I know it’s unrealistic to ask president Obama to stop torturing the English language in an attempt to do so much for our own good.
But is it too much to ask everyone else stop doing it too?
Obama’s recent attempt to rewrite his words on healthcare reform is just the crowning act of a majestic, fool-worthy, and compulsive act that stopped entertaining Americans at a quarter past his own reelection.
"Now, if you had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed," the tortured president said torturedly about his tortured healthcare promise: “If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance."
Even if you love Obama you have to admit, he has real difficulty taking responsibility for anything he says or does.
And it’s like torture for the rest of us.
Is it any wonder he doesn’t want any messy questions about his past, when his past apparently includes stuff as recent as 6 months ago?
Even when he has nothing to hide—because HE CAN’T hide it in this instance-- Obama has a kind of guttural reaction to critics.
This president, unfortunately, lacks the capacity to be candid…ever… even with himself.
He is, I’m afraid, chronically incapable of telling the truth, even now, when it’s in his own best interest to do so.
And that’s the worrisome part.
In the definition of hubris, the capacity to fool oneself, while not fooling others must loom large. Anyone who can fart in an elevator with only one other person around and convince himself that the stench will go unnoticed, or worse, that he didn’t do it, has issues beyond mere workplace competency.
It goes right to emotional competency. Anyone not tortured by doubts about themselves in that instance, must suffer from some sort of delusion.
Obama, it seems, suffers such a defect.
And any country ruled by such a fool is bound to suffer even worse on his behalf.
Because Obama’s friends, who are legion (Mark 5:9), will now have to go along with the charade, thus forcing the country to pretend that we don’t know that they know that we know we are ruled by fools.
It’s not so much that we elected the most unprepared man to the presidency as we reelected the most unrealistic of men, despite knowing his limitations as to truth, honesty and the American Way.
We got, in short, what we deserve.
Make no mistake too: The consequences of this everyday deception are traveling far with us, beyond merely the political, into the everyday.
It’s what makes possible the massive data surveillance on telephone, internet and every day lives of private citizens—who, under the Fourth Amendment, are supposed to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.
At the same time, the same Fourth Amendment also informs a woman’s right to abort her baby.
Those “rights” enshrined in the 4th Amendment are now used as fetters.
It’s what makes TV newsreaders use the words “long rifles” when referring to BB guns*; it allows them to confuse shotguns with assault rifles; and it makes any kid with backpack “dangerous.”
It allows liberals to support armed intervention in Libya and Syria on behalf of the folks who brought down the World Trade Center building-- and killed people at the Pentagon--while opposing fighting the same people in Iraq because liberals voted for it before they were against it.
It makes it easy for people to watch negotiations to reduce our debt, end up in a bipartisan plan to increase our debt—all taken with a straight face.
It allows a government shutdown to be the end of the world, while a tax increase on every working person is viewed as good start.
It also allows the New York Times to say the president didn’t fart in the elevator, when in fact we all heard it.
It was loud. It was clear.
And it helped get him reelected.
And that’s what really stinks.
You have enabled this hubris, America.
The consequences of this will travel far along with you.
*For my liberal friends, a BB gun generally is not a rifle, because its barrel is not generally “rifled.”
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