Looking back at Obama: Tony Blankley
Looking back, I am impressed by this column written by Tony Blankley right after Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, one very long/short year ago. It seems to have been keenly prescient.
Note particularly the final sentence of the final paragraph:
[Obama demonstrates] a conscious intent to deceive in order to diffuse opposition to his designs until it is too late to block them. Ronald Reagan never hid his policy intentions from public view. Neither, in fairness, did Lyndon Johnson or Walter Mondale or Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi.
A politician who will not sail under his own flag sails, in effect, against all flags. Such a strategy may, in time, undercut his support from increasingly suspicious progressives, liberals, moderates and conservatives — once they recognize the deception.
[NOTE: Here’s a little known fact from Mr. Blankley’s bio:
Born in London and a naturalized American citizen, Mr. Blankley and his family moved to Los Angeles after World War II. Young Tony found work as a child actor in television and films, first encountering Mr. Reagan when both appeared at a 1950s-era USO performance. In years that followed, he volunteered to work on all of Mr. Reagan’s campaigns for governor and president.]
Related, and very interesting:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/02/b-cast-interviews-dr-john-c-drew-was-obama-a-committed-marxist-in-college/
Wolla Dalbo recommended this 40 minute interview with Dr. John Drew, who knew Obama when both were committed Marxists, when Obama was a student at Occidental and Drew was an Occidental graduate and a grad student at Cornell. It puts Obama’s “seek out Marxists” statement in Dreams in another context.
Since it is long, I recommend that you do some chores while you listen to it. But listen to it.
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/02/b-cast-interviews-dr-john-c-drew-was-obama-a-committed-marxist-in-college/
You know what’s a particularly disgusting phrase Obama uses constantly, when he’s lying about how the deficit is all George Bush’s fault: “when I first walked through the door…”
What’s so repulsive about it, is how perfectly it demonstrates Obama’s shameless lying and refusal to take responsibility for anything at all: “I just showed up and there was this big mess, and even though I’ve taken all sorts of actions of my own, the mess was there to begin with, therefore all my actions were only taken for that reason” — in effect, he’s saying that Bush, by taking X, Y, or Z actions when he was president, not only took *those* actions, but is in fact taking further actions in perpetuity, by proxy though Obama, even though he’s not actually doing anything but is back on his ranch in Texas.
By such logic, it really *is* all Bush’s fault; Obama’s just a placeholder. And yet, the crazy thing is, though he bears and will bear no responsibility for anything that goes wrong as a result of this domino chain set off by Bush, Obama has every right to take credit should the situation turn around.
He’s like a surgeon called in to operate on a hopelessly damaged patient: as the person is expected to die, no matter who’s called in to operate, if he or she dies, if despite the surgeon’s best efforts the patient goes into cardiac arrest or bleeds to death, we cannot blame the surgeon, who is only there to help. And yet, if the patient lives, if the operation is a success, the surgeon will be hailed as a miracle-worker: Thank God we called Dr. X and not Dr. Y!
Gringo,
Long but totally worth it.
Some of us were never fooled.
JR Dogman: (re your comment of 4:46) It’s even worse than that. In this case, Dr. Obama was actually assisting during part of the previous operation. He was a Senator from 2004 on, and he voted for some of the things he’s criticizing now.
Gringo,
I listened too. Very interesting. I always assumed that Obama had Marxist leanings, like a lot of college students. But it’s news that he was such a committed Marxist, and such a credulous one. Also; I found it fascinating that black solidarity wasn’t particularly important to him. He was a pretty pure ideologue, and still is.
And that photo gallery of the young dude-ish Obama in the straw hat and the $80 shirt. Didn’t you just want to punch him, the pretentious little punk?
I don’t hear much from Tony Blankley lately, but he is an excellent commentator. I am sure he is writing and speaking somewhere, but I wish he would become more visible to the mainstream. (Although looking at his wardrobe, many people may write him off as a clown.)
The quote that Neo cites sums it all up very well. Politicians who honestly state their intent can be considered honorable, after a fashion, even if their intent is less so. The basic purpose of elections is to choose between political philosophies. Secondary purposes are to choose the candidate with the best looks, most impressive speaking voice and proven ability to read a teleprompter convincingly. But, notwithstanding all other considerations, those who disguise their intent through lies are only disgusting.
neo,
You’re right — it is worse.
But then it pretty much always is, with this character.
I wonder if the average Obama-voter — I mean normal Americans, who had to be conned into voting for him, the kind who think the Democrats are still the party of JFK — is watching as much news as they used to.
That is, I wonder if they can bear it. After all, you can only deny what is as plain as the nose on your face for so long, before it becomes too uncomfortable to stand.
Right?
Seems to me the dynamic that set up this scenario was the relentless bashing by MSM of Obama’s predeccessor. Too many people depend on the press to tell them what they’re experiencing.
Think about how your own perceptions of people have been built around MSM’s slant. For all i know Leonna Helmsley and Martha Stewart might be decent people. I now think they probably are (or were) considering who bashed them relentlessly.
Obama’s speech contained this little number:
> We remain a young nation,
We are a “young” nation, but it is particularly insightful to grasp that we are an old government. Indeed, of all the major nations of earth (i.e., excluding places like Lichtenstein, perhaps) The US Government is currently the oldest one on the planet.
Every single other major government has undergone at least one revolution or major restructuring since 1789. Since that year, even Britain has gone from a true monarchy to a constitutional, parliamentary, figurehead monarchy. Some “nations” (Italy, Germany) did not exist, except perhaps very vaguely, in their current form at all. Others have undergone substantial, if not multiple, revolutions (France, China, Russia, to say nothing of the South American nations).
Other nations should not be our guide — We are the elder patriarch of nations, when it comes to governmental systems.
We should not look to them for How to Rule — they should be looking to us to figure out how we managed to be so stable for so long.
Remember that, the next time you encounter someone looking elsewhere for justification for “how things ought to be done”. The best insights will come from looking at the decisions and arguments made by and for our Founding Fathers — The Federalist Papers should be required reading in schools, instead of completely ignored.