WTF?! Obama I thought you said .. [ Insert Obama Lie Here ]

He’s a Divider, Not a Uniter…by John Allen

President Obama sold himself during the campaign as a Uniter. He was going to be post-partisan. He wasn’t going to demonize his political opponents. He was going to heal the nation and bring us together. Michelle Obama even said that he was going to “heal our souls”. Like most things with President Obama, what we were sold and what we got are two entirely different things. President Obama has turned out to be a Divider, not a Uniter.

A clear warning sign of his divisiveness came during the campaign when he told his supporters:

“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face,” he said.

Telling your supporters to argue with people and to “get in their face” doesn’t sound very presidential, but he was just a candidate back then.

Early in his Administration, however, we got a taste of the arrogance and divisiveness when he met with Republicans to discuss the stimulus package. After Republicans presented their ideas to the President, he dismissed them with an arrogant reminder that “I won”. I’m not sure how rubbing it into the faces of your political opponents by saying “I won” is a strategy for healing wounds and bringing people together but, hey, what do I know.

Then, when it was reported that the executives at AIG were scheduled to receive bonuses after receiving taxpayer bailouts Obama went in front of the cameras and made a big show out of being “outraged”. Obama’s ACORN allies promptly picked up on the signal and took it as a green light to go after the AIG execs. They loaded up ACORN members on a bus and drove to the executives homes in a show of intimidation. The AIG CEO begged congress to please not publicize the names of their executives because they had received death threats. Not once did Obama go out in front of the cameras and tell his supporters to back off and quit intimidating American citizens.

It was a similar situation when Obama came out and bad-mouthed the secured creditors of Chrysler. They were not willing to accept Obama’s restructuring of the auto company that trampled on their rights as bondholders and unjustly favored the United Auto Workers. When the secured creditors wouldn’t bend, Obama went public with his demonization of American citizens who were simply wanting their contract to be respected:

Then, with pointed anger, the president added:
I don’t stand with them. I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities. I stand with Chrysler’s management, its dealers and its suppliers. I stand with the millions of Americans who own and want to buy Chrysler cars. I don’t stand with those who held out when everybody else is making sacrifices.

Of course, just like clock work Obama’s thugs went to work:

Barack Obama’s decision to paint the hedge funds in the Chrysler case as anti-American obstructionists is prompting death threats against them.

Obama was also divisive in his remarks at a recent press conference when he, after admitting that he didn’t know all the facts, accused the Cambridge police of acting “stupidly” and then implicitly ascribed the situation to racial profiling. A President saying that police officers acted “stupidly” was not exactly a healing moment and a way to bring people together. Number one, most Americans tend to give the police the benefit of the doubt because we respect how dangerous their job is. Number two, most Americans are getting tired of being lectured about race and having everything viewed through a racial lens. I think most Americans are suffering from race fatigue.

We see the same tactics with the debate over healthcare reform. Americans have deep concerns about Obama’s plans for reforming the healthcare system. According to most polls, well over 50% of Americans oppose Obama’s plans. Some of these people have showed up at townhall meetings with their Congressional representatives to vocalize their opposition. Some of the opposition have been vocal and, maybe even rude, but most just want to voice their concern and send a message to their elected representative.

How are these Americans treated? First of all, President Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs suggests they are insurance company shills and dismisses them as the “Brooks Brothers Brigade”. The DNC releases videos and statements calling them a “mob” and “right-wing extremists”. This, of course, is suggesting that anyone who opposes Obama’s plan should just be dismissed as an extremist or part of the fringe. Nancy Pelosi suggests that the protesters are routinely showing up with Swastikas. Continuing the Nazi theme, Democratic Congressman Brian Baird said the protesters were using “brown-shirt tactics”. (Notice how comparing people to Nazi’s is OK when you are a liberal, but a huge offense if you are a conservative). Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln called the protesters “un-American“. (Notice, also, how calling people un-American is cool when you’re a liberal, but Conservatives are never, ever allowed to question anyone’s patriotism). Amid all of this nastiness, the President of the United States sits idly by in tacit approval.

A White House official even asked that citizens report to the White House any e-mails or websites that contain “disinformation” about Obamacare. Disinformation being, I suppose, any disagreement someone might have with Obama’s healthcare plan. Whatever you think of Obamacare, surely asking some Americans to snitch on other Americans is not a very unifying policy.

Did Obama ever come out and say, “Hey, let’s all just cool the rhetoric and take it down a notch. Every American has the right to speak out even if we don’t agree. Let’s respect our political opponents and we ask that they respect us”? No, of course not.

Instead, an Obama White House official instructs Democrats to “punch back twice as hard” at the opponents of Obama’s plan. Way to go. An American President encouraging his supporters to ramp up the tension instead of insisting that everyone calm down. And Obama and his fellow Democrats dispatched their union allies to go to the townhall meetings to confront (intimidate) the opposition. Whatever you read about the townhall meetings, although they were vocal and, at times, heated, there was never an incident of violence at any of them until Obama’s union thugs (SEIU) started showing up. Then, predictably, in St. Louis and Tampa Bay the union members started roughing up opponents of Obamacare.

Obama never came out and denounced the violence, or called on cooler heads to prevail or showed any leadership at all towards tamping down the emotions. Democrats always like to accuse Conservative talk-radio hosts of inciting violence against their political opponents. Well, when you are the President you have a bigger microphone and a bigger responsibility to not incite violence. Every time Obama vilifies and demonizes someone, his ACORN and union thugs know exactly what to do. They hear the dog whistle and they spring into action to intimidate, threaten and, if necessary, flex some muscle. I don’t know any other President in my lifetime that has incited people like this. He should be calming emotions, not inflaming them.

Then, yesterday, President Obama is speaking at a fundraiser and he starts off by saying this:

We are going to try to bring people together rather than push them apart. We are going to make sure that we listen to other people’s ideas.

Okay, that sounds pretty good. But then, in the exact same speech a few minutes later, he says:

“I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”

What? “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking.” What happened to “we’re going to listen to other people’s ideas”? This sounds so childlike it’s remarkable.

I had two thoughts when I heard this. First, if he doesn’t want to hear talking from the people who created this mess, then he should definitely tell Barney Frank and Chris Dodd to shut the hell up. Now. Obama shouldn’t do much talking either since he was the 2nd leading recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s political contributions in the Senate. No wonder Obama looked the other way when others tried to reform Fannie and Freddie.

Second, you can say whatever you want about President Bush, but he never said things like this. Could you imagine if, after 9/11, he had said that he didn’t want to hear Clinton and Democratic officials (like Jamie Gorelick, who instituted the “wall” between the CIA and FBI) do any talking since they created the mess by not aggressively dealing with the terrorists before 9/11. He would have been crucified in the media.

In fact, Bush was crucified in the media for being divisive and polarizing. But, he never resorted to the tactics Obama has used to demonize his political opponents. And Bush was protested and ridiculed more than Obama by many orders of magnitude. Bush and his officials, when asked about the rabid anti-war protesters, would usually say something like, “that’s the beauty of America. Everybody has the right to speak out and disagree.” But, Bush had something that Obama lacks: class.

Now, it’s no surprise that Obama is a Divider and not a Uniter. Where would he have learned to be a Uniter? In reverend Wright’s church? Maybe from deep conversations with family friend Bill Ayers (family friend is Ayers description, not mine)?

Obama routinely demonizes and mocks his opponents and inflames emotions in his supporters. That’s what community organizers do. They find some disaffected group, they rile them up and convince them that their problems are somebody else’s fault and they encourage them to vocally demand (”get in their face”) that their grievances be addressed. You don’t exactly encourage unity. In fact, when the media was describing Obama as a great Uniter and healer I was wondering what in Obama’s past ever indicated that he would be a Uniter. The answer, of course, is nothing.

Now, if the media and the liberals in this country want to say that the ends justify the means and that Obama has to be a bare-knuckled politician to get things done, then that’s fine. But, I would make two points. Number one, it does show that all of the hyperventilating about Bush being divisive and polarizing was disingenuous and simply used for political advantage. Number two, Obama was sold and promoted as the great Uniter and healer. He was supposed to bring us together.

How is that soul-healing working out for you, America?