Obama Rolls Up His Sleeves And Shows He Is Hiding Nothing

A few days ago, conservative radio talk show host Jay Severin connected the dots on a recent item that was in the news.  On January 28, 2009, a New York Times article reported:

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.  

“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.” [Note 1.]

No doubt Axelrod hoped that all would end with his cute and folksy quip, but Severin would not let the matter be dismissed with a wink - nor would TimesWatch, which also picked up on the point.  Severin insightfully tied the Axelrod quote with one of the remarks that Barack Obama made while he was campaigning last year: “We can’t drive our SUV’s and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”  [Note 2, emphasis mine.]

Of course, I completely agree with Severin’s identification of this as blatant hypocrisy on the part of the President; evidently, President Obama thinks that the sacrifices he imposes upon others do not apply to himself.  However, I do not think that the hypocrisy itself is what ought to be emphasized.  Though true, it obscures the more fundamental point: that Obama’s original comment reveals an explicitly evil perspective, one that is hostile to liberty and human life as such.  Attacking President Obama for the hypocrisy of his statement is a diversion; it implicitly suggests that it is the hypocrisy that is egregious, not the statement itself. 

I am glad that Severin and TimesWatch dug up Mr. Obama’s old “SUV” comment, for it is one that we must keep in the front of our minds.  It is an astonishingly brazen threat aimed at Americans.  Its meaning is this: “You Americans cannot enjoy what you have earned as free people in peaceful association - not while there are others in the world who have earned neither freedom nor its benefits.  They don’t like it... and I don’t like it.” 

The sinister nature of this seems to have been missed by most Americans - partly because Mr. Obama rarely lets his rancor show through as he did here, preferring to dilute his agenda with charming and American-sounding lip-service to freedom - but it is nonetheless right there on the surface.  Like most threats to freedom, the threat represented by President Obama in particular and the political left in general is overt.  (Likewise, the threat to freedom from the political right, no less serious than that of the left, is plain to see.)  Contrary to popular conspiracy theories, freedom is not perishing at the hands of covert CIA operatives, secret societies, “torturers” in hidden detention centers, or neo-conservatives whispering in smoke-filled rooms.  The enemies of freedom publish their plans.  Threats are clear for all who care to look.  During the Bush administration, nothing was mysterious; we need not look past the boastings of “compassionate conservatism” to fathom the faith-based policies, a sacrificial and inept foreign policy, and uncontrolled spending and regulation.  Similarly, we have only to take Mr. Obama at his word to see him as an enemy of our liberties.  If he is hypocritical from time to time, that is irrelevant.  What matters are his explicit promises to convert our military from a fighting force to “humanitarian” ambassadors, exploit the financial crisis to redistribute wealth according to his progressive agenda, further establish health care as a “right” that should be provided by the government, surrender industrial civilization to the environmentalists, and on and on.   

According to the Times article I quoted above, we are bound to see President Obama frequently rolling up his sleeves as he works.  Let us take this opportunity to note, once and for all, that he is hiding nothing up those sleeves.  We need only pay attention to what he says and does.

NOTES

1.  “White House Unbuttons Formal Dress Code,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times, 28 Jan 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29whitehouse.html?scp=6&sq=stolberg%20obama&st=cse.

2.  “Obama Camp Spies Endgame in Oregon,” Google News, 16 May 2008.