The California Senate race is becoming a real free for all, as the candidates go after each other’s records with gusto, and it appears that Tom Campbell is taking the worst of it. It’s not a good sign when a candidate has to say that he does not help terrorists. What’s worse for him is that Carly Fiorina is not letting it go at that.

The Campbell statement to me seems rather weak, as it repeatedly tries to drag George W. Bush down with him, to use him as a shield in some vague way. But Fiorina is now calling on Campbell to correct that page, saying that the findings of the Investigative Project on Terrorism refute Campbell’s denial that he has worked to assist Sami Al-Arian, who has been convicted in the US of aiding anti-Israeli terror.

While it’s on the record that Sami Al-Arian once snagged an invitation to the White House under President Bush, apparently through campaign contacts, there is no record of Bush going out of his way to give assistance to the man specifically. Campbell on the other hand did.

Can friends of Israel trust Tom Campbell in the Senate or anywhere else where he can influence America’s foreign policy? I’m skeptical.

UPDATE: It was Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) who introduced the bill, not Rep. Sylvester Reyes (D-TX) as mentioned in the post. Read the rest of Ed Lasky’s piece to see how despicable the “Honorable” Mr. McDermott truly is.

We’ll see how far this goes. Per Byron York, Congressional Democrats tried to slip in a manager’s amendment called the “Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Interrogations Prohibition Act of 2010″ into the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act. The amendment would definitively ban the type of waterboarding performed by the CIA against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two others (that’s it; 3) more than 7 years ago (and hasn’t done any since), along with some other not-so-clearly-defined items that may or may not be considered torture as defined in U.S. law. As explained by Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn, these other items include prolonged isolation, depriving the individual of necessary food, water, sleep, or medical care, exploiting phobias of the individual, hooding of detainees (there are other harsher techniques as well, but those items could, in theory, be considered torture under the law already); but, the problem as Hayes and Joscelyn note is that there is a great ambiguity in the amendment as to when these interrogation techniques cross the line towards being cruel, inhuman, and degrading; maybe that’s the point, although it leaves interrogators more worried about being prosecuted than worried about protecting the U.S.

Two things have occurred since I first saw this.

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H/T to this tweet by Ben Domenech for alerting me to it.

A while back I did a post on the “Beer Summit” highlighting Obama’s lack of concern for those around him. The picture from Ben Domenech’s tweet reminded me of that. Take a look at it:

The man comforting the child is Harold Ford, a man who unsuccessfully sought Bill Frist’s old Senate seat in Tennessee back in 2006 (he lost to Bob Corker, for the record), and he’s trying to primary Hillary Clinton’s replacement in New York, Kirsten Gillibrand.

Obama, meanwhile, is minding his own business in the background looking off into the distance somewhere seemingly unaware of what’s happening in front of him.

Looking at that picture, I couldn’t help but think about how President Bush might have reacted in this situation, and how different the two men are.

So, then, how would Bush have reacted? There is ample evidence from which to judge. Perhaps most notable is this one image:

Says the Cincinnati Enquirer:

In a moment largely unnoticed by the throngs of people in Lebanon waiting for autographs from the president of the United States, George W. Bush stopped to hold a teenager’s head close to his heart.

Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president’s hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke:

“This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11.”

Bush stopped and turned back.

“He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man,” Faulkner said. “He looked right at her and said, ‘How are you doing?’ He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest.”

Faulkner snapped one frame with his camera.

“I could hear her say, ‘I’m OK,’ ” he said. “That’s more emotion than she has shown in 21/2 years. Then he said, ‘I can see you have a father who loves you very much.’ ”

“And I said, ‘I do, Mr. President, but I miss her mother every day.’ It was a special moment.”

Ron Boat has this picture posted on his Facebook and had this to say as the caption:

From Ron Boat: In contrast to our current insensitive, politically opportunistic pres, people i know who know Bushs 41 & 43 say the family is truly caring and concerned. Even the Friday of Ft. Hood, Pres and Mrs Bush secretly went to the hospital to see the wounded and INSISTED that the press not know or tell anyone. Only the week after did the word leak out they went to show their concern. What a difference a year makes. I needed to add this: From Valerie Geibel-Wells “I am from the area (this was at a rally in Lebanon, OH) and know this family. Her mother was lost in 9.11 and was a wonderful humanitarian. They never found her remains and the girl was devastated - this was honest compassion from the leader of the free world who as he walked by her someone yelled to him “she lost her mother in the Trade Centers… See More” and he stopped and turned around and came back and hugged this girl for what seemed an eternity - something we don’t get now. He is true to America and never put us down.” Thanks Valerie. (Thanks for posting this Ron!)

Looking at these pictures, with the one of Sgt. Crowley I discussed earlier, and comparing them, I can only come to the conclusion that he just doesn’t care.

It’s not a conclusion I want to make about the leader of the free world, but it’s what I see when I look at these pictures.

He. Just. Doesn’t. Care.

EDIT: I’d like to point out that even Bill Clinton, Obama’s most recent Democratic predecessor didn’t have such a tin ear. He wouldn’t have been so uncaring, and he certainly wouldn’t have let such a moment slip past him. After all, remember he feels your pain.

So, let it sink in…

He. Just. Doesn’t. Care.

This diary was originally posted here at my blog Jake Speaks.

Yes and No. It’s besides the point; I’m just glad I have a reason to use the picture. And what a reason:

(CNN) — Iran may be working on secretly developing a nuclear warhead for a missile, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday in a draft report.

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Our “illustrious” Vice President, Joe Biden (he who is afflicted with both hoof-in-mouth disease and has no functioning brain), said that America’s fight in Iraq wasn’t worth the “horrible price” while attempting to have the Obama administration take full credit for its success. I’m assuming Winston Smith, from within the Ministry of Truth, was feeding Biden these lines. There is no sense rebutting Smith Biden’s crap here since former Vice President Dick Cheney did a nice job of doing so.

No matter how much people want to say Iraq was a distraction from our real fight with Al Qaeda, the reality is, in fact, overthrowing Saddam Hussein had as much to do with fighting Al Qaeda, albeit indirectly, as it does with taking out Osama bin Laden. Politically speaking it was the right thing to do, especially as it relates to national security. Biden’s statement is just one more in a long line of misleading and false statements from Democrats and the leftists about what Iraq was about. Allow me to explain. It’s long but I think well worth your time to read it.

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The Vice President of the United States was allowed in public yesterday. His face frozen by multiple injections of Botox, his eyes rapidly blinking like one just released from a darkened room and into the light after months of seclusion, and his scalp covered with freshly planted artificial hair, Mr. Biden is the living embodiment of dishonesty and falsehood.

His interview on Meet The Press was no different.

Attempting to refute the claims of former Vice President Dick Cheney by making up lies, plagiarizing others’ successes and weaving together a tapestry of tall tales that even toddlers wouldn’t deem credible, Mr. Biden reiterated exactly why he isn’t allowed in public much.

Even for a man with a striking lack of coherence and freed from the constraints of reality in his rhetoric flourishes, the task at hand was huge. How does one in a single interview claim that Iraq “wasn’t worth the price” and yet take credit for the successful conclusion of the war via a war surge strategy that both Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama voted against in the senate?

Apparently, however, for the man that claims paying higher taxes is patriotic and holds “transparency meetings” behind closed doors, anything is possible.

The hapless statesman who once suggested that the international community carve up Iraq into three parts based on ethnicity, proved to be nearly Obama’s match for self-promoting hubris. Mr. Biden acted shocked that former Vice President Cheney would dare suggest that President Obama didn’t think there was a war anymore. Citing Obama’s sole reference to the “overseas contingency plans” as actually being a war again in his State of the Union, Biden attempted to re-write and thus negate the entire first Nobel Peace Prize winning year of the Obama presidency.

Then he did it. Vice President Biden actually took credit for President Bush’s hard-fought successes. Successes that the vice president fought hard against.

Still, credit is due to the Obama Administration. A huge re-writing of history is necessary, and who better to do that than a Washington blowhard who never did care much for facts or reality.

The reality is that Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama voted against President Bush’s surge plan for Iraq.

In fact, Mr. Biden is on record in the Boston Globe during the summer of 2007 as saying “The surge isn’t going to work either tactically or strategically. Tactically it isn’t going to work because … our guys go in and secure a neighborhood, but because we don’t have enough troops, we have to turn it over to the Iraqis, and they can’t hold it or won’t hold it.”

In the spring of 2008, Mr. Biden reiterated his concerns saying that “I believe the president has no strategy for success in Iraq. His plan is to muddle through, and hand the problem off to his successor.” On the “failure” of the surge itself, he argued that “Violence has come down, but the Iraqis have not come together. There is little evidence the Iraqis will settle their differences peacefully any time soon.”

His boss, the esteemed military expert, Barack Obama declared the following about the surge in July 2008, “So far, I think we have not seen the kind of political reconciliation that’s going to bring about long-term stability in Iraq.”

Now, Mr. Biden has the audacity to claim that the successful conclusion of the war in Iraq will be “one of President Obama’s greatest achievements.”

Of course, by “achievement” he means something that was in place thanks to President Bush and a policy which the Obama administration has not changed. Apparently only the bad things that happen during Obama’s administration are President Bush’s fault. Good things accomplished by Bush before leaving office fall under the category of “Obama’s successes.” Even the actual withdrawal of troops from Iraq is being completed on a time table established by the Bush Administration. In short, besides a lot of hot air, anti-American drivel, and a healthy dose of pessimism, Obama and Biden have nothing to do with the success in Iraq.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was also a little surprised to hear Biden’s self-aggrandizing over Iraq: “Well, I — I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by my friend, Joe Biden. I’m glad he now believes Iraq is a success. Of course, Obama and Biden campaigned from one end of the country to the other for two years criticizing our Iraq policy. They opposed the surge that was absolutely crucial to our getting to the point we’re at now with respect to Iraq. And for them to try to take credit for what’s happened in Iraq strikes me as a little strange.”

Strange indeed.

Of course, this is the man who claimed to regularly visit a restaurant in Delaware that’s been closed for 20 years. Reality waved good-bye to him decades ago.

In the almost the same breath, the Vice President went from patting himself on the back to claiming that the war in Iraq was “not worth the price.”

Now, one expects an anti-American radical like the intellectually bankrupt and slovenly propagandist Michael Moore to make such comments. The sitting Vice President of the United States however, should never publicly demean the mission our soldiers are currently fighting–and dying for. Privately, he can stew all he wants about the injustices of liberating millions of people from a brutal regime that used biological weapons on its people, committed mass acts of genocide and the brutal torture of women. Publicly, however, he should just shut his trap.

In Biden’s world, not only is Iraq a dazzling success of the Obama Administration, but Iran is not “an immediate threat,” despite near daily warnings of working towards a nuclear arsenal and grand designs to deliver a “striking blow” to either the West (i.e. America) or Israel.

Just because they openly talk of wiping us off the map via nuclear weapons doesn’t mean it is a concern according to Biden’s way of thinking. His larger concern is that if Iran “continues on the path of nuclear weapons” then “you know the Middle East…Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, etc. would be under pressure to acquire nuclear weapons.”

So a nuclear Iran with all of its anti-semitic and anti-American threats of violence via nuclear weaponry is not a threat, but a nuclear Turkey or Egypt, well that’s cause for concern.

On this Biden has been consistent. In the fall of 2009 he told CNN that he was unfazed by Iran’s plans for worldwide Jihad, “I am less concerned — much less concerned — about the Iranian potential. They have no potential at this moment, they have no capacity to launch a missile at the United States of America.”

So delusional is Biden that he even thinks that America’s debt-holding overlords, the Chinese, will eventually come around and be on our side regarding Iran. Sure, Joe, sure they will. We have such a bargaining chip to tell them what to do at this point.

Don’t worry though, he also assures us that the chances of another massive terrorist attack (or pesky manmade disasters) on the United States is unlikely. Of course, in his world the Fort Hood Jihadist was acting alone and just experiencing a bad day completely separate from Muslim extremism while the Christmas Day underpants bomber similarly was just a crazy lone wolf stopped by a perfectly working system. You’ll forgive us for not taking your word on it Joe.

We are often told that “nobody messes” with America’s court jester, Joe Biden. Americans better hope so. Mr. Biden and his administration are not taking the threat from Iran or Muslim extremism seriously. From show-trials of enemy combatants to willfully ignoring the growing Iranian threat pursuant to his own faux peace ideology, (also known as the Carter doctrine of “peace through weakness”) this administration is making our national security every bit as ludicrous as Biden’s incoherent gaffe-laden fantasy world. And while Joe’s tall tales are always good for a laugh, when our lives are on the line, it isn’t funny.

Sarah Palin, a.k.a. the woman that the mainstream fears more than global warming, I mean, climate change, wrote some notes on her hand for her speech at the recent Tea Party Convention. Not only does the mainstream media feel that this shows that she is the “r” word, the administrations’ press secretary Robert Gibbs felt the need to make his own joke about it, publicly. Gibbs scrawled a few notes on his hand, a few grocery items, you know to make him seem like one of the people, and then the magic words, hope and change. Class apparently isn’t required in this administration.

Apparently the mainstream media thinks that having notes is a problem, but having an entire script scrolling in front of your face on a teleprompter and being virtually unable to speak without it, is perfectly fine. No one finds it problematic that the President of the United States has to use a teleprompter to speak to a group of elementary school students but a former president gets a few C’s and incorrectly pronounces a few words and there’s outrage that our leader is stupid. If it’s okay to even remember President Bush without blaming everything on him, it’s interesting to note that he often spoke off the cuff and with, at best, notes in front of him. Did he ever get credit for being a good speaker? Did he ever get credit for knowing the issues well enough to pull that off while giving speeches that were concise, on topic and engaging? No, apparently President Teleprompter is the greatest gift to speeches since Jesus.

While Sarah Palin prefers to speak to people, President Teleprompter prefers to lecture. No matter what anyone thinks of Sarah Palin, the blatant double standard by the left is blinding. Sarah Palin is dumb, George Bush is dumb, but Barack Obama is the greatest speaker to ever grace the White House. The propping up of the President is enough to make one wonder that is really pulling the strings? Are those behind the President so afraid that he’s going to make a mistake that they have to have him constantly on a script? While that may seem farfetched, if President Bush would have used the teleprompter like Barack Obama he would have never heard the end of it.

The mainstream media was quick to criticize Sarah Palin, who is currently not in an elected office, for having scant notes on the palm of her hand, yet little to nothing is said about the leader of the free world holding onto the teleprompter crutch. Out of all of the television news outlets, the only one that keeps the President accountable is Fox News, or as the left affectionately calls them “Faux News.” That’s the trick of those who are caught red handed, defame the messenger.

Remember folks, this is the President who wants to woo the world with his golden tongue, that is as long as he can have a teleprompter. Can they put a mini-teleprompter on the Iphone? If so you can bet President Obama will bring peace to the Middle East, convince all terrorists to hug it out and cure cancer. Just make sure that hope and change are on the prompter.

It’s funny how President Bush is always wrong except when he isn’t….at least according to President Obama.

From the Wall Street Journal:

This weekend, Americans were treated to something new: Barack Obama defending his war policies by suggesting they merely continue his predecessor’s practices. The defense is illuminating, not least for its implicit recognition that George W. Bush has more credibility on fighting terrorists than does the sitting president.

Mr. Obama’s explanation came in an interview with Katie Couric just before the Super Bowl. Ms. Couric asked about trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York. After listing some of the difficulties, the president offered a startling defense for civilian trials:

“I think that the most important thing for the public to understand,” he told Ms. Couric, “is we’re not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11.” Mr. Obama went on to add that “190 folks”—folks presumably just like the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks—had been tried and convicted in civilian court during Mr. Bush’s tenure.

Leave aside, for just a moment, the substance. Far more arresting is that Mr. Obama now defends himself by invoking a man he has spent the past year blaming for al Qaeda’s growth. You know—all those Niebuhrian speeches about how America had gone “off course,” “shown arrogance and been dismissive,” and “made decisions based on fear rather than foresight,” thus handing al Qaeda a valuable recruiting tool.

Ill be the first to admit that Bush was far from perfect but he did do a number of things for which I am thankful.

1. He kept the country safe after 9/11 by showing the world that an attack on the US would not go unanswered
2. He implemented tax cuts to get the economy going after the attacks (he should have held the line on spending)
3. He understood and appreciated the concept of American exceptional-ism

In contrast to what we have leading the country today, this is a refreshing list.

cross posted to The Ritz Report

Who knew that the lead editorials in the New York Times could be so funny?

The “Massachusetts” editorial, where the New York Times reasoned that the Massachusetts election result was “not remotely” about Obama, had its laughs.

Here’s how the New York Times summarizes today’s lead editorial, “The Truth About the Deficit”:

Though the governement will soon need to address the deficit, the last thing it should do is slash spending at a time of high unemployment and fragile growth.

The government will “soon” need to address the deficit? Soon? How soon? How about forty years ago?

The “last thing” it should do is to slash spending? Really, New York Times? The LAST thing? When you have no money, the LAST THING you should do is to stop spending on your credit cards? Does that make sense to any household? The FIRST THING anyone with any brain would do (stop spending money you don’t have) becomes the LAST THING?

Who’s to blame for this mess? Who? Who? Can we think of somebody?

The deficit numbers — a projected $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2011 alone — are breathtaking. What is even more breathtaking is the Republicans’ cynical refusal to acknowledge that the country would never have gotten into so deep a hole if President George W. Bush and the Republican-led Congress had not spent years slashing taxes — mainly on the wealthy — and spending with far too little restraint.

Blame George Bush! Of course! What a refreshing new idea!

But the cold economic truth is this: At a time of high unemployment and fragile growth, the last thing the government should do is to slash spending. That will only drive the economy into deeper trouble.

More reckless government spending! All aboard the wine train!

HOW DID WE GET HERE? When President Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget had been in the black for three years, and continued surpluses were projected for a decade to come.

By the time Mr. Bush left office in early 2009, the government had run big deficits for seven straight years, and the economy was on the brink of another Great Depression

Let’s blame Bush again!

Of course, America was attacked during the Bush years, and he was fighting two wars, and since 2006 we’ve been in the Pelosi era (Hint to NYT: She’s a Democrat). The economy and the spending improved under Pelosi, no?

To avoid a meltdown, the government — under President Bush and President Obama — rightly decided it had no choice but to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out banks and car companies and to stimulate the economy.

I don’t remember President Bush saying that TARP could be used to bail out car companies. And TARP has been a big failure–just ask TARP Special Inspector Neil Borofsky.

Politicians need to pass health care reform now and start thinking seriously about Social Security and tax reform.

Nothing says “fiscal sanity” like the presently drafted health care bill. Too funny.

The first lesson is that spending without taxing is a recipe for huge deficits, and that running big deficits when the economy is expanding only sets the country up for bigger deficits when the economy contracts. The second lesson is that once a deep recession takes hold, slashing government spending is not going to solve the problem. It will only make it worse.

The first lesson is that we don’t tax enough? The second lesson is not to cut government spending when you’re broke?

WHAT CAN BE DONE NOW? Here is an unpopular but undeniable fact of life: When private sector demand is weak, the federal government must serve as the spender of last resort.

No! The proper thing to do is to let weak companies die, to let bad properties sell at a discount, and to let the situation right itself.

But today’s deficit fearmongers invariably fail to note that the impact of stimulus spending on the long-term fiscal problem is small, because the spending is temporary.

The $800+ billion stimulus wasn’t big enough?

SO HOW DO WE FIX IT? Mr. Obama’s budget makes a down payment on deficit reduction by freezing some nonsecurity discretionary spending for three years, and by letting the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans expire at the end of this year.

To truly tame deficits will require serious health care reform, the sooner the better.

If we only taxed the rich more and had a health care system like the British, we’d have balanced budgets?

We hope that health care reform will move ahead before that. If it does, the commission will still have to press for new taxes that both raise revenue and broaden the tax base, including a value added tax.

A value added tax! Joy to the world!

HotAir has a similarly titled piece: “It’s time to tell the truth about the deficit, Mr. President”, linking to Evan Thomas of Newsweek.

Another option: the government can dramatically raise taxes—and thus truly stifle economic growth. Or—better idea! —the federal government can start now, through a prudent mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes, to get control of its financial future and avoid, or at least mitigate, a dreary fate of high inflation and/or high-taxation stagnation.

Spending cuts? Isn’t that the LAST THING we should do?

First, a rarity for these parts: a compliment to the president. It was nice to see President Obama make time this year to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, after skipping the event last year. His speech was largely appropriate, and it was nice to hear the president speak of prayer and faith. His references to the role faith has had in dealing with things ranging from ending slavery to the Civil War, to tragedies like 9/11 and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti were highly commendable.

The sentiment of his speech was one of uniting through faith and reaching out in love. In tone and word, it was appropriate and presidential. It is unfortunate, however, that this speech can be filed under “just words, just speeches” for its lack of connection with reality.

In rhetoric, Obama spoke of a “spirit of civility” and claimed he was the “first to admit” that he wasn’t always right. In practice, Republicans have been shut out of any meaningful discussions on issues ranging from spending to the “cap and tax” energy scheme to healthcare, and have been reminded by Obama that he “won” when seeking to have some input into the process. In practice, wayward Democrats have been told that Obama is “keeping score, bro” and labeled by Rahm Emanuel as “f-ing retarded.”

Even ordinary Americans who question the Obama administration’s agenda are labeled as “tea baggers” and “racists” by folks close to Obama, and repeatedly told that they only reject Obamacare because they aren’t capable of understanding it. Massive failures by the Obama administration are treated as the “system working perfectly” by top officials only to be apologized for days later and only in the fine print.

In these grand speeches, Mr. Obama has demonstrated an uncanny ability to lie directly to the American people on a level with the finest actors hollywood could offer.

In the midst of his empty political rhetoric, the words which serve as cover fire for his radical (and often contradictory) actions, often accidentally reveal a telling nugget that gets to the heart of who Mr. Obama is and what exactly his worldview looks like.

Nestled in the heart of his speech to the National Prayer Breakfast, Mr. Obama casually tossed out a telling pearl of wisdom to the swine-like masses. Speaking about his pet project of socialized healthcare, the president lamented that:

“Sadly, though, that spirit is too often absent when tackling the long-term, but no less profound issues facing our country and the world. Too often, that spirit is missing without the spectacular tragedy, the 9/11 or the Katrina, the earthquake or the tsunami, that can shake us out of complacency. We become numb to the day-to-day crises, the slow-moving tragedies of children without food and men without shelter and families without health care. We become absorbed with our abstract arguments, our ideological disputes, our contests for power. And in this Tower of Babel, we lose the sound of God’s voice.”

Tower of Babel you say? Interesting.

The point that President Obama is seeking to make here is that his political opponents won’t “compromise” (see also “give in”) to the Lord’s work in nationalizing healthcare. The ensuing confusion is because there are too many “cooks in the kitchen.” Those arguments then create a rhetorical maelstrom and in the whirlpool of confusion, God’s voice is lost. The implication, or pretty straightforward assertion here is that God’s voice is calling for healthcare reform, but the “confusion” of those arguing against such reform is drowning out His divine vision for our nation.

This is not the first time that Obama has sought to make the healthcare debate a matter of faith by implying or stating directly that this is the will of the Lord. In August of last year, President Obama held a conference call with the nation’s leading ministers and rabbis where he told them that he was going to “need their help in accomplishing necessary reform,” and told them that “we are God’s partners in matters of life and death.” The President even asked them to “tell the stories of health care dilemmas to illustrate what is at stake” in their sermons.

To the president, healthcare reform is central to his personal faith and worldview. It is central to who he is because it puts the government firmly in control of the lives of ordinary Americans. His socialist religion demands that government be the arbiter of all things, granter and protector of all things, and indeed the source of all things. Tapping into the Christian theology that all mankind is “sinful” and “fallen” Obama attempts to co-opt the Christian Gospel and replace Jesus Christ with the federal government. It is subtle wordplay indeed, but drastically different in principle. To most religious folks, particularly Christians, God is the final arbiter, granter and protector of all things. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are “endowed by our Creator” and not the state. To Obama and his band of socialist activists, God is “helped out” in this department, and becomes an absentee Father who abdicates His responsibilities to the all-power, all-knowing and incorruptible government. The more Obama can reduce the American people’s independence or reliance on other sources of power like their personal faith in God, the more he can be their father-like provider (and thus secure his own political power.)

Ironically, however, as Mr. Obama tries to make a Biblical allusion work for his purposes, the selected story actually works to contradict Mr. Obama’s agenda when seen in the original context.

The actual “Tower of Babel” story appears in Genesis Chapter 11. In verse one of the story, the people of the world are not twisting around in a world of rhetorical confusion and dueling arguments. They are of “one language” and a “common speech” and are pretty successfully working together to craft the massive Tower of Babel. There is no great confusion that leads to a drowning out of God’s voice. The folks can hear God alright, they just don’t want to listen to Him. Instead, they are crafting “a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves,” (verse 4). In essence, they are seeking to replace God in their lives with their own accomplishments and “making a name” for themselves.

The confusion comes in when God steps into the story to thwart their plans. The Lord goes down to see the tower, and announces His plan in verse 7 to “go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the confusion actually comes from God, not too many cooks in the kitchen. It isn’t the case of man getting in the way of God, it’s God getting in the way of man for his own good.

So why does God create this confusion in the story? Well, that has to do with why the folks are building the tower to begin with. The word for “Babel” is of Akkadian descent and means “gateway of heaven.” That confirms their stated intent in verse 4 of a “tower that reaches to heaven.” In the Hebrew it also conveniently sounds like the word for “confusion.” Additionally, the NIV Study Bible points out the repeated use of “us…ourselves…we…ourselves” as very telling of their motive. Like President Obama, they can’t stop talking about themselves. To be fair, we have no record of them referring to themselves 132 times in one speech as Obama has done, but everything that they are doing is to bring glory to themselves. The entire project is an experiment in delusional narcissism by a bunch of dopes who think themselves capable of besting God, or at best, thumbing their noses at Him.

Obama’s reference that he and his allies are in a “partnership” doing “God’s work” by nationalizing healthcare, only to be brought to confusion because of partisan bickering is totally wrong contextually for use with this scripture. The confusion clearly comes from God to stop a project designed to elevate man above God. The project has become their god and God has become an afterthought. Much like the President of the United States who travels the world boasting that “whatever we once were, America is no longer a Christian nation,” while also rallying the faithful to his side as though he is God’s prophet to bring about the miraculous wonders of nationalized healthcare.

As usual, Obama’s intentional misrepresentation of the facts (like his reference to the Treaty of Tripoli in his now infamous Cairo Speech) reveals a telling truth to those who know their history. Obama continues to rely on the belief that the American people will not do their homework and instead cling to the nice-sounding rhetoric that he flings at them from his TelePrompters. They are, after all, “bitter” and “clinging” to their guns and religion.

This is rather telling for a man who has demonstrated time and time again that he is willing to stretch any truth, tell any lie, and misconstrue any detail, trivial or significant, to advance his agenda. His arguments and allusions to historical events in the life of America and those contained in the Bible are blatantly false and the resulting narratives and arguments that come out of this falsehood are then built on a foundation of quicksand.

Besides the already-bad-enough-problem of taking the entire Biblical story out of context and turning it on its head to suit his radical agenda, the other major problem with Mr. Obama’s “Tower of Babel” moment is the tendency by this president to ascribe his own will as intertwined with the will of God. In the past presidents have invoked God’s will as a guiding force in their particular governing philosophy or their desire to promote or defend freedom. They have not typically associated the will of God with a specific policy position outside of moral issues that have direct foundational support in the scripture. As an example, President Bush didn’t attempt to push his tax cuts by declaring that God willed America to have lower tax rates, or ram through the first bailout bill with a conference call to pastor’s asking them to push the policy as an example in their sermons. He did, however, often make appropriate allusions to God when dealing with the sanctity of human life and the divine mandate for freedom and human rights when dealing with the war on terror. Similarly, President Reagan incorporated his faith in his lifelong fight against Communism, a type of government that crushed religious freedom and demeaned human life.

Those of us on the right have no problem with our leaders being men and women of faith. The left, however, begins spewing anti-Christian bigotry the second George Bush mentions Jesus as his favorite philosopher, or when Sarah Palin or Ronald Reagan speak of God’s hand in their public and personal lives (again with no specific policy proposals attached.) So afraid of the crazed Christians are the left, that our own resident “Big Sister” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been warning against the evils of pro-life and Bible-believing Christians while ignoring Muslim terrorists at all costs. In fact, Christians are often made to be the moral equivalent of deranged Muslim terrorists hellbent on killing as many “infidels” as they can. Hollywood and the liberal governing majority scoff at religious folks, belittle our intelligence, question our integrity, and do everything they can to dehumanize and discredit us and our God in the eyes of the general public.

Yet, when Mr. Obama repeatedly asserts that God’s divine plan is for America to have socialized medicine, one can hear the proverbial crickets chirping on the left. To the left, Obama’s repeated attempts to position himself as our own personal Messiah or modern-day prophet is just another brilliant “leg-tingling” truth dripping like honey from the lips of “the one we have been waiting for.”

Nestled in the midst of an otherwise appropriate speech, Mr. Obama’s TelePrompters have once again given us a telling glimpse of the man’s core and why he won’t abandon his socialist dreams to assure his re-election the way President Clinton did during the 1990s. Obama is a true believer in the government-centered life. Healthcare is but a first step to a paradigm shift in American government that will take the fundamental rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” from being placed directly in the hands of the people by their Creator, to being a commodity to be collected, regulated, and redistributed by the government as it sees fit.

One can only pray that Obama’s “Tower of Babel” never gets past the planning stages.