsity terrorists and posers. Yet, because of the extreme danger posed by terrorists, Americans must accept warrantless surveillance—of everything, everywhere.
The Obama administration warns Americans about going to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia and offers to help the Russians in a ha-ha gesture to suggest that the 100,000 security personnel working the Olympics. Of course, this approach assumes everyone forgot that it was the Russians who ID’d to us the Boston Marathon bombers—whom the FBI then interviewed three times before losing track of them before the race.
Of course, it is beyond our shores to Syria, Libya and a dozen countries in Africa that the president shipped firearms and ammunition to help his friends there defend themselves, their families and their farms and businesses.
In this country, the one that Obama was elected lead, the president seeks to disarm Americans.
For Americans in dangerous neighborhoods or otherwise in fear for their lives, Obama tells them having a guns contributes to their danger. This seems to be because if a victim shoots his attacker, statistically, the gun violence doubled.
Background checks, and all the other “responsible” regulations Obama proposes, including outright bans of military-style long guns, are all gussied up as part of the president’s reverence for the Second Amendment.
In the coming year, the Republican leaders in Washington are so convinced that they will hold onto the Senate and House of Representatives that they are giving the president his farm bill, an increase in the debt ceiling, amnesty for illegal aliens, a fully-funded Obamacare and an increase in the minimum wage.
To the GOP the best way to ensure they take power is to give Obama his agenda, instead of fighting him with the conservative slogans they memorize, but do not understand.
Hmmm. To gain power, you must surrender, so that when you are in power there is nothing to fight about, so there you can keep the power you never what to use.
Hmmm. It seems that maybe Washington is the hall of mirrors and Obama and the Republican leaders are meant for each other.