Jan
8
The Obama Delusion
“Facts don’t care about your feelings.” — Ben Shapiro
Ben Shapiro
Are you familiar with Ben Shapiro? He’s one of those conservative “young guns” making a name for himself these days — an attorney-turned-political commentator, columnist/author, and radio show host. He’s very sharp, articulate, possesses a familiarity with an amazing number of issues and pertinent facts, thinks clearly & critically about those issues, doesn’t get tripped up by PC nonsense, and has no problem calling out corruption, ineptitude, hypocrisy, foolishness, etc., regardless of race, creed, position, or political ideology. I like that. He’s also fearless, as he speaks at ideologically hostile venues (except when “tolerant” protestors manage to get his talks cancelled) and on panels where his non-PC, conservative views are clearly in the minority. (Here are a couple examples.) I greatly admire that, too.
I’m not saying I am totally in line with everything I’ve read or heard Shapiro say, but I am very impressed with him. So, when I discovered his daily “The Ben Shapiro Report” back around Thanksgiving last year, I subscribed. (Still training Hotmail not to automatically send it to the ‘Junk’ folder, unfortunately. Dang Russians!) Each email issue contains a “Subscriber Exclusive” from Ben, along with links to 4 more articles on The Daily Wire, which Shapiro founded and where he serves as editor-in-chief.
Last Monday, Shapiro started off the week/month/year with a reaction to President Obama’s quasi-revisionist, and possibly self-delusional, tweets about his administration’s legacy. Shapiro was civil but held nothing back….
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“With the beginning of 2017 comes newfound optimism: in just two weeks, President Barack Obama’s term of office will come to an ignominious end. As the clock ticks down, Americans get more and more excited to see Obama’s back – we’ll no longer have to hear his sonorous baritone lecturing us about his higher morality, which invariably requires the overthrow of individualism in favor of the collective.
But Obama won’t leave without some historical rewriting.
He tweeted on January 1, “As we look ahead to the future, I wanted to take a moment to look back on the remarkable progress that you made possible these past 8 years.” What progress, pray tell? Obama tweeted that “Facing the worst financial crisis in 80 years, you delivered the longest streak of job growth in our history.” That neglects to mention that this was the weakest economic recovery in American history – that recessions are usually followed by booms, except when big government interventionism quashes those booms.
He tweeted, “After decades of rising health care costs, today nearly every American now has access to the financial security of affordable health care.” That’s patently insane. Obamacare has been a massive bust. When you mandate that people buy health insurance, people typically will do so, but that doesn’t mean it’s quality, that doctors will take it, or that health care gets better. Actually, premiums have skyrocketed nationwide under Obama, and only Medicaid has seen true growth – and many doctors are now rejecting Medicaid thanks to its low reimbursement rates. Amazingly, despite Obama’s health insurance mandate nearly 9 percent of Americans still have no health insurance.
Obama said that America “traded foreign oil for clean energy, we doubled fuel efficiency standards, & we acted on a global scale to save the one planet we’ve got.” This has nothing to do with Obama’s policy. It has to do with dropping prices of oil worldwide, as well as the fracking industry’s production increase, which helped fill the gap domestically.
Obama added, “We brought home more of our troops & strengthened US leadership – leading with diplomacy & partnering with nations to meet global problems.” This is nuts, too. Syria is in flames. Libya is in flames.
Obama just set Israel on fire to watch it burn. Iran is now a burgeoning regional hegemon. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is on the move everywhere from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. China is moving rapidly to consolidate control over the South China Sea and expand its sphere of influence over surrounding states ranging from Taiwan and the Philippines to South Korea and Japan. Iraq is a war zone. Afghanistan is a disaster area.
Obama stated, “From realizing marriage equality to removing barriers to opportunity, we’ve made history in our work to reaffirm that all are created equal.” Actually, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage a Constitutional right, Obama has utilized his power to crack down on religious Americans, and race relations are at a serious low in the modern era.
Obama concluded, “It’s been the privilege of my life to serve as your President. I look forward to standing with you as a citizen. Happy New Year everybody.”
Get out, President Obama.
And don’t let the door hit you.”
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Nailed it! Thanks, Ben. (Can I call you ‘Ben’?)
P.S. Just f.y.i., he’s no fan of Trump, either.
P.P.S. This brings to mind one of my favorite Frasier Crane quotes from “Cheers”: “[Mr. President], what color is the sky in your world?” Also, I just realized that this isn’t the first time I’ve used “Obama” and “Delusion(s)” together in a title.
P.P.P.S. I don’t know what the terms of use are for these “subscriber exclusives”, because the “Terms of use” text at the bottom of the emails is not hotlinked. But, if you haven’t already, let me hereby highly recommend that you all subscribe to “The Ben Shapiro Report”. It’s great stuff! (Check out ‘The Daily Wire‘, too.)
