Fascinatingly Tortured Attempt…

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 12:03 pm by Mark Shea

Fascinatingly Tortured Attempt… 2014-12-30T12:03:22-07:00 Mark Shea

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

…by a Lefty attempting to come to grips with the fact that Obama has anointed himself a completely unaccountable tyrant with a 007 on anybody he feels like killing. This, in particular, I find amazing:

You are a good man. You are an honorable man. You are both president of the United States and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. You are both the most powerful man in the world and an unimpeachably upstanding citizen. You place a large premium on being beyond reproach. You have become your own deliberative body, standing not so much by your decisions as by the process by which you make them. You are not only rational; you are a rationalist. You think everything through, as though it is within your power to find the point where what is moral meets what is necessary.

You love two things, your family and the law, and you have surrounded yourself with those who are similarly inclined. To make sure that you obey the law, you have hired lawyers prominent for accusing your predecessor of flouting it; to make sure that you don’t fall prey to the inevitable corruption of secrecy, you have hired lawyers on record for being committed to transparency. Unlike George W. Bush, you have never held yourself above the law by virtue of being commander in chief; indeed, you have spent part of your political capital trying to prove civilian justice adequate to our security needs. You prize both discipline and deliberation; you insist that those around you possess a personal integrity that matches their political ideals and your own; and it is out of these unlikely ingredients that you have created the Lethal Presidency.

The author, one of America’s Enlightened Progressive People, somebody who so clearly considers himself just so much better than the unwashed slobs who don’t see the greatness and goodness of his set, then goes on to furrow the brow in utter bewilderment at how this reflection of his own greatness and goodness could, well, act like a tyrant and declare himself a law unto himself. It never occurs to the author to consider the possibility that a culture as marinated in pride and self-regard as his and Obama’s might actually be a hatchery for tyranny and lawlessness. It certainly never occurs to him that Obama is part of the same arrogant ruling class as the previous Administration. There is a sort strange naivete in his arrogance. He writes the whole piece, climaxing in Obama’s murder of a sixteen year old kid for the crime of being in the wrong place (a murder the Administration defines out of existence by declaring everybody we kill as an “enemy combatant”) and even records Obama turning the murder of teenagers into a joke:

You have spoken once about the drones and teenaged boys. You weren’t speaking as the Lethal President but you were referring to the Lethal Presidency. You were also making a joke. You were at the podium at the 2010 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. You welcomed the Jonas Brothers and said, “Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But boys, don’t get any ideas. I have two words for you — Predator drones. You will never see it coming.”

By the end of the piece, the author appears to be feeling his way to the dim realization that original sin might even touch, if not him, then at least his idol:

What if the next Lethal President is not as good and as honorable as you? What if he is actually cruel or bloodthirsty?

What if he turns out to be — like you, Mr. President — just a man?

No doubt this guy imagines that in supporting Obama he is choosing the “lesser of two evils”. What he, like we, are actually getting is evil. And he rationalizes it as we do with excuses and evasions about his heros good ends and fetching qualities make him an honorable man (read: “one of my tribe, and so self-evidently decent and well-intentioned”). It reminds me of nothing os much as the labors to make excuses for when Our Guy pays money to have his own grandchild slain should it turn out to be defective.

Good and decent men do not do such things. Deeply corrupt men do. And we should stop cutting both these men any slack. But we should, in particular, not cut the President slack since he actually works for us while Romney is merely applying for the job. Supine articles like this, treating a murdering tyrant wth kid gloves because he is regarded by the author as a member of the In Crowd go far to to bear out Dale Price’s wry remark that a major advantage of Romney winning would be the that press begins to do its job again instead of tremble in spaniel-like devotion before its master.

Uncategorized

State-Run Media

Previous Post

October 23, 2012

Yup

Next Post

October 23, 2012 Happy Creation Day, Bishop Ussher!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 September 2006 June 2006 July 2005 April 2005 May 2002 April 2002 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz