The malignancy of Barack Obama’s narcissism was on full display yesterday at the memorial service for five ambushed Dallas Police officers.  His address bore all the markers of his cunning self-absorption.  As Peter Hasson in the Daily Caller noted, he mentioned himself 45 times and referred to himself twice before mentioning the names of the honorees.

He did play consoler and unifier for the first act.  According to the Los Angeles Times, Obama retreated to consult scripture as he wrote most of the address himself.  (Full text here.)  I believe that account to the extent that I believe Obama told his speechwriters that it would be good to come up with something from the Bible to cite.  As a politician who started attending Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United church because he needed the support of black Christians, he might even have purchased a Strong’s Concordance in order to search for key words in the text of the Bible.  But I don’t think he went to the Good Book and started reading some of his favorite passages.  If we are to believe that, then why would he misattribute the passage he used?

Whoever came up with the Scripture reference that was finally decided upon failed to footnote carefully.  Mollie Hemingway in the Federalist:

First let’s look at what he said:

OBAMA: I see how easily we slip back into our old notions, because they’re comfortable, we’re used to them. I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been. And so, I’m reminded of a passage in John’s Gospel, “let us love, not with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.”

This was from the good and presidential portion of the speech before it rambled into false statements and hyper-politicization.

But what is the precise passage from the Gospel of John to which he refers? You won’t find it, because it’s not from the Gospel of John but from an entirely different book of the Bible: The First Epistle of John. It has the same author as the Gospel of John but it is, again, an entirely different book.

I know that sounds somewhat challenging, but I teach Sunday School to Junior Kindergarteners and each year I have them memorize the names of the books of the Bible, both Old Testament and New. So my four-year-olds are aware that “John” and “1 John” are different books, placed at opposite ends of the New Testament. There are three epistles of John, so there are four Bible books total with “John” in their title. Five if you refer to Revelation as the Revelation to John or the Apocalypse of John.

In any case, it’s a great passage that is part of a beautiful, if brief, section (that you should go ahead and read right now, you will thank me later) on loving one another in the face of hatred from the world.

Needless to say, the media are giving Obama a pass, completely opposite the way they behaved when Donald Trump referred to “Two Corinthians.”

Of course, the body of Obama’s speech, once he got past the obligatory sanctimony and pleas for mutual regard, turned to the real purpose: complaining about racism.  That’s what will drive black turnout for Hillary in November, and so the United States has got to endure heightened racial tension for the next four months.  Neil Munro of Breitbart:

“If we are to sustain the unity we need to get through these difficulties, if we are to honor these five outstanding officers who we have lost, then we will need to act on the truths that we know …  America, we know that bias remains,” he said at the Dallas event, without criticizing or demanding anything of his supporters living in violent, undereducated, poor African-American communities.

Throughout his speech, Obama insisted he’s correct, even to the point of suggesting the murder rate in Dallas is declining — “The murder rate here has fallen” — although it has been rising since Obama began supporting the BLM movement and began demanding changes in police practices in 2014.

He insisted 25 times times that “I know” or “we know” the cause and cure for many political and social problems that are the subject of decades-long arguments by libertarians, conservatives, liberals and progressives.

He started losing the law enforcement part of the audience.  Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit noticed that Obama:

… included mentions of Alton Sterling (twice) and Philando Castile (twice). He even mentioned poor black children in hoodies – a reference to Trayvon Martin.

At one point police officers refused to applaud his defense of Black Lives Matter.

When the camera panned on the police officers they were not applauding.

One of the police officers sitting behind Obama appeared to fall asleep:

Dana at Patterico’s Pontifications imagined what the families of the deceased officers must have been thinking: “The president could not resist crassly using my loved one’s memorial service as a political soap box.”

The Obama claque in the media are applauding the president’s sentiments.  It is as if they saw a different speech.