Obama does what Obama does best: blame the right
Call it “the tactic of the about-face.” Or call it “on the one hand, on the other hand.”
Call it what you will, but here’s a good example.
We have this statement from Obama on Charlie Kirk’s assassination. When I read its beginning, I felt a sense of relief. It seemed appropriate, unequivocal, and reasonable:
Former President Barack Obama insists the nation is at an “inflection point” following Charlie Kirk’s assassination as the Democrat in his first public remarks on the shooting called the conservative commentator’s violent death a “tragedy” regardless of his views.
“Even if you think they’re quote unquote on the other side of the argument, that’s a threat to all of us and we have to be clear and forthright and condemn it,” Obama said during the Jefferson Educational Society’s global summit Tuesday night.
The 44th president said he believes the country is facing a precipitous rise in political violence …
So far, so good. But next we have this:
… – and accused President Trump and members of his administration of fueling some of the sharp political divisions.
“But I’ll say this — those extreme views were not in my White House. I wasn’t empowering them. I wasn’t putting the weight of the United States government behind them,” he claimed, according to the Erie Times-News.
“When we have the weight of the United States government behind extremist views, we’ve got a problem. …
“When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents vermin, enemies, who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now and something that we’re going to have to grapple with, all of us,” he said inside the Erie Insurance Arena.
What a pivot. One thing I think we can safely say is that Tyler Robinson was not motivated by anything Trump or his aides said on that score; he was not a person on the right murdering someone on the left. However, Obama nicely ignores Biden (“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic”), Harris (“Trump’s a fascist”) – and yes, Barack Obama, who used the word “enemies” to describe his political opposition in 2010.
Perhaps Obama might instead have concentrated on the many many comments from the left and Democrats that Trump, Kirk, and those on the right in general are Nazis or Hitler or Fascists or outside the pale of political discourse in the US. But no. The one good thing is that I doubt Obama has been influencing much of anyone lately.
NOTE: It reminds me of those who said, when JFK was killed by a Communist, that it was the result of a “climate of hate” from the right in Dallas [emphasis mine]:
Immediately after the assassination, leading journalists and political figures insisted that Kennedy was a victim of a “climate of hate” in Dallas and across the nation created by racial bigots, the Ku Klux Klan, and anti-Communist zealots. …
The repetitive commentary about hatred and bigotry circulated rapidly through the media in the days after the assassination, almost as if coordinated or directed from a high level.
James Reston, then chief political correspondent for the New York Times, published a front-page column the day after the assassination titled, “Why America Weeps: Kennedy a Victim of Violent Streak He Sought to Curb in Nation.” He wrote that right-wing groups were behind the assassination. Chief Justice Earl Warren, who would soon head the investigation into the shooting, blamed “bigots” for Kennedy’s death. He never retracted or revised those comments, and he expanded on the theme in an official eulogy to Kennedy that he delivered two days later in the Capitol.
Syndicated newspaper columnist Drew Pearson wrote that JFK was the victim of a “hate drive.” The “eradication of hate,” he wrote, would be the most appropriate monument to his life. Senator Mike Mansfield, in a eulogy, blamed the assassination on “bigotry, hatred, and prejudice.” Chet Huntley, chief newscaster for NBC, told millions of viewers that the assassination had been brought about by “the sickening and ominous popularity of hatred” across the United States and by influential “pockets of hatred” within the country. The president’s death, he said, is “thundering testimonial of what hatred comes to and the revolting excesses it perpetrates.” …
These were the myths that grew up around Kennedy’s death and, curiously enough, remain widely believed. Many who doubted Oswald’s guilt traced the assassination to a “climate of hate” created by right-wing businessmen, religious leaders, and a few media figures. This became the prevailing interpretation of the assassination.
That was written in 2023.
The weight of Obama’s government was behind extremist views.
Hence the IRS going after the Tea Party, running guns to cartels with Fast and Furious, and pushing forward Russian collusion bullshit.
Robinson relieved a “burden” h/t Obama.
And when Jackie Kennedy found out about Oswald’s background, she was disappointed that JFK had been murdered by “a silly little communist.”
He lies as easily as he breathes.
Day ending in “y.”
I also suspect he’s glad he still gets a protective detail.
If nothing else you may know about Vietnam, the Democrats were on the Communist side.
Yes Barky in a Marxist since his college days, learned everything including how to.blame their opponents on their crimes and plots.
Obama and his administration fanned the flames of racial and political hatreds throughout their eight years, and afterwards. As you say, Neo, the good thing is that he is no longer very influential.
So since Kennedy’s assassination, the leftist democrats (but I repeat myself) have been lying to the American public and refusing to even acknowledge the lies, much less apologize.
Truth needs not lies for support. God never lies and as we all know, Satan is the father of lies. Bearing false witness so as to demonize those who disagree is a refusal to be confronted by truth and thus, to align oneself with evil.
“Live Not by Lies.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
If Obama had a son….
“They bring a knif, you bring a gun.”
Barack Obama 2008
What a lowly lowly excuse for a human being. One that was in WH, after being elected twice by the American electorate.
As with so much regarding the left, it’s important to make a ‘fool/knave’ distinction. Obama is the ultimate knave; but there are plenty of fools out there (often quite well educated and professional fools) who genuinely believe this malarkey.
It is difficult for many conservatives to fathom, but a good amount of lefties sincerely believe progressive/leftist politics is synonymous with, and inextricable from, morality itself. Leftism IS moral virtue. Full stop. Therefore, no immorality, no evil can ever be done in the cause of leftism.
Applying that to the Kirk assassination, the leftist has the following alternatives:
1. The assassination wasn’t evil or immoral. It was either neutral or good (that’s what all those celebrating believe).
2. The assassination was evil, but Tyler Robinson isn’t actually a leftist (that’s still being pushed despite mounting evidence to the contrary).
3. The assassination was evil and maybe Robinson is a leftist (‘who knows’…so say the ‘experts’) but his motives had nothing to do with leftist politics.
In any case, as I said two days ago, Democrats clearly understand the optics remain terrible. Obama doesn’t appear to pontificate just because.
And, I think they’re right. One can sense a major shift in the zeitgeist. Republicans and conservatives finally seem to almost universally understand the high stakes at hand and the need for unity. Moderate voters seem genuinely unnerved and shaken. And Democrats continue to flail.
As an example: there was a NYPost article about the massive spike in GOP voter registration since the assassination.
Will it last? Who knows? But Democrats must be praying for some massive event to push Kirk’s death out of the headlines. The longer it remains in the zeitgeist, the more likely the political shift will become permanent.
Two nitpicks to a good post, Ackler (7:41 pm):
“Republicans and conservatives finally seem to almost universally understand the high stakes at hand and the need for unity.”
I hope and trust you mean unity with and of Republicans and conservatives, because any “unity” with Democrats and liberal/leftists will be under terms and ideologies dictated by Democrats and liberal/leftists — otherwise, they don’t play.
“As an example: there was a NYPost article about the massive spike in GOP voter registration since the assassination.”
To any extent that these new GOP voters turn out to be squishy RINO types who are repulsed by leftie reaction to the murder of Kirk but are motivated by little more, I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. Our side needs such newbies like I need toothaches.
Hey, ya gotta remember, there were also no scandals in the Obama administration.
“Both sides” has become a verb.
Per AI, The term “both sides” has evolved into the verb “bothsidesing,” which refers to the practice of presenting two sides of an issue equally, even when one side may lack credibility. This approach is often criticized for creating false equivalences and obscuring the truth.
The term is sometimes accompanied by “what about” statements and rhetorical questions.
The fact is that the neo-Nazis and real fascist “Right” are few in number. Only 2-5,000 according to the ADL before it joined the AgitProp Left like the SPLC,
just about a decade ago.
By contrast, the radical Left is much, much more numerous, and even mainstream in politics.
Who?
Everyone should understand Right and Left are defined by who is talking. To a most Americans Right could be a conservative and Left a Socialist to Marxist. But know most everywhere else Right is a National Socialist or Implied Nazi.
TJ used Right as Nazi definition
To me the Right / Left has like a lot of Leftist terms lost all meaning
Just remember, the Communists were the Russian socialists, the Nazis were the German socialists and the Fascists were the Italian socialists. They were all left-wing socialists and wanted to run everything. They just had a few doctrinal differences,
Smarmy creature.
==
Recall Michael Kinsley’s remark: “the brutal truth of the matter is, even if Lady Bird Johnson’s life were in danger, the functioning of democracy would not be impaired”. Recall also that Jacqueline Bouvier Onassis shlepped around Manhattan for 19 years (1975-94) with no more security than that provided by the doorman of her building and the Nixons puttered around northern New Jersey with less than that during their last years (1986-94). Mrs. Truman’s detail (1972-82) consisted of one officer in a parked car outside her house. Let’s pull the security details after 12 years and limit it to the quondam President’s immediate household. Barry and Mooch lose theirs in 2029, the Bidens in 2037, the Bushes and Clintons tomorrow.
==
Build a modular records center in Kansas City. Move there all the archival material from each Presidential library, then deed over what remains in each case to the county government in which it is located. In the future, add another module when an incumbent departs.
==
Establish a federal law that honoraria and associated perquisites granted public officials (or quondam public officials) domiciled out of state cannot exceed a value which is a function of the number of people the offering institution employs and cannot be granted by a particular institution to a particular official more than once per calendar year.
==
Debar quondam federal employees from working for registered lobbies.
==
Debar former federal employees from taking employment from a company which won more than $x in federal contracts from agencies or departments for which they worked during the time they worked there.
==
Switch to defined contribution retirement programs for federal employees. In regard to the President, 15% of his total compensation would be withheld every year and then granted him as a retirement purse when he departed office.
==
Make it the law that quondam federal elected officials and their immediate households are required to liquidate their real property in greater Washington within a year of departing office, Dispensed from this requirement would be persons who had periods in their life antedating their election to federal office wherein all the following were true simultaneously: they resided in greater Washington, they were employed, they were not employed on the member staff, committee staff, or chamber staff of the United States Congress, they were not employed in a discretionary position in the federal government, and they were not employed by a registered lobby. To earn the dispensation, those periods would have to sum to six years. If a quondam federal elected official was married to a person who qualified for said dispensation, they could stay as well.
==
Make it the law that people debarred from living in greater Washington are also debarred from spending more than three weeks per year visiting.
==
Make it the law that advances paid by publishing firms to current former federal employees not exceed a certain value which is a function of nominal personal income per capita.
==
In a sane world, BO and Mooch would own a 1,500 sq foot condo in Evanston and that’s it..They’d have fundraising jobs at Northwestern.
“Republicans and conservatives finally seem to almost universally understand the high stakes at hand and the need for unity.”
Nope. In a vote to censure Omar for her comments on Kirk, 4 Republicans voted with the Democrats and two others didn’t vote, allowing Omar to triumph by a single vote.
All this objection to ‘hatred’ coming from the Dems since JFK was murdered is hypocrisy since they are ones from whom the ‘hatred’ emanates.
“Rows and flows of angel hair
and ice cream castles in the air.”
They have been telling the “both sides” lie for more than 60 years now.
Related:
(Lies, damned lies, and wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, four-to-five dimensional, uber-malicious lies….)
Alas, we’ve seen it all before…and the
printedpixel plague continues—and is likely to continue—to explode enormously, exponentially, astronomically….https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-did-the-telegraph-get-the-robinson-rally-so-wrong/
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-did-the-telegraph-get-the-robinson-rally-so-wrong/
H/T Instapundit.
Good post. Obama being the classic version of himself. The vast majority of the time Obama kept his rhetorical hands clean, or seemingly so. He was so steeped in Alinsky radicalism, but he also knew he couldn’t let all that out and still sell himself to America. It’s a lesson that Hillary didn’t take sufficiently to heart.
Obama certainly slipped up from time to time. “Clinging to guns and religion…” or when speaking to Joe The Plumber, and decent number of other occasions.
Looking at his claim of “no extremism in my White House” we see that while he generally did keep his rhetoric and that of his WH minions turned down low, the actual stuff going on there was quite extreme in many cases. He put people like Eric Holder in charge of the DoJ. Talk about a horrific AG! The Black Panther polling place case, or the secret Fast and Furious operation. OMG.
________
I just saw some of the press Q&A in the UK with Trump and Starmer this morning. One questioner asked about the Auto-Pen. Trump made it sound like he and his people definitely know that there were unauthorized uses of it, though who knows if any of it is provable. And to that last point, Trump went on at some length about the tremendous amount of document destruction that went on in the Biden White House. Maybe that is the avenue that prosecutions should focus on. I’m sure some types of doc destruction is illegal.
They have been telling the “both sides” lie for more than 60 years now.
==
You got something against Judy Collins?
Condemning both sides when someone from one side is assassinated by someone on the other side is like saying ‘all lives matter’ — it does nothing but downplay the responsibility of the side that committed the wrongdoing. If you’re clearly in the wrong, “both sides are at fault” becomes a defensive move, a strategic concession. You admit partial blame just to reduce backlash or avoid total defeat.
is like saying ‘all lives matter’ — it does nothing but downplay the responsibility of the side that committed the wrongdoing.
==
‘All lives matter’ is an appropriate sentiment. It is in counterpoint to ‘black lives matter’, which is not an utterance motivated by someone else’s wrongdoing, but a proclamation that blacks should not be subject to the authority of police officers.
because they lie barry, furthermore it was stolen from conrad black, as part of a lawfare scheme and breeden, the mediator appointed by pat fitzgerald, gave it to the Barclay Brothers for a song, the Torygraph is better than the Times, which is owned by Murdoch btw, and managed much worse than the Post is, for example,
it has dialed up the tariff terror, and downplayed the witchhunts arising out of Southport, because the authorities had covered for the Rwanda immigrant who was an Al Queda operative,
they are still entertaining the false narrative about Robinson,
for example and made light of the Hamas threats, as much as they should they continue to pro
back in 2008, they would just ridicule a worthy opponent, defame her in various ways, some that provoked actions like hanging in effigy in West Hollywood and the burning of the Church, now the gauge has been dialed to eleven, and well you know the rest of the story,
in 2020, he told the youth to continue to be ‘angry and frustrated’ over George Floyd, and a brushfire became a blazing inferno, that destroyed dozens of cities,
because he craves power, no matter the blood price, one of his handlers, or mouthpieces said of Trump ‘you must not only defeat him, but makes sure that no such example rises again’ that would be David Plouffe, words to that effect,
Art Deco:
Nothing against Judy Collins or especially Joni Mitchel, but the left has been selling fairy tales to the youth for such a long time; the current being transgenderism and the supposed genocide of those exploited, mentally fragile, but “mostly peaceful” souls. Climate change is another fairy tale IMO.
I’m still waiting for some intrepid reporter somewhere to ask Obama to please explain, in depth, what exactly his intent was in his words “the fundamental transformation” of our country & what gave him the impression he had the authority to execute that enterprise?
I’d prefer he be strapped in a chair and told if he wanted to get out of it he had to answer specific questions about Lois Lerner and then about Fusion GPS et al. Do that to Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Merrick Garland, Rod Rosenstein, and Andrew Weismann.