How Obama Gets Things Done
January 3, 2015
USA Today topped the front page of their December 31, 2014, edition with a story headlined “Obama takes aim at Gitmo, again.” The story details the president’s frustration with Congressional Republicans who refuse to allow him to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for captured Islamic fighters. Mr. Obama wants to bring these fanatical Islamists to the U.S. because he says the prison in Cuba “inspires anti-U.S. feelings across the globe” and “costs taxpayers millions of dollars to operate every year.” When has this president ever worried about burdening taxpayers?
In his usual lawless manner, Mr. Obama is attempting to transfer Guantanamo inmates to foreign prisons in Latin America and the Middle East. Afghanistan is a case in point. How many millions in U.S. tax dollars is he paying Afghan authorities to accept our Taliban prisoners? How many more millions are those same officials accepting from Taliban authorities in payment for allowing these inmates to “escape”? The press has reported several released Jihadis who quickly returned to anti-American combat. Mr. Obama is willing to betray our military to build his “legacy.” He wants to be remembered as a silver-tongued diplomat who could effortlessly bend heads of state to his enlightened will. But it’s all a myth. It’s not diplomatic skill. It’s Chicago-style payoffs.
When our captured terrorists are transferred to a foreign prison, the odds of their long remaining in custody are so low that Mr. Obama has essentially and lawlessly granted them executive amnesty – just as he has lawlessly granted amnesty to illegal aliens by whom we are being invaded.
But what about this concern for anti-American sentiment? It is telling that Mr. Obama cares more about public opinion abroad than at home. He sacrificed Democrat control of the U.S. House to enact Obamacare. He tossed away Democrat control of the Senate to implement Obamacare. He drove his own public approval numbers down to lame-duck levels by repeatedly lying about Obamacare. He doesn’t seem to care what America thinks of him but he cares deeply what the world thinks. That is because he sees himself more as a citizen of the world than a citizen of America. Many Americans believe he is a foreigner in part because his values seem politically and culturally foreign. It has been said that he would find it more gratifying to run the U.N. than the U.S. and the evidence appears to support that proposition.
Excessive concern for public opinion, however, is precisely why legislative leaders, pro-life leaders, and church leaders refuse to provide bold leadership in defense of life. They lack Mr. Obama’s will to power. He rams Obamacare’s abortion mandates down the throats of angry voters but Republicans can’t muster the courage to shut down the government to stop him.
Even if the Supreme Court kills Obamacare by striking its tax-credit subsidies in King v. Burwell the president will have arguably moved the country at least slightly closer to socialized medicine. If only pro-life politicians, activists, and pastors were similarly willing to expend political capital to advance anti-abortion policy.