Posted by
Patrick Henry on Wednesday, April 07, 2010 6:14:50 PM
Like any character who considers himself the center of the universe and can't make even
the briefest of speeches without using the personal pronoun at least 27 times, Barack Obama
is a man around whom a great many stories and legends have sprung up. Periodically, the
most outlandish of these require de-bunking so that the nation's historical narrative does not
end up reading like a darker version of Gulliver's travels. Thus, we demythologize.
Myth #1: Barack Obama is a Muslim. Now this is a fiction propagated by some who dislike
the chosen one, who know little or nothing about Islam and who can't seem to discern the
difference between a practicing Muslim and a Muslim sympathizer. Good Muslims pray
five time daily. Obama doesn't. He gets his prayers sent to his BlackBerry by a staff member.
I suppose he thinks God would be offended by his teleprompter. Good Muslims give a
substantial and regular percentage of their income to the poor and needy. Not Obama.
Public records show that he gives less than 2% of his income to worthy causes. The
distinctions go on and on, leading to the conclusion that if Obama is a Muslim, he is a
very poor one indeed. He can't help it that his father was a Muslim, or that he bears a
Muslim name. He didn't get a choice in any of that. Continuing to argue that he is a Muslim
in the face of all the evidence simply makes one look silly. So put a sock in it! Now if you
want to argue that he is a Muslim sympathizer, then that's another matter.
Myth #2: Obama is not a natural born American citizen. He could lay this one to rest
himself if he would just order the state of Hawaii to release a photocopy of his original
vaulted birth certificate. Instead, he has dispatched an army of lawyers to be sure that never
happens. Why? Who knows? You don't! And unless you have the magic key to that vault
or the messiah suddenly decides to indulge the skeptics, you never will. In any case, whatever
it was that he presented to the election commission seemed to satisfy their requirement, so
it's moot, over, done, finished. Let it go! Birthers are entitled to their opinion, but it's an
opinion formed in a vacuum of information, a myth.
Myth #3: Obama will bring America and the world together. If you look around you will
see that quite the reverse is happening. He and the village idiot he appointed secretary of
state have managed to insult three allies (Britain, Israel and Canada) in a single month,
renege on a promise to others (Poland and the Czech Republic)) and hector the president of Afghanistan into threatening to resign and join the Taliban. Pretty impressive stuff, eh? And instead of bridging the racial divide at home, he has broadened it by dropping charges against already convicted New Black Panther voter intimidators, first enlisting the help of and then ignoring the criminal behavior of ACORN and dispatching his horde of leftist minions to denounce all who
oppose his tax-and-spend policies as racists. He has jammed through shady legislation
that the electorate did not favor (healthcare reform), persisted in a policy toward terrorists
that even members of his own party resent (close Gitmo, try terrorists in civilian court,
read detained terrorists Miranda rights, etc.) and bowed and scraped before virtually
every America-hating dictator in the world. A true uniter. Not!
Myth #4: Being sworn in on Abe Lincoln's bible guaranteed Obama's honesty in office.
Ha! He makes George W. Bush, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton look like little league
fibbers. It would take paragraphs to list the mind-boggling catalogue of bald-faced whoppers
he's peddled since campaigning for and being elected president. But let's boil it down to what
one blogger called his "defining lie." That is the argument that the healthcare reform bill is
actually "middle of the road," will contain costs, benefit everyone and not drive up the
deficit. Stand in front of a mirror, look yourself directly in the eye and repeat that without
biting your tongue or bursting into hysterical laughter if you can.
Myth #5: Barack Obama is the smartest president we've ever had. How smart is it to continually spend money you don't have, slap your allies and cater to your enemies, publish policies that
tell potential enemies you'll never use your most powerful weapons against them and press for
legislation the people who elected you say they don't want? There is a difference between
political cunning used to manipulate, and wisdom born of understanding and moderation. Obama
has a wealth of the former and none of the latter. Yet the NY Times keeps saying he's smart.
I guess we know what that makes them.
These are popular myths as compared with the outright lies fabricated by Democrats about
their leader. Most of those have been or soon will be discredited by the facts. Meanwhile,
we can all take comfort in the maxim that we should believe none of what we hear, and
only some of what we see.