The Washington Free Beacon has put together a video montage of Obama using his catchphrase, “it’s not who we are” 46 times.

The video editor, David Rutz, observes:

Not unlike his warning to political opponents that they may be on the “wrong side of history,” the expression is useful in its ability to shut down conversation and seize a moral high ground, however imaginary.

Obama has deployed the term to convince the country of his rightness on immigration, Obamacare, education, national security and not voting for Mitt Romney, among other important issues to his presidency.

I don’t recall him using it a 47th time after the San Bernardino slaughter, though his statement seemed to suggest the actual victims were the terrorists, who had magically, mysteriously (Islam not mentioned) become radicalized, suggesting it was somehow our fault.  

Since there is little flexibility in his thinking, “not who we are” is likely to be used even more to delegitimize his opponents as his term in office runs down, his popularity sinks, and he becomes ever more desperate to stifle mounting criticism.

No matter how many times it’s used, it is a weak debate trick to muzzle his opponents by suggesting that no true American could possibly disagree with his point of view.

Allow me to turn the tables and point out some of the multiple instances when Obama’s actions are not what we are. I know there are many others, but these stand out in my mind right now.

1. Dissing Allies and embracing Enemies

If you're a Brit, your head is spinning. It's not just the personal slights to Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- the ridiculous 25-DVD gift, the five refusals before Brown was granted a one-on-one with The One.

Nor is it just the symbolism of Obama returning the Churchill bust that was in the Oval Office. Query: If it absolutely had to be out of Obama's sight, could it not have been housed somewhere else on U.S. soil rather than ostentatiously repatriated?

Perhaps it was the State Department official who last year denied there even was a special relationship between the United States and Britain, a relationship cultivated by every U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt.

And then there was Hillary Clinton's astonishing, nearly unreported (in the United States) performance in Argentina last month. She called for Britain to negotiate with Argentina over the Falklands.

Instances of his disrespect for Israel are legion. Here’s but one example:

It appears that someone in the administration is trying to preempt Prime Minister Netanyahu’s criticism of an imminent and highly problematic deal with Iran that will guarantee the Islamic Republic’s position as a threshold nuclear power,” the official said. “It is a transparent attempt to discredit the messenger instead of dealing with the substance of his criticism.”

The November 24 deadline for talks between the world powers and the Islamic Republic is looming, and Jerusalem has voiced concern that the Iranians may be allowed to retain nuclear threshold capabilities.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on Tuesday quoted a senior official as saying about Netanyahu, “The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit.”

The good thing about Netanyahu is that “he’s scared to launch wars,” Goldberg quoted the official as saying.

[snip]

Goldberg, considered well connected in the White House, said that over the years Obama administration officials have described the prime minister as “recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous and Aspergery.

2. Repeated unconstitutional acts.

Two years ago at Forbes Ilya Shapiro noted the 10 top such acts. Since then there have been more.

hapiro’s list notes these: Delay of Obamacare’s out-of-pocket caps; Delay of ObamaCare’s employer mandate; Delay of Obamacare’s insurance requirements; Exemption of Congress from Obamacare; Expansion of the employer mandate penalty through IRS regulation; Political profiling by the IRS; Outlandish Supreme Court arguments: Recess appointments; Assault on free speech and due process on college campuses.

Most of these transgressions are self-explanatory or well-publicized, but you might have now forgotten or overlooked the Supreme Court arguments to which Shapiro refers. Let his explanation refresh your recollection: “Between January 2012 and June 2013, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the Justice Department’s extreme positions 9 times. The cases ranged from criminal procedure to property rights, religious liberty to immigration, securities regulation to tax law. They had nothing in common other than the government’s view that federal power is virtually unlimited. As a comparison, in the entire Bush and Clinton presidencies, the government suffered 15 and 23 unanimous rulings, respectively.”

3. Constant executive branch overreaching.

In addition to the unconstitutional actions of the president, he has engaged in numerous acts of overreaching. The Committee for Justice lists 25 such acts. In addition to those noted by Shapiro, this publication reminds us of these: refusal to build a fence along the Mexican border as required by law; authoring over 21 executive orders that restrict 2d Amendment rights; the administration’s Fast & Furious Operation, which clearly was designed to create gun crimes and further erode the Constitutional right of citizens to bear arms -- and failure to dismiss Eric Holder when his attorney general refused to testify before Congress about it and was held in contempt; overreaching regulations and mandates by his EPA, Department of Justice, IRS, FCC, EEOC, Department of Energy, and department of Interior. Some of the most serious wrongdoing includes:

18.Without Congressional approval, Obama gutted the work requirement for welfare recipients passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

19. In the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, Obama illegally shortchanged bond holders in favor of Labor Unions, despite U.S. bankruptcy laws that specify that bond holders be first in line to be paid back.

20.Eager to use the killing of Osama bin Laden for political gain, Obama exposed the identity and method of operation of the Navy SEALs team that conducted the operation in Pakistan, thus exposing its members to a lifetime of risk because they have been targeted for assassination by Islamists. A short time after Obama exposed the Navy SEALs' method of operation, 22 SEALs were shot down and killed in Afghanistan. It is a violation of law for the President or any American to reveal classified military secrets.

21.President Obama established an extra-constitutional top secret "kill list" of people (including Americans) who can be summarily killed on sight – presumably by drones -- without due process. Once on Obama's kill list, an American citizen can be targeted and executed on the opinion of a single government bureaucrat. That's not how our legal system is supposed to work.

22.Obama Administration officials twisted the arms of defense contractors to not issue layoff notices in October of 2012 so as to avoid causing bad news for Obama right before the election -- even though federal law (the "WARN Act") requires such notices. Not only is this a violation of the WARN Act, it's also an unlawful use of federal officials for campaign purposes.

24.President Obama intervened militarily in Libya in 2011 without the Congressional approval required by the War Powers Act.

23.Obama knowingly lied to Congress and the American people about the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya. The president and his representatives repeatedly said an anti-Islamic video sparked a spontaneous uprising in Libya that resulted in the killings even though Obama knew that the attack was a well-planned military-style assault by al Qaeda on the anniversary of September 

I’d add to this lengthy list his inexplicable trade of a Bergdahl, a deserter, for 5 known jihadis in Gitmo, an act which endangers all of us and undercuts military discipline when we most need it. And don’t forget, as we go to press Secretary Kerry is negotiating a climate change agreement which has no Congressional approval, even though treaties must be approved by it, in the same way he negotiated a one-sided unsigned deal with Iran which was never received Congressional approval.

4. In his public actions he has undermined the rule of law.

For example, jumping in prematurely on the side of Trayvon Martin, Professor Gates, Black Lives Matter protestors, Michael Brown, and others, including Clock Boy, before the facts which exonerated the police actions were known.

5. He has honored thugs and ignored victims of racial and terrorist violence.

Even in his honorific role, he has expressed contempt for most of America. To give but two examples:

President Obama did not send a White House representative to attend the memorial Mass on Sunday for James Foley, the American journalist beheaded by the Islamic State militants.

The president did, however, send three White House aides on Monday to attend the funeral for Michael Brown, the 18-year-old black male who was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, CNS News reported.

He continues this pattern by not sending a single representative to San Bernardino to meet with the victims’ families or to participate in any memorial there. Instead his attorney general warned of a backlash against Moslems (which has not occurred) and threatened in vague terms the First Amendment rights of those who spoke out against Moslems. Members of his party went to a radical mosque in the DC area to show their support for Moslems

"The Democrats set to attend include Reps. Don Beyer (D., Va.), Joseph Crowley (D., N.Y.), Betty McCollum (D., Minn.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D., D.C.), and several Virginia state lawmakers, according to the New York Times."

To really rub it in, the head of Homeland Security held a press conference with an Imam linked to the Moslem Brotherhood and Hamas.

6. He has gone out of his way to insult the religious sensibilities of traditional Christians and Jews.

He has done so in every way at his disposal -- from regulations on ObamaCare to ceremonial functions -- even turning the annual Hanukah celebration at the white House into a pro-Moslem event. 

Consider the fact that Obama’s inaugural address abroad was “A New Beginning,” delivered in Cairo in 2009 – a contrite appeal to the Muslim world for forgiveness and for partnership. Go back and listen as Obama waxes eloquent about “hearing the call of the azaan” as a youth in Indonesia, and about the historical achievements of Islamic civilization in algebra and architecture. This is Obama speaking from the recesses of his soul.

Consider Obama’s refusal to even mutter the words “Islamic extremism” or “jihadism,” and to connect terrorism to Islam. I think that this is because Obama doesn’t believe that Western (or Judeo-Christian) civilization is any better than Islamic civilization, and thus he refuses to tar Islam with terrorism.

Speaking to the National Prayer breakfast in Washington on February 5, Obama said: “Before we get on our high horse and think this [ISIS beheadings, sex slavery, crucifixion, roasting of humans, etc.] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

This is tantamount to saying that the West is rooted in immorality, and that it is time for other, no less moral and possibly more moral, powers to emerge -- specifically, Islamic powers. It is equivalent to saying that the denouement of America and rise of an Islamic superpower will elevate world politics to a better sphere.

It is like saying that America sanctions a seismic shift in the global balance of power in favor of Islam.

Undoubtedly, Obama’s claim that this or that is not who “we are”, depends on the meaning of “we.” Maybe some smart journalist can ask him.