It
is nice when events reaffirm your core beliefs. Obama-mania is such an
event. The comparisons of Obama to JFK were inevitable. Young,
good-looking, beautiful wife, fine orator...Democrat. All of this is
serving to reaffirm one of my principle beliefs about the way most
conservatives and liberals think. Not
what they think -
how they think.
Most Liberals subsist on imagery.
JFK
is an icon to Liberals much the same way that Reagan is an icon to
Conservatives. Reagan served two full terms as president, revitalized
the conservative movement, won two presidential elections in landslides
and had a whole host of accomplishments. Kennedy won a single contested
election and served only 3 years. Kennedy's accomplishments in those
three years included cutting taxes, invading Cuba and escalating our
involvement in Vietnam exponentially. Not exactly a legacy Liberals
have embraced since.
It is not Kennedy's record that makes Liberals swoon. It is his image - Camelot.
Compare
Kennedy's inaugural address to Obama's
speeches today.
"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country".
Does this sound like Obama? That is the polar opposite of the message from Obama and Democrats (perfectly illustrated in
Hillary Clinton's Christmas ad
showing Hillary wrapping the "gifts" of universal health care,
universal pre-kindergarten and alternative energy that she was going to
give Americans. Gifts you pay for!) . The message from Obama and the
Democrats today is "we will have the government give you more gifts
than the Republicans".
"...we shall pay
any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend,
oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of
liberty".
Forget about supporting any friend, opposing any foe and the survival and success of liberty for Iraqis. To Obama even
"preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there".
"In
the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted
the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not
shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it".
No
images of Obama springing up in your mind? The only defending of
freedom I can see from the Democrats lately is the defending of trial lawyer's rights to sue telecom companies that cooperate with catching terrorists.
Of
course, Obama avoids these real comparisons of himself and JFK in his
speeches by talking about...nothing. By nothing, I mean evoking "hope",
"unity", "change", "yes, we can"...without context is meaningless. Hope
for what? Unify behind what? Change to what? Yes, we can do what?
Last
week it was discovered that an Obama volunteer office in Texas had a
Cuban flag with the image of Che Guevara hanging on the wall.
Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe said it well:
IN
1963, John F. Kennedy was murdered in Texas by a fervent admirer of
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In 2008, a large Cuban flag emblazoned
with the image of Che Guevara, Castro's brutal henchman, is prominently
displayed in a Barack Obama campaign volunteer office in Houston.
In
December 1962, Kennedy offered a blunt summary of the Castro/Che
record. "The Cuban people were promised by the revolution political
liberty, social justice, intellectual freedom, land for the campesinos,
and an end to economic exploitation," he said. "They have received a
police state, the elimination of the dignity of land ownership, the
destruction of free speech and a free press, and the complete
subjugation of individual human welfare."
Were he alive today,
it's hard to imagine JFK feeling anything but contempt for those who
extol a dictatorship that has been crushing freedom and human beings
for nearly 50 years. And it would surely pain him that so many of the
cheerleaders are members of his own party.
He concludes:
The
lionizing of Che, a sociopath who relished killing and acclaimed "the
pedagogy of the firing squad," is not just "inappropriate." It is vile.
But Che sure cuts a romantic revolutionary image in that famous photograph.
John Lennon's
"All we are saying is give peace a chance" is a catchy tune and a
lovely image. It is not a policy for the defense of our country.
Perhaps that is why the Obama speeches are now being
put to music. His lyrics are equally meaningless.