July Follow-Ups and Updates

Obama's Clintonian Deceptions

In my post last month, The Clintonian Cynicism and Deception of Obama and His Supporters, I observed how United States President Barak Obama follows the example of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, in making statements into which either conservative or liberal listeners might read whatever they wish, which is a misleading tactic. I cited a number of examples and have since thought of another worth exposing. Obama has said that President George W. Bush “didn’t pay for” his prescription drug program, a statement that allows his listeners to read into it what they want. Conservatives think he means that Bush failed to make spending cuts in order to pay for the program while liberals think Obama means Bush failed to increase taxes. The liberals were right, but Obama succeeded in fooling people without having to say what he truly believed.

States' Rights/The Federalization of Health Insurance/Border Control

The states are rebelling against federal violations of states’ rights committed by the Obama Administration. The Administration is being sued by 20 states for its federal mandate to purchase health insurance, and nine states over its lawsuit against Arizona’s decision to exercise its pre-existing power to control its border, as well as to enforce federal law. In other words, the Obama Administration is contradicting itself by ordering states to do something in order to enforce federal law on the one hand and suing one of them for enforcing federal law on the other hand.

It has been reported that already new regulations written by the Obama Administration under the federalization of health insurance will require taxpayers to pay for insurance polices that pay for abortions, despite Obama’s executive order prohibiting abortion funding. Regardless, executive orders do not have the constitutional force of law that legislation does, as Article I of the Constitution vests all legislative power in Congress, which means that a federal court would rule that Obama’s order is superseded by the legislation that permits federal funding of abortion.

Italian Crucifixes in the Schools

The Italian news agency ANSA reported that Italy has appealed the European court’s ruling that it must remove crucifixes from its schools and that many other European states joined the Italian Republic in support.

Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction

Former presidential advisor Karl Rove admitted that his biggest mistake was not defending United States President George W. Bush against the false accusations from liberal Democrats that Bush had lied about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, a point I have been making since shortly before I launched this blog a few weeks after the 2008 election. The failure to adequately defend the record of the Republican Congressional majority contributed to its defeat in the 2006 elections and the failure to adequately defend the Bush Administration, especially in regard to the issue of WMDs in Iraq, contributed to the Republican defeat in the 2008 presidential election. Rove observed that the repeated Democratic accusation that Bush had lied succeeded in gradually changing people’s perceptions of the honesty of the 43rd President.

Although Rove did not point out that hundreds of WMDs, in fact, have been found in the form of artillery shells with chemical warheads (the same ones that United Nations inspectors knew existed and which Saddam Hussein failed to prove after the inspectors left Iraq that he had destroyed), as well as missiles of a longer range than permitted under U.N. resolutions, he did quote leading Democrats who insisted before the Liberation of Iraq that its Baathist regime had WMDs and cited the findings of various investigations that established the lack of any deception on the part of the Bush Administration even if not all of the intelligence reports that it sincerely believed turned out to be inaccurate. He also hailed the results of the U.S.-led war: the removal of an enemy in Hussein’s regime and its replacement with an ally, the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as the liberation of the Iraqi people and the justice of the war crimes trials for Hussein and his henchmen. Rove observed that the liberal Democrat’s false accusations tarnished their own reputations.