After the massacre in Tucson that saw six murdered and U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and 12 others wounded, President Obama gave a speech at the memorial where he called for raising the tone in politics. To honor the memory of those killed and wounded the president said:
The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives -- to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation in a way that would make them proud.
Moving words. Also a lie.
President Obama had no interest in having “more civility in our public discourse,” no concern for those grieving families. He said what was expected of him as president – touching, well-delivered words we now know had as much meaning to him as his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.
The president has stood silently while his supporters, surrogates and staff have engaged in some of the most transparently desperate and disgusting campaign rhetoric of the modern age.
Without proof or even proof to the contrary, Democrats have accused Mitt Romney of being a felon, a tax cheat, a racist and a murderer. With each charge, the president avoided leveling the charge himself. But he said nothing … did nothing to stop them.
The media only recently bothered to ask his staff about the latest lie his allies have propagated – that Romney’s actions at Bain Capital are somehow responsible for the death by lung cancer of the wife of former steel worker and current liberal activist Joe Soptic.
Their response? The natural instinct of liberals when challenged – to lie.
First, we learned Mrs. Soptic didn’t die until seven years after Romney left Bain Capital. Oops.
Then, we were told the president had no knowledge of Joe Soptic or the basis of his claim Romney was responsible for his wife’s death. But then we learned White House staffers pimped Soptic’s story on a conference call back in May, and the campaign still pimps his wife’s death on its website. Oops again.
Even then, they wouldn’t admit they were lying – liars never do. They admitted only the story Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter had been telling on national television the day before was not in line with reality. Cutter, the Obama staffer who hosted the conference call featuring Soptic, and a regular in the media, promptly canceled her appearance on ABC’s This Week and was replaced by head campaign hack David Axelrod. It’s much easier to deny a lie on behalf of someone else because the video of the lie will not be of you.
While all of this happened, while the president’s own press secretary first denied any knowledge of the ad, then refused to comment or condemn it, Barack Obama was silent.
No reporters have asked the president directly about this because they haven’t had the chance. He has avoided questions from the media for weeks – as if his henchmen have threatened to take away his golf clubs if he opens his mouth.
But when his flying monkeys learned Mitt Romney’s campaign had rejected a proposal from a pro-Romney SuperPAC to link Obama to his racist pastor of 20 years, they feigned outrage and demanded Romney – who truly was uninvolved – condemn it.
None of this occurs naturally. All of it comes from the top. And the top is Barack Obama.
You can tell all you need to know about a man’s character by comparing his words with his actions.
Every day he and his allies refuse to repudiate this disgraceful ad, every hour they continue these reprehensible lies, every second they embrace these dishonorable tactics, they spit on the graves of those victims in Tucson the president himself said he wanted to honor. The longer Barack Obama refuses to condemn and end the vicious tactics and words used in his name, the more he dishonors the memory of Christina Taylor Green and the other victims.
At that January memorial for the victims of that massacre, Barack Obama said this of the Green, the youngest murder victim:
If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on Earth, we place our hands over our hearts and commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit.
Did he mean those words when he said them? Or were they the utterings of a sociopath who exploited the death of a 9-year-old girl for the moment and quickly cast her aside like he’s cast aside so many others?
Sadly for our country and their memories, the answer is clear.
PS: This column was written before the announcement by Mitt Romney of Paul Ryan as his VP choice. For my take on that, click here.