PrintApril 16, 2010
The Two Obamas
President Obama is neither inconsistent nor a liar when he takes conflicting positions.
Perhaps you may recall the time when Obama hedged his bets with two rivaling baseball teams by individually confiding with each team his mutually shared hope for victory over its respective opponent. This was done in a public forum, which made some people wonder whether Obama had been made privy to the existence of that information behemoth known as the internet, where his cunning for juggling multiple loyalties was soon posted.
Predictably, Obama was accused by a few media outlets of deliberately misleading his audiences and trying to curry everyone's favor. Others viewed this report as confirmation of Obama's almost instinctual proclivity for speaking from both sides of his mouth. But the real answer is not as obvious.
Consider first that no mortal man -- not even Bill Clinton -- can retain his sanity and tolerate the emotionally crippling level of cognitive dissonance that these episodes would suggest our young president lives under on an almost daily basis. I would then submit to you that all of these contradictory declarations from one man are in reality definitive proof of something that I have long suspected is actually the case, and that is that Obama has an evil twin.
Take for instanc, a pious Obama, getting his daily dose of spirituality via internet prayers on his trusty blackberry, presumably a testament to his deep and abiding faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then another man who claims to be Obama emerges, and in a rather disparaging tone, strikes at the heartland that would soon elect him, as one overrun by unenlightened proletariat with an unhealthy attachment to their "guns and Religion."
On another, separate occasion, we find a rather intransigent Obama decreeing that the health care debate is pretty much over and that his sparring partners across the aisle have exhausted their debating privileges -- unless, of course, they are willing to discuss the matter on his own terms. Then, oddly enough, we find another man, who looks just like Obama, in a much more congenial tone -- a poser, no doubt -- suggesting that he would gladly invite an open and frank discussion, in fact extending an open hand of reconciliation to the implacable leaders of rogue countries which harbor terrorists and whose paramount goal in life is to see the United States go up in flames. I know what you are thinking: How can such polar opposite overtures to strikingly different functionaries issue from the same man?
Once again, behold Obama, a man who acknowledges that our children are our future; dispatching Michelle, his tireless help-mate, to the trenches, to stamp out the problem of childhood obesity, and to issue a clarion call for the urgent need of educators who can fulfill the honorable call as mentors and role models for our country's children. Without a moment to spare, we turn the corner and we find Obama's mischievous twin appointing a man like Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) -- an organization which conducts seminars for 14-year-olds on the art of "fisting" your homosexual partner -- to the post of "Safe-Schools Czar," which is responsible for "promoting the health and well being of students in elementary and secondary schools."
And finally, witness a man, who we think is Obama, boldly declaring that he has always been a staunch supporter of free-market principles; and yet somewhere else, we find another man, with an uncanny resemblance to the president of the United States, fiercely lobbying for the systematic enforcement of policies that create nothing short of a federal monopoly on the critical drivers of a free economy apparatus, such as the automobile industry, health care, and the banking industry. How can this be?
Clearly, these are two wholly separate individuals. There's the one who understands how to tactfully navigate the political realities commonplace to a highly diverse electorate and would no doubt make a great president; and then there's another, who treks the globe, endorsing destructive policies and promulgating half-witted edicts that would be entertained only in the mind of a man overly concerned with his own personal aggrandizement -- a thoroughpaced egomaniac, and a poor excuse for a Commander in Chief.
One would think that the Obama with the most integrity would find it expedient to rid himself of his evil clone, who keeps going around, loose-cannon style, virtually contradicting everything the former claims to stand for and acting contrary to the values the first one claims to believe in. Such disparities in behavior make Obama look at best like a double-minded man, and at worst like a liar -- but we all know that Obama does not lie.
Therein lies the profound dilemma that the good Obama twin -- depending on your personal ideology -- finds himself in: Given the dual nature of most of the important social and economic challenges that this country is facing, it behooves Obama to have a replica of him catering to one side of the fence while he tries to assuage the fears of those who are completely opposed to the former. Besides, two is almost always better than one.
But the main reason why Obama does not hastily choose to annihilate his evil twin lies in the fact that both of them do indeed share one thing in common: an unusually deep fondness for one another, which some claim even borders on clinical narcissism.
