Given his family background - if 'family' is quite the word - I was not too suprised when practically the first thing Obama did on entering the White House was to get rid of the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Nor did I mind too much when it became clear that he despises Britain because it is a large and not very exclusive club whose members include most of the world's leaders. And anyway, why should he like this country? It is presumptious to assume otherwise. However, what has only slowly dawned on me over the past five years is that he also despises America - I was about to write 'his own country' but then I remembered that with his background America might not actually come in to that definition.
This week he chose, deliberately, to ignore the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address which stands in direct contrast to his starring role at the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. Perhaps, there were important matters of State to attend but somehow I can't help feeling that a WSJ luncheon with sundry businessmen hardly stands comparison with the celebration of Lincoln's iconic speech. I think even Bill Clinton would have recognised the difference.
I wonder when it will dawn on the American people that they have a president who actively detests his own country. Some time ago I suggested that Obama was surrounded by people whose only political desire was to bring down American society to a state of emergency because only in those chaotic conditions would they stand a chance of seizing the sort of powers they dream of. As I said a few posts down, with the passage of 'Obamacare' he and his government have, with malice aforethought, deliberately attacked and destroyed health insurance plans held by millions of Americans and have offered them nothing, that's nothing as in zero-zilch, in return. As this cruelty becomes clear there is a chance of very real trouble which, of course, will play into the hands of Obama's apparat.
"if 'family' is quite the word": one conjecture I've seen about why he is so keen to hide his background is that his parents never married, and that their divorce was a pantomime meant to imply that they had been married.
But he's also very keen to hide everything about his undergraduate record so maybe he's just an anal obsessive about privacy. But I'd bet against that last conjecture.
Posted by: dearieme | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 10:09
I don't mind him not liking us - why should he? I just wish we were led by people who made it plain they didn't like him!
Posted by: backofanenvelope | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 11:04
When all your ideological mentors describe themselves as anti-American Marxist revolutionaries, it takes an active effort of willful blindness not to see this obvious biographical detail. His first green "czar" (chuckle), Van Jones, was an avowed revolutionary who helped form one such group, STORM, which Glenn Beck exposed by posting the group's handbook online in 2010. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/41671/
Our press helped build the myth that is Obama. Their reaction to the truth revealed would be funny, if the rest of us weren't being hurt by his Alinskyite strategy to seize power at the top, foment social discontent to get the bottom to rise up, creating an atmosphere where the middle accepts extreme measures from the top to maintain order. Our political right isn't unified enough or courageous enough to do much besides point fingers and chase their own tails - no dynamic leadership anywhere in sight.
Posted by: libertybelle | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 12:30
Well, BOE, in international diplomacy it is not quite the done thing to be honest! Obama's so 'stoopid' he gives himself away.
'LB', yes, indeed, I remember the Van Jones episode. The problem is that not enough of your countrymen recognise what's going on and soon it may be too late.
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 16:43
I said very early on in the Obama presidency that he would prove to be one of the worst presidents that the US has ever had and that the US will be much the poorer at the end of his presidency than before it and so it is proving. I quickly recognized that Obama had Marxist tendencies and that he did not see himself as an American but an Afro-american (I admit to being caught up in the Obama frenzy prior to his election "yes we can" (but now we know because of him we cannot) is rather catchy after all and I applauded the fact that the good old USA was showing their tolerance credentials by supporting a black man forgetting he was a Democrat which of course should have made me see how ridiculous my support for him was) that brought with it a chip on his shoulder a Grand Canyon wide(the same statement which I wrote in a comment to an article that John Redwood MP wrote some years back which he edited out. I do not believe because he disagreed with me but it was too contentious and could be construed as racist for an MP to have on his blog site). Much damage has been done now by Obama and his government so it is no wonder that people like the TEA party are so aggrieved at the mess he has made that will have far reaching damaging consequences for a long time to come. If the damage is to be limited and then reversed the Republicans need to regain power and keep it for a long time but that appears unlikely and the path for a socialist style society along the European lines is likely to be continued to be trodden at the end of which will be a Venezuelan like society waiting for them.
Posted by: Antisthenes | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 18:56
If Obama was a white man then he would be popular. That T Party mob are as thick as the Islamists.
Posted by: Glesga | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 19:38
I just don't see it, Glesga. He beat out white opponents, including Hillary Clinton who had a fully developed health plan (unlike Obama's which was only hinted at), and then he ran against McCain, a war hero, and Romney, the designer of RomneyCare, a working, visible, state-wide health plan. And he won both times.
I don't like the Tea Party, but I wouldn't compare them to Islamists, or for that matter to Van Jones, Alinsky, Bill Ayers ...
Posted by: Dom | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 20:08
Here's how to give the benefit of the doubt to a President.
http://claytonecramer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/john-wycliffe-and-gettysburg-address.html
Personally I find it implausible that "Most of his hearers would have recognised their source", but you mustn't accuse a demigod of plagiarism.
Posted by: dearieme | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 20:12
Have you read Wycliffe's prologue? I have, at least the parts that made it on-line. You can see it here. Nothing about "of the people" there.
Volokh traced down this myth and reported "[T]hree sources ... say that they've read the whole General Prologue and can't find anything remotely similar to the government of the people ... quote."
Maybe this is the source: " ... a government of the people by the same people -- can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes." You know who said that? Abraham Lincoln, in 1861. The statement at Gettysburg was just a re-working of the same thought.
Posted by: Dom | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 21:21
There is NO such thing as "the Tea party." I am in a position to know, as I was a part of the large local grassroots effort to organize the TEA parties in Austin. Taxed Enough Already was our slogan. There are some organizations that call themselves "Tea Party this or that", but THERE IS NO Tea Party! Try to understand this. I realize that the Leftie media talk about "Tea Party", but they are simply lying. It's what they do.
Posted by: Michael Adams | Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 21:38
Antisthenes, I, too, was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt because he bounded onto the political stage from nowhere and gave every appearance of being rather cool and intelligent. In fact I suspected - and hoped - that once in office he would rein in his extreme Lefties much as Blair did over here. But of course, you never really know a leader until he's in the job - and then it is often too late.
Jimmy, do get a grip! He won two elections so there's no doubting his popularity - up until now with his train-crash health policy, that is. And the TEA party are not thick, they are simply re-acting to the wrongs (as they see it) afflicting their nation. You wait until the 'Milipede' is in power with Len MacCluskey pulling his strings and you'll soon be starting your own 'Taxed Enough Already' party!
DM, thanks for that fascinating link which took me back to Daniel Hannan's original article. However, I notice some swot commenting on the link says those words do not appear in Wycliffe's preface. I looked at it, written in very 'olde English' and immediately felt a headache coming on.
And, as Dom reminds us, great oratory usually has a variety of sources and inspirations.
Michael, pay no attention to Jimmy, someone put water in his whisky and it always makes him go off on one!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 09:07
Ok David I do like a tad of water and ice in my whisky however Obama may have won twice but that does not mean that millions more Yanks hate the N*****. Paying a bit of extra tax to look after your fellow citizens should be a pleasure and Christian duty. The T Party mob are just Islamists without beards and bombs strapped to them. Funny how even most British evangelists are right wing bible bashers. They should read THE ACTS 20, Verse 35.
Posted by: Glesga | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 11:15
"Paying a bit of extra tax to look after your fellow citizens": talk about a non sequitur.
Posted by: dearieme | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 11:35
DM, Jimmy 'Glesga', like many a socialist, always confuses ends and means!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 11:46
Jimmy, do the poor profit more by redistribution, or by the type of technological and scientific advances that are found in free market economies? Look at phones. The guy on welfare has the same phone I have. He communicates by bouncing off satellites, he travels with gps, he takes pictures and mails them, he surfs the web, etc. and they Re cheap and getting cheaper.
Why is healthcare not like that?
Posted by: Dom | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 12:36
Acts 20 v 35. In all things iI have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
Who know who gives a lot? Corporations when they compete for your business. You know who takes a lot? Governments when they tax.
Posted by: Dom | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 12:41
I haven't yet waded through Wycliffe, but I can say that "The statement at Gettysburg was just a re-working of the same thought" seems laughable to me.
Posted by: dearieme | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 13:47
"Seems laughable to me". Why?
Here is the first statement: " ... government of the people by the same people ..."
Here is the second: "... government of the people, by the people, for the people ..."
Same thought, different words. Here's a randon sample of Wycliffe:
"The literal undirstonding techith the thing don in deede,
and literal undirstonding is ground and foundament of thre goostly undirstondingis, in so myche as Austyn, in his Pistle to Vincent, and othere doctouris seyn, oonly bi the literal undirstonding a man may argue agens an adversarie."
Why would Lincoln even bother reading that?
Posted by: Dom | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 14:11
David. I am a social democrat not a dictatorial socialist or indeed fascist.
My auld man grafted his bolloks aff tae feed us. He spent time in the 30's slave camps classed as a latter day skiver. He fought the Nazis. I think he deserved the NHS healthcare and lived a long life because of it.
Healthcare is not just for the US rich and criminal mafia types it is a human right. F all tae dae with socialism.
Posted by: Glesga | Thursday, 21 November 2013 at 21:23
Mr Glesga, I am afraid that your comment suggests a lack of knowledge regarding Medicaid. Regardless of what the propaganda claims, the ACA makes no more care available, and definitely does not make it cheaper.
We do not despise it because it cares for the poor, but because it approximately doubles the cost of health care in the USA, and is, so far, increasing the number of people without health care insurance coverage. The Demagogues love to preach compassion for the poor, in aid of some new program. Census and tax figures show that Conservatives in America contribute more to charity than do the rich, both per capita and in total amounts. OTOH, the "programs to aid the poor" usually eat up approximately eighty per cent of their budgets in administrative costs. Those "administrative costs" are salaries for hordes of civil servants, who dutifully kick back a portion in political contributions to the generous politicians, who will try to bribe us again with our own money. Not wishing to be conned by corrupt political hacks is not indicative of a lack of compassion for the poor. I realized that, even when I was still a Democrat.
Posted by: Michael Adams | Friday, 22 November 2013 at 00:33
Michael A. My lack of knowledge is irrelevant. It is up to the citizens of the USA to get it right and look after their own in a humane manner irrespective of the cost. If the USA and Britain can spend billions on munitions and I think they should then they can spend billions on healthcare for all. All you have to do is overcome the greed mentality. And may your God be with you.
Posted by: Glesga | Friday, 22 November 2013 at 20:14