Saturday, November 3, 2012

The Case Against Obama


In her latest recent column, Caroline Glick makes the case against Barack Obama.

Arguing that Obama is contemptuous of certain segments of the population she is shocked to see that people who are the objects of his dismissing, demeaning, sneering contempt will still vote for him.

Glick begins with the now-famous Lena Dunham ad where Dunham compared a vote for Obama with losing one’s virginity.

After watching the ad Glick concluded that the Obama campaign was showing a misogynist contempt for women:

I've never been particularly interested in so-called "women's issues." It never seemed to me that any party or politician was particularly good or bad for me due to the way they thought of women. That all changed with the Dunham ad for Obama.

With this ad, Obama convinced me he is a misogynist.

The Obama campaign's use of a double entendre to compare sex - the most personal, intimate act we engage in as human beings, with voting - the most public act we engage in as human beings - is a scandal.

It is demeaning and contemptuous of women. It reduces us to sexual objects. When called on to vote, as far as Obama is concerned, as slaves to our passions, we make our decisions not based on our capacity for rational choice. Rather we choose our leaders solely on the basis of our sexual desires.

Beyond the ad's bald attempt to impersonalize, generalize and cheapen the most personal act human beings engage in, the ad is repulsive because it takes for granted that what happens in our private lives is the government's business.

Obama is a small man whose manly pride needs constant stoking. Thus, Glick explains, Obama has refused to debate the issues, preferring to slander his opponents and to dismiss their ideas as merely worthy of his contempt. Obviously, if Obama could prevail in a serious debate or could tolerate a loss he would act differently

Obama's bad attitude is out in force in administration policy toward Muslim Brotherhood and the rise of radical Islam in North Africa:

The fact is that the Obama campaign - and indeed, the Obama presidency - has treated the American people with unprecedented arrogance and contempt. On issue after issue, Obama and his minions have eschewed intellectual argumentation.

On issue after issue they have preferred instead to attack Obama's detractors as stupid, backwards, bigoted, bellicose and evil.

For instance, however one feels about current events in the Middle East, there is a legitimate - indeed critical - argument to be had about the nature of the Islamist forces the Obama administration is supporting from Cairo, Egypt, to Alexandria, Virginia.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the most popular movement in the Islamic world. It is also a totalitarian, misogynist, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian and anti-American movement. It seeks Islamic global supremacy, the genocide of Jewry, the subjugation of Christianity and the destruction of the United States.

There is an intellectual case to be made for appeasing these popular, popularly elected forces.

There is a (stronger) intellectual case to be made for opposing them. But rather than make any of the hard arguments for appeasing the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama administration has deflected the issue by castigating everyone who opposes its appeasement policies as racist, McCarthyite warmongers.

Finally, Glick explains, Israelis and American Jews have been special targets of Obama’s contempt:

To be sure, like every other US president, Obama has made some statements, and taken some actions, that have been supportive of Jews and of Israel. But unlike most other US presidents, he has made far more statements and taken far more actions that have been contemptuous and hostile to Israel and Jews. And this is inexcusable.

It is inexcusable that Obama uses coded anti- Semitic language to blame America's economic woes on "fat cat bankers." It is inexcusable that his secretary of state and his senior advisers have repeatedly made references to the so-called Israel Lobby to explain why America is supposedly hamstrung in its ability to sell Israel to the wolves.

It is inexcusable that Obama sends his surrogates before the cameras to refer to Israel's prime minister as "ungrateful," or to castigate Israel for permitting Jews to build homes in Jerusalem on land they own and for permitting Jews to exercise their legal rights to their property - simply because they are Jews.

Anyone who offers you counsel about the conduct of your personal life will tell you not to associate with people who treat you with contempt.

If you do not heed the warning you will be affirming your own diminished status.

Unfortunately, many of those who are objects of Obama’s contempt will still go out and vote for him:

Women will vote for him because we are dimwitted sex objects. And Jews will vote for him because we are taken in by his occasional Borscht Belt schmaltz platitudes about Hanukka.

God help us all if his contemptuous assessment of his countrymen is borne out next Tuesday.

Why do people fail to respond correctly to contempt? Perhaps they feel that they are called on to martyr themselves for a cause. If so, they are sacrificing themselves in order to ensure that Barack Obama never has to recognize how fake he really is.

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