Captions Anyone?

Ok.  What would your caption for this picture be? 

 

On the heels of yesterday's capitulation by Boehner-led House Republicans on the Homeland Security bill without any conditions, which will fund the President's illegal amnesty program for illegal immigrants, mine is:

 

"Can you believe they think I'm a Republican?"

Remembering Roe v. Wade

We remember it well.  The date is etched in every pro-life person's mind.  We know it as well as December 7, 1941 or 9/11.  January 22, 1973.  The day the Supreme Court of the United States offered its Roe v Wade decision and foisted upon America, abortion on demand.  They ignored history.  They ignored science.  They ignored morality.  And they ignored constitutional continuity.  They invented a new right.  The right to privacy.

Justice Byron White, one of two dissenting justices (William Rehnquist was the other) stated it well in his dissenting opinion:
"I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the court's judgment. The court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes."

Now, forty two years later, we have experienced over 57,000,000 deaths of unborn children as well as countless deaths of pregnant mothers at the hands of a greedy, profit-driven, money making abortion industry.  The mental anguish of women (and men) exploited by abortion and the subsequent culture of violence created by Roe is another telling hallmark of this heinous case.

Roe v. Wade made it legal to destroy a developing baby within the womb of its mother during all 9 months of pregnancy.  By sanctioning the legal killing of innocent babies, the Supreme Court also slaughtered the noble dignity of a once great nation. 

In many ways, we have accomplished much.  In my own state of Missouri, I remember occasionally picketing the abortion provider Planned Parenthood near 46th & Troost in Kansas City.  It no longer provides abortions.  Neither does Columbia; nor does Springfield.  Planned Parenthood of St. Louis if the only abortion provider in Missouri.  Just one clinic.  But one clinic too many.

Abortion is still a vibrant and functioning part of the American culture.  While most abortionists prefer to keep their trade rather private, there is still little shame on the part of many in advancing this barbarism.  The President didn't bat much of an eye in his State of Union speech on Tuesday with his smoke and mirror gobbledygook.


We still may not agree on a woman's right to choose, but surely we can agree it's a good thing that teen pregnancies and abortions are nearing all-time lows, and that every woman should have access to the health care she needs.


By "the healthcare she needs" the President means the Obamacare fiasco forcing religious entities as well as private citizens to pay for women's abortions.  And no, that is not a good thing.  It is not good for the developing baby or even the mental and physical health of the mother; it is not a good thing for person's of pro-life conscience, and it is not a good thing for our nation.

The Republican party, once the unashamed advocate for the unborn, abandoned this week, legislation that would have protected babies in the fifth to ninth months of development from the pain of an abortion.

So let us remember today.  Let us remember the decision that ended dignity in America.

President Obama's State of the Union Address

Ok.  I confess.  I watched President Obama's State of the Union Address.  I knew it would be a colossal waste of time, as well as a stressful and blood-pressure altering event.  Nevertheless, I put my mind, my patriotism and my Christian/conservative values through it.


It was rather boring.


In raw terms of speeches, it simply missed the mark totally.  It lacked just about everything a good speech should have from passionate, engaging delivery to substantive issues.  His opening was confusing.  Never mind his revisionism of the past 15 years.  Sure, we've had some devastating events, but the past decade and a half weren't all bad.  But seriously, they "dawned with terror touching our shores"?  I thought Y2K was the beginning and that 9/11 would come 21 months later.  But I suppose I'm quibbling over what "dawn" actually entails.


"But tonight we turn the page", said the President. "Tonight, after a breakthrough year for America, our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999."  I'm not sure what reality he is living in, but nothing has changed for me, my family, nor my friends.  The President would later ask

Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?

That sounds a lot like we haven't turned the page at all.  But what I'd really like to know is whether we will have an economy that gives to those who do nothing.  Whether illegal immigrants will continue to receive for free things my family cannot afford.  Whether those who choose not to work will receive benefits and entitlements at the expense of those who do work.


Additionally, the President's analogy taken from Rebekah Erler's letter that "we [Americans] are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times" is laughable.  We don't even all speak the same English language.


I suppose I've been so accustomed to the President's wealth distribution rhetoric that his vision of cheap child care and $0 tuition for community college didn't phase me (much).  And the closing of Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay prison)?  I thought he already promised he was closing it?  Albeit, it would be a huge mistake for our national security.  And that President seemed to know what the American people want and what they sent both Democrats and Republicans to Congress to do.  He seemed to forget that Americans sent Republicans to Congress in droves to stop him and his agenda.


One point did get my blood pumping just a bit.  The President scolded Congress

So let's set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline. Let's pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than thirty times as many jobs per year, and make this country stronger for decades to come.

As if the Keystone Pipeline bill would not be complex enough.  The President doesn't want a one-issue bill.  That would be too simplistic.  We could know who wants us dependent on foreign oil.  We could have a very focused debate on one issue.  But the President, who says he doesn't want politics as usual, wants politics as usual.  Create a massive bill with a massive pricetag that contains massive issues.


Let's hope the Republicans remember why they were given control of the Senate.  Of course, the best part about the evening was that we will only have to listen to one more State of the Union speech from Mr. Obama.

The Gettysburg Address

Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

When Robert E. Lee decided to invade the North in July of 1863, luring the Army of the Potomac out of Virginia, he had no idea that he would lay the foundation of the Conferacy's defeat and set up one of the most ephocal moments in American history.  Within the span of three days, names like Devil's Den, Cemetery Ridge, Little Round Top, Culp's Hill, Peach Orchard and Pickett's Charge would forever be engrained into every American history book.  And within those same three days, nearly 8,000 soldiers died and another 28,000 injured.

During that summer, the town of Gettysburg tried to recover from the massive death toll.  Judge David Wills wrote to Pennsylvania's governor about corpses that lined the streets and other unseemly situations.  “In many instances, arms and legs and sometimes heads protrude. And my attention has been called to several places, where the hogs were actually rooting out the bodies and devouring them.”

Within a few months, Wills had devised a plan for a national cemetary and invited several dignitaries to speak at a dedicatory event.  Edward Everett was the keynote speaker, with President Lincoln giving a brief remark afterwards.  In fact, his Gettysburg Address was just 272 words in length, consuming only 180 seconds of history. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln believed "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here" but he could not have been more wrong.  Those 272 words have become the best known words of American history.  Future President Teddy Roosevelt called one of the "great classics of human eloquence--of that eloquence which shows forth its human soul."  In the view of historian James McPherson, it stands as "the world's foremost statement of freedom and democracy and the sacrifices required to achieve and defend them."

At the time, many were unimpressed.  Harrisburg's Patriot & Union declared Lincoln "the jester" and stated that "whatever may be the President's virtues, he does not possess sense."

Today, President Obama created yet another stir.  Film-maker and master story-teller Kens Burns, doing a project called Learn the Address, filmed some 61 high profile Americans reading Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  President Obama omitted "under God" when reading "the nation...shall have a new birth of freedom."  Supposedly, Mr. Burns provided the White House with this version, called the Nicolay version.

Presidential Debate--2012

I’m far from a professional debater. In fact, my own last formal debate was just a tad over 20 years ago when I debated on the KU campus whether the Gulf War was a “just war”. But as a public speaker, I know what works when I hear it. And while others have given their editorials on last night’s presidential debate between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney, I have yet to hear anyone comment on what I believe to be the most poignant moment of the debate.

It was during the health care section and moderator Jim Lehrer asked Governor Romney to “tell the president directly why you think what he just said is wrong about Obamacare?”

Then Romney began thundering away:

First of all, I like the way we did it in Massachusetts. I like the fact that in my state, we had Republicans and Democrats come together and work together. What you did instead was to push through a plan without a single Republican vote. As a matter of fact, when Massachusetts did something quite extraordinary -- elected a Republican senator to stop Obamacare, you pushed it through anyway.

So entirely on a partisan basis, instead of bringing America together and having a discussion on this important topic, you pushed through something that you and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid thought was the best answer and drove it through.
What we did in a legislature 87 percent Democrat, we worked together; 200 legislators in my legislature, only two voted against the plan by the time we were finished. What were some differences? We didn’t raise taxes. You’ve raised them by $1 trillion under Obamacare. We didn’t cut Medicare. Of course, we don’t have Medicare, but we didn’t cut Medicare by $716 billion.

We didn’t put in place a board that can tell people ultimately what treatments they’re going to receive. We didn’t also do something that I think a number of people across this country recognize, which is put -- put people in a position where they’re going to lose the insurance they had and they wanted.

This, of course, is the great weakness of Obamacare. Whether you like it or not, whether you think it helps Americas or will bankrupt America, Romney was dead on with the truth. It was RAMMED through by Democrats with absolutely no...zero...nada...Republican support.

Now, a smart debater would have directed attention away from this point. The point in the debate has now narrowed to being about bi-partisan support of a national health-care proposal. I was sure the President would redirect attention away from this losing point and begin blabbering about how this system will help Americans, save us from the evil insurance companies, etc, etc. But that is not what the President did.

Amazingly, he tried to advance another piece of Obama fiction:

Governor Romney said this has to be done on a bipartisan basis. This was a bipartisan idea. In fact, it was a Republican idea. And Governor Romney at the beginning of this debate wrote and said what we did in Massachusetts could be a model for the nation.
And I agree that the Democratic legislators in Massachusetts might have given some advice to Republicans in Congress about how to cooperate, but the fact of the matter is, we used the same advisers, and they say it’s the same plan.

The president actually had a strong debate line…about Congressional Republicans taking advice from Democratic legislators in Massachusetts. It was actually a fairly strong comeback had it been delivered as a ‘zinger’. It should have been delivered by itself. Instead, it got lost in the ludicrously laughable line that Obamacare was “a bipartisan idea”. That's right. Obamacare was bipartisan. Not a single Republican vote. Not even a RINO warming up to it. But lo, and behold, it was bipartisan! Midnight meetings. Locked doors. No Republican consultations. But bipartisan...YES! President Obama is the only American I know of that thinks Obamacare was anything close to bipartisan.

The president was clearly on the defensive, trying his semantical hocus-pocus. This exchange showed it clearly. He cannot win on merits or ideas. He can only win on his charisma. And history scarily reminds us of charismatic leaders void of good ideas who get elected.

Upheld! Obamacare Will Undermine Freedom

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of what is commonly known as "Obamacare". It wasn't all that surprising.

The surprise came in that the supposed "swing vote" on the Court, that of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who sometimes sides with the liberal faction of Ginsberg and Breyer, and the new Obama appointees of Sotomayor and Kagan and sometimes with the conservative block of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts, favored repeal. Why then was the vote not 5-4 for REPEAL?

Shocker of shockers, Chief Justice John Roberts, the stalwart conservative appointed by then President Bush, cast his view in favor of constitutionality.

This, of course, demolishes one of conservativism's, especially Christian-right conservativism, greatest planks for political involvement--elect Republicans, if for no other reason than getting good judges nominated. It is often why key leaders of the Christian-right will endorse candidates they perceive have the "electability" factor over other candidates who hold viewpoints closer to their own--like Gary Bauer did in 2008 when he endorsed John McCain over Mike Huckabee. We needed the presidency to get the judicial appointments, and John McCain supposedly had a better chance of winning the presidency.

Now I will grant that winning the presidency in 2008 would have GREATLY increased the probability of a different outcome in this case. Sotomayor and Kagan would not be sitting on the bench.

I know Roberts wasn't the only vote, but for all practical purposes, the Chief Justice gave us Obamacare.

Christian conservatives often take refuge in false securities, especially when it comes to the political spheres. So when a John Roberts comes along and gets confirmed to the high court, we breathe a sigh of relief. And then comes Obamacare; well, technically National Federation of Independent Business et al. v Sebelius, Secretary Health and Human Services et al. are our hopes are shattered.

This underscores for us, that we are, both ultimately and essentially, people of faith. By that I mean our hope and trust is in the Lord. Yes, we participate in the political process, but with a knowledge that the process may very well fail to achieve the thing we desire--a just society. Even now, while we watch our freedoms disentegrate before our very eyes, we know that God is working and moving in our midst.

God is even now accomplishing His purposes through this troubling vote. The question of the hour will not be addressed by the legions of conservative journalists, pundits, radio talk show hosts and cable news programs. It will be asked quietly and revently in the hearts and minds of God's people. What is God doing with the United States of America?

The Duck Finally Quacks -- Obama Comes Clean on Homosexual Marriage

The over-used adage, “if it walks like a ducks, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck—it’s a duck”, was evidenced yesterday when our nation’s President, Barak Hussein Obama, publicly declared his support for homosexual marriage. In an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, the President said in part:

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."

The President’s position is of no surprise. He ended the military’s compromising position of “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell” which conservatives sadly adopted as a way of allowing Sodomites to continue their service as long as they didn’t publicize it. The new policy allows such persons to be public about their chosen behavior. Then the President ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, a law passed by the Congress of the United States. So yesterday’s interview, though seemingly untimely provoked by Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks the previous Sunday, were of no surprise. While he was previously hypocritical and dishonest about his views on this matter, yesterday the President finally came clean. Sadly, the President invoked his Christian faith as a key to his decision. But the Bible his faith is based upon clearly denounces the position he holds. Homosexuality is a sin to be avoided, not a lifestyle to embrace. http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/president-obama-affirms-his-support-for-same-sex-marriage.html

President Obama Continues Bias Against Jews

Morton Klein, of the Zionist Organization of America, recently bemoaned President Obama's favoritism of Islam over Judaism, saying:

Obama’s attitude towards Jews and Israel, following the latest presidential Rosh Hashanah Message, addressed strangely to “everybody,” and in which he never actually mentioned ‘Jews’ or ‘Judaism’ even once, referred to ‘Jewish tradition’ only once, and said nothing about the Jewish contribution to American life or anything else. (This is in stark contrast to President Obama’s August 2010 Ramadan Message, in which he referred to ‘Muslims’ six times and to ‘Islam’ twice, stated that “American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country,” and praised “Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings … a faith known for great diversity and racial equality”).

You can read the entire commentary here.

Republican Hypocrisy

One of the most interesting political issues that has been quietly waged is our nation’s involvement with-in-or above-Libya. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m relatively clueless about the affair. And being a semi-intelligent person, that’s part of the criticism our President is facing over his decision (and it is virtually his decision alone) to involve our nation in the overthrow of Gaddafi and his regime. Folks like myself don’t understand it.

In fact, even the Speaker of the House doesn’t understand. That’s partly why he sponsored a resolution back in June requiring the President to give his rationale.

Admittedly, the War Powers Act, which stands at the center of this controversy, is a piece of American law that is both obscure and convoluted. Every American President seems to have been criticized for “violating” it. The interesting part of this saga is that the President, who heretofore has been anti-war, is ignoring it; while Republicans, mostly in favor of using force for international conflicts, are citing it.

So I’m a bit more than cynical. I’m seeing hypocrisy in action.

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, all advised the President that he would need to scale back operations in Libya. Not liking that counsel, the President found cover in the legal opinions of White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department’s legal adviser, Harold H. Koh. Both of them argued Congress could be snubbed and the War Powers Act ignored.

At a June 16 White House brief, President Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, brought the nation’s attention to an April 28, 1999 statement Representative Boehner’s office released. Then, the issue was President Clinton’s involvement in Kosovo. Boehner said then

“The President of the United States is, and should remain, the chief architect of America’s foreign policy and the Commander-in- Chief of our armed forces. As distressed as many of us are over the Clinton Administration’s ill-conceived strategies in the Balkans, Congress must resist the temptation to take any action that would do further damage to the institution of the presidency itself. Invoking the constitutionally-suspect War Powers Act may halt our nation’s snowballing involvement in the Kosovo quagmire. But it is also likely to tie the hands of future presidents who will need the authority to lead in crises with less ambiguous implications for our national security. A strong presidency is a key pillar of the American system of government - the same system of government our military men and women are prepared to give their lives to defend.”

Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck countered by drawing attention to a statement made by Barak Obama at DePaul University in October 2007 while he was a senator.

“After Vietnam, Congress swore it would never again be duped into war, and even wrote a new law -- the War Powers Act -- to ensure it would not repeat its mistakes,” then-Sen. Obama said. “But no law can force a Congress to stand up to the president. No law can make senators read the intelligence that showed the president was overstating the case for war. No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as the co-equal branch the Constitution made it.”

If Republicans truly believed the President’s authorization of drone-led bomb attacks and an expenditure of $10 million a day constituted ‘hostilities’ the War Powers Act addressed, they should have supported the resolution by Dennis Kucinich. It called for the withdrawal of our involvement and as a “privileged” resolution it would have gone to the Senate for a vote. But Republicans supported Speaker Boehner’s tepid measure instead, allowing them, it seems to me, to criticize Obama’s involvement in Libya without really enforcing the War Powers Act.

So, the liberal Democrats, led by Kucinich, are the heroes of this saga—staying true to their anti-war convictions. Sadly, Republicans, who we often look to for the moral high ground, played the part of hypocrites.


On June 16, the House passed a Boehner resolution by 268 to 145, including 45 Democrats and all but 10 Republicans, requesting a detailed outline of the cost and scope of the operation in Libya. A stronger resolution sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), which would have required the U.S. to withdraw all its troops from Libya within 15 days, failed but was supported by 87 Republicans and 61 Democrats.

President Obama Omits God From Proclamation

Our President, Barack Hussein Obama, issued yesterday his first Thanksgiving Proclamation as America’s chief executive. He continues a long, established and worthy tradition.

However, the President has dramatically changed the nation’s focus. “As we gather once again among loved ones, let us also reach out to our neighbors and fellow citizens in need of a helping hand.” In the early days of American history, thanksgiving wasn’t about turkey dinners and neighborly kindness. It was about worshipping God and giving Him thanks for His blessings to us.

In fact, America's first thanksgiving proclamation, issued by Plymouth colony Governor William Bradford in 1623, ordered citizens to participate in a 3 hour worship service.

Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.

President Obama does indicate thanksgiving is to be directed to someone, but it is for“the contributions of Native Americans, who helped the early colonists survive their first harsh winter and continue to strengthen our Nation.” So God is out and the coastal indians are in.

Granted, Obama isn’t the first recent President to move our focus from God to each other, but I believe he is the first to omit any personal reference to God. Sure, the word “God” does appear once in his proclamation, but it is from a quotation from George Washington. Sadly, the President’s proclamation is befitting of this new age in which America finds itself.

The President also fails as a history teacher. According to the President, Abraham Lincoln “established our annual Thanksgiving Day to help mend a fractured Nation in the midst of civil war.” Wrong! Abraham Lincoln established it to give thanks to God. It wasn’t about the “mend of a fractured nation” at all. It was about acknowledging God.

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

What began as a harvest celebration between European settlers and indigenous communities nearly four centuries ago has become our cherished tradition of Thanksgiving. This day's roots are intertwined with those of our Nation, and its history traces the American narrative.

Today, we recall President George Washington, who proclaimed our first national day of public thanksgiving to be observed "by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God," and President Abraham Lincoln, who established our annual Thanksgiving Day to help mend a fractured Nation in the midst of civil war. We also recognize the contributions of Native Americans, who helped the early colonists survive their first harsh winter and continue to strengthen our Nation. From our earliest days of independence, and in times of tragedy and triumph, Americans have come together to celebrate Thanksgiving.

As Americans, we hail from every part of the world. While we observe traditions from every culture, Thanksgiving Day is a unique national tradition we all share. Its spirit binds us together as one people, each of us thankful for our common blessings.
As we gather once again among loved ones, let us also reach out to our neighbors and fellow citizens in need of a helping hand. This is a time for us to renew our bonds with one another, and we can fulfill that commitment by serving our communities and our Nation throughout the year. In doing so, we pay tribute to our country's men and women in uniform who set an example of service that inspires us all. Let us be guided by the legacy of those who have fought for the freedoms for which we give thanks, and be worthy heirs to the noble tradition of goodwill shown on this day.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 26, 2009, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all the people of the United States to come together, whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place where family, friends and neighbors may gather, with gratitude for all we have received in the past year; to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own; and to share our bounty with others.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

Now contrary to the President’s thinking, thanksgiving doesn’t have a “spirit [that] binds us together as one people”. Thanksgiving and gratitude is more than “FOR” something. It is “TO” someone. Who is responsible for plenty? For freedom? At this point, America’s are divided. Folks like me, say these blessings come from God. I’ll heed the words of Psalm 95

1 O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
3 For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.
5 The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

I know this post borders on complaining which seems contradictory to Thanksgiving. But if Emanuel Clever happens to read this post, it isn’t yet Wednesday!

Wilson's Outburst "YOU LIE!"

I’m sure not whether Representative Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) should have apologized for his outburst of “You lie!” during President Barrack Hussein Obama’s address Wednesday to the joint session of Congress. Specifically, the President was ticking down supposed “lies” of detractors of his socialistic, government controlled health-care plan. When the President said his plan wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants, Wilson responded and a whole new sage unfurled.

Time Magazine called it “the heckle heard ‘round the world.”

Rep. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, stated: "I thought the governor [Mark Sanford] had embarrassed us enough, but Mr. Wilson has gone even lower."

In a CNN interview following the Joint Session, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Wilson's outburst was "totally disrespectful -- [there's] no place for it in that setting or any other and he should apologize immediately." "

I was embarrassed for the chamber and a Congress I love," Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America." "It demeaned the institution."

And on and on and on go the quotes, pundits, side-stories and rants.

I can’t help wondering myself whether Mr. Wilson crossed the line. But that wondering has gotten lost in other feelings that protrude more strongly into my being.

The first is the hypocrisy. Do you remember the President’s address. During the controversial section when the frustrated South Carolinian blasted forth, President Obama said

Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible.It is a lie, plain and simple [my emphasis].

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.

I suppose one could argue that the President, in those two paragraphs, a) didn’t direct his accusation to any one specifically, only the generic “it” is a lie; and b) used more innocuous language like “bogus claims” “a charge…cynical and irresponsible” “false” and “misunderstanding”. But I think it’s quite clear the President was calling these detractors “liars”.

So, is it acceptable for the President to call “prominent politicians” liars if he doesn’t do it directly? Is that what this controversy is about? That it was the President’s speech and his time to do what he wanted? There is some truth to that in my mind. But the vitriol that’s out there against Wilson seems to overlook the President was doing the same.

Second, and I only have my memory, but Democrats were very disrespectful to President Bush during his several of his speeches. For example, here’s ABC Nightline host Ted Koppel with his round table guests following President Bush’s February 2, 2005 State of the Union address:

“When the president talked about the bankruptcy of Social Security, there were clearly some Democrats on the floor who thought that that was taking it too far. And they did something that, apparently, no one at this table has ever heard before. They booed." [ABC, Nightline, 2/2/05]

I won’t take the time (right now anyway) to show just how President Obama is lying. Ooops, strike that…of how President Obama is enunciating verbage that may not best reflect what some perceive as the reality of a truthful outcome of his health care proposal. But here’s just one quick grab for “Exhibit A”:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

--BARACK OBAMA

Go here for the video.

"I have not said that I was a single payer supporter...."

--BARACK OBAMA
on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 in a town hall meeting in New Hampshire

In the end, Representative Wilson’s outburst was unfortunate because it deflected attention away from Obama’s true lies. The President is intentionally trying to mislead the American people to embrace this nightmare.