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Rich Lowry

Obama’s re-founding of America

He presented his agenda as the logical consequence of the Declaration of Independence’s enunciation of the equality of all men and our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For Obama, that means equal-pay legislation, gay marriage, and amnesty for illegal immigrants. He included a long passage on the necessity of fighting climate change with transformative energy policies. “That’s what will lend meaning,” he said, “to the creed our fathers once declared.” (One wonders what Thomas Jefferson would have made of the argument that his handiwork is meaningless absent federal subsidies for the likes of Solyndra.)…

All in all, it was a brazen performance, as audacious in intent as it was banal in its expression. He used the Founders’ authority to advance an expansive conception of American government that would have been unrecognizable to them. Amid the pomp and the circumstances, Republicans should have heard a direct challenge. The president did them, and everyone else, the favor of enunciating the battle lines and the stakes of the fights to come.

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Back in the USSA!!!

abobo on January 22, 2013 at 6:24 PM

America didn’t need re-founding – it needs to go back home.

OldEnglish on January 22, 2013 at 6:28 PM

He used the Founders’ authority to advance an expansive conception of American government that would have been unrecognizable to them.

Yep.

Bmore on January 22, 2013 at 6:38 PM

Barky destroyed America and founded the American Socialist Superstate, helped along by Benedict Roberts and his flying circus logic.

All that’s left is a national divorce so that decent Americans can rid ourselves of any attachment to the America-haters who support the Indonesian and the rise of a retarded Sukarno clone on American soil.

ThePrimordialOrderedPair on January 22, 2013 at 6:41 PM

Lowry, don’t give him credibility by calling it re-founding. He’s wishcasting and lying and using every propaganda trick in the book.

Transfer is one when he invokes the Founder’s blessing on his schemes to destroy what they built: “Transfer carries the authority, sanction, and prestige of something respected and revered over to something else in order to make the latter acceptable.”

Card Stacking is another: ““Card stacking” occurs when the propagandist selects and omits facts, distorts information, under- and over-emphasizes, confuses, and uses every deceptive device available to “stack the cards” against the truth.”

INC on January 22, 2013 at 6:45 PM

All in all, it was a brazen performance, as audacious in intent as it was banal in its expression.

Great line. Obama, the audacity of banality.

He used the Founders’ authority to advance an expansive conception of American government that would have been unrecognizable to them.

Obama misquotes/misinterprets the Constitution and the Bible both in service of his Leftist vision. “I am my brother’s keeper” and “caring for the least of these” to argue in favor of government spending on social programs. And now, big government as the vehicle to achieve the promise of the Constitution?

IMHO, Obama is clueless about the Bible’s spiritual message and the Founder’s intentions.

Paul-Cincy on January 22, 2013 at 6:47 PM

This gives Obama way too much credit. Obamaism is as real and meaningful as Beyonce’s faked rendition of the national anthem.

RedRedRice on January 22, 2013 at 6:50 PM

All in all, it was a brazen performance, as audacious in intent as it was banal in its expression.

I wonder if Lowry had the phrase “the banality of evil” in mind here. It certainly fits. Yes, Obama is a powerful orator. But when he’s try to sell us Big Government, there’s no way to make it touch people’s hearts. It’s lifeless, authoritarian … and just evil, and people know it. As Obama alluded to about Palin, “you can put lipstick on a pig … but it’s still a pig”. President Obama, your Big Government vision is the real pig in the house, not Sarah Palin.

Paul-Cincy on January 22, 2013 at 6:53 PM

Great glad to hear it…if he is refounding it we’ll just leave after you dissolve the old one.

You do not get it media and left we are not all going to cheerfully follow you down this rabbit hole.

harlekwin15 on January 22, 2013 at 7:49 PM

I liked this part:

“progress does not compel us to settle centuries long debates about the role of government for all time.”

Hey, Barry, the debate about the role of the federal government was settled here when the U.S. Constitution was ratified. We the people decided and agreed that the federal government would have limited powers. The debate was settled, and your side lost.

But Obama believes that the Founders were just a bunch of racist white dudes, and that the constitution they created was fundamentally “flawed” because it failed to grant the federal government the power to enact the progressives’ vision of a big-government, nanny-state utopia.

So the progressives decided to use every dirty trick in the book to make an end run around the constitution — from court-packing schemes, to massive electoral fraud, to just flat-out lying through their teeth to the public.

Thus we reach the point where we have the nauseating spectacle we saw yesterday, in which a modern-day “progressive” places his hand on the Bible and swears an oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution that he’s been wiping his azz with for the past four years.

AZCoyote on January 22, 2013 at 8:02 PM

We had a good run.

WisCon on January 22, 2013 at 8:59 PM