I did not write this. But, I think everyone should read it, so here it is:
THE WASHINGTON POST HITS
OBAMA
Finally, the Washington
Post and Newsweek speak out about Obama. This is timely
and tough. As many of you
know, the Washington Post and Newsweek have a reputation
for being extremely
liberal. The fact that their editors saw fit to print
the following article
about Obama and the one that appears in the latest Newsweek, makes this a truly
amazing event, and a news story in and of itself. At last, the truth about
our
President and his agenda
are starting to trickle through the
“protective wall” built
around him by the liberal media.
___________________________
I Too Have Become
Disillusioned
By Matt Patterson
(columnist - Washington Post, New York Post, San
Francisco
Examiner)
Years from now,
historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack
Obama as an inscrutable
and disturbing phenomenon, the result of a
baffling breed of mass
hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the
Middle Ages. How, they
will wonder, did a man so devoid of
professional
accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could
manage the world's
largest economy, direct the world's most powerful
military, execute the
world's most consequential job?
Imagine a future
historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life:
ushered into and through
the Ivy League, despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a
cushy non-job as a "community organizer;" a brief career as a state legislator
devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention,
so often did he vote "present"); and finally an unaccomplished single term in
the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to
his
presidential
ambitions.
He left no academic
legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator. And then
there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating,
America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor";
a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political
sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking:
how on Earth was such a man elected president?
Not content to wait for
history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in
the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close
associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an
unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But
because Mr. Obama
was black, and therefore
entitled in the eyes of liberal Dom to have hung out with protesters against
various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a
pass. Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass - held to a lower standard -
because of the color of his skin.
Podhoretz continues: And
in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate
and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave
him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the
curse of racism to rest?
Podhoretz puts his
finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon - affirmative
action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating
sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed
primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about
themselves.
Unfortunately, minorities
often suffer so that whites can pat
themselves on the back.
Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified,
yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high
drop-out rates which follow.
Liberals don't care if
these minority students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional
devastation and deflated self-esteem resulting from the racist policy that is
affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely
because of the color of his skin - that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and
if that isn't racism, then nothing is.
And that is what America
did to Obama. True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of
achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was
good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was
told he was good enough
for the US Senate despite
a mediocre record in Illinois ; he was told he was good enough to be president
despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way,
Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence
to the contrary.
What could this breed if
not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks? In 2008,
many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about
Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people -
conservatives included - ought now to be deeply embarrassed.
The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest
of clichés, and that's when he has his Teleprompters in front of him; when the
prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea
has ever issued from his mouth - it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that
has failed over and over again for 100 years.
And what about his
character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his
troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. Remember, he
wanted the job, campaigned for the task. It is embarrassing to see a president
so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own
incompetence. But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been
responsible for
anything, so how do we
expect him to act responsibly?
In short: our president is a small-minded
man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you
understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of
liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a
man in the Oval Office.
