PrintMay 24, 2010
Is This Just a Nightmare, or Did It Really Happen?
Over the past week we witnessed presidential and congressional disloyalty without precedent in American history, events that should be indelibly imprinted on the American electorate's collective memory. For the first time (at least to this writer's knowledge), a foreign head of state who is promoting an ongoing, aggressive, illegal, and often violent invasion of America came to our country, met with our president, and, from the White House itself, received our president's implicit but obvious public support for that invasion; and that same foreign leader spoke to Congress and received a standing ovation from its Democrat members' for his country's war on America's borders.
Is this just a nightmare, or did it really happen?
During Barrack Hussein Obama's May 19, 2010 joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderón, our president -- constitutionally charged with the duty to defend America from all enemies, foreign and domestic -- earned the scarlet "D": By silence he aligned himself with the invaders of our country and their leader against the citizens of America's own state of Arizona who have been forced by his dereliction to defend themselves.
Nearly as amazing, on Thursday, May 20, 2010, that same foreign president, speaking from where Churchill stood during World War II, received a standing ovation from the Democrat members of Congress when he reviled the citizens of Arizona for daring to try to fashion a defense of their part of the American-Mexican border. And the Republicans did not walk out or offer any other visible, dramatic objection.
An aside: The feckless Republican non-response to the Mexican President's May 20 congressional rant is probably the least astounding of the week's events. Our stodgy Republican opposition, with a few exceptions (e.g., see Congressman Tom McClintock's superlative speech) is notable for its lack of leadership, courage, eloquence, timing, and political prescience. That a foreign head of state who insults the overwhelming majority of America's citizens from a congressional podium might require a dramatic response from them, and at the same time might present a perfect opportunity to make clear which party is aligned with the American people on illegal immigration, would not occur to most of the timid and unimaginative mediocrities in this bunch.
But to return to the point: Consider carefully the stain of disloyalty that President Obama indelibly affixed to himself during the week just past.
On Wednesday, May 19, 2010, Felipe Calderón, President of politically and economically failed Mexico, stood on the South Lawn of the White House as a guest of America. He proceeded to claim that Arizona's recently enacted immigration law "is forcing our people there to face discrimination," and thereby he publicly trashed the State of Arizona, its legislators and governor, and, if polls are accurate, about 70% of its residents (and probably nearly the same percentage of all Americans) who unambiguously want the border sealed and support Arizona's benign efforts to accomplish that goal. He said more, but that was enough.
Standing next to this boor, the President of the United States (sic) responded to the tirade against America with silence. Or as the rest of the world will interpret Obama's muteness, "I agree with everything you just said." Can anyone imagine similar complicit disloyalty from Lincoln, Roosevelt (T. or F.D.), Truman, Kennedy, or Reagan?
Rather than defend the reasonable actions of his countrymen, our president joined in the foreigner's indictment of them. Later, on television, while the offensive Mexican president was still in the country, Obama added his own condemnation of those vile Americans he risibly claims to lead and protect: Of the Arizona statute, he said, "The Justice Department is looking at the legislation to make sure it's consistent with 'our core values' and 'existing legal precedent.'" Again, code-speak for "I agree with El Presedente. The people of Arizona, their legislators and governor, and all those who support them are despicable bigots."
When America is being invaded by a foreign power, one expects the President of the United States to be on America's side. That's how it's worked in the past, anyway. If that's too steep a demand, could we ask that our president not publicly endorse the enemy's characterization of modest defensive efforts as "discriminatory"? If even that decent silence is too much, could our president at least not provide the invaders' leader with a White House venue to denounce our people and our laws?
Note to those Americans who have not yet noticed: Barrack Hussein Obama does not like or sympathize with this country.
His instinctual affinities are with others, particularly if they come from the southern hemisphere or call themselves Muslims, and especially if they vote Democrat when they get here. For a long time, some have known this about America's first anti-American president. Many have not yet perceived it. Had most Republican members of Congress not been asleep, confused, or afraid, the events of last week could have cast a brilliant light on this awful truth.
But exposing the charlatan when he allows the truth to spill out, as he did last week, requires a courageous, clear-thinking, and articulate opposition. Other than Representative McClintock and a few more, who among key GOP officeholders possesses these traits?
An effective, courageous, and astute opposition lacking, the only course for loyal Americans is never to let last week's outrages be forgotten.
Any Republican candidate who fails to remind the November electorate that Barrack Hussein Obama, and the congressional Democrats en masse, endorsed and applauded America's invaders and condemned its defenders, does not have the requisite qualities of intellect and courage to be helpful in the struggle to reclaim our country.
Jared E. Peterson graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in Political Philosophy, and from the Harvard Law School. He has been a practicing lawyer for more than thirty-five years.
