Crimes Against Liberty (8 page)

But in Copenhagen it was evident he truly believed his very presence would make a difference. Additionally, it was a chance to demonstrate how the world already viewed this nation more favorably simply because he was now president. When his bid for the Olympics failed, his team blamed it on some nefarious activities among those making the decision. Aide David Axelrod said Obama is held in “very high esteem by leaders around the world,” but “there are internal politics at the IOC [International Olympic Committee] that were at play,” and the president’s appearance didn’t overcome them.
⁹⁵
Clearly, it couldn’t just be that the IOC believed the Olympics should be held elsewhere or, Heaven forbid, that Obama’s presumptuous personal intervention backfired.

Lewis goes on to explore, without rendering a definitive opinion, whether Obama fits the description of a malignant narcissist by citing a partial checklist of attributes of such a person. The list includes a person’s rage in reaction to criticism or resistance to accomplishing his grandiose goals; his grandiose sense of self-worth; his attempt to pull down the self-worth of others when he senses his own self-worth is under attack; and his two-faced personality where the creation of a “false-self” is linked to the narcissist’s fear of being inadequate and results in his projecting a sense of superiority at all times.

Whether or not Obama can be fairly considered clinically narcissistic, it is hardly in doubt that he has a larger-than-life view of himself and his role in history (“when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”); that he has grandiose plans (“transformational change”); that he expects to get his way simply by virtue of his self-perceived importance (“I won the election”); that he often reacts adversely to criticism (“I don’t want them to do a lot of talking”); that he tries to bring others down who resist him and thus challenge his self-esteem (reminding John McCain “the election is over”); and that he attacks the honesty of those who challenge him (Senator McConnell’s claims are “just plain false”).

Surrounding himself with sycophants and egged on by an adoring media, Obama assumed the presidency with the arrogant ambition of transforming America. He believed he was The One—a visionary whose great deeds would be remembered generations from now. But while his charisma was a great asset on the campaign trail, as president he quickly found that his trademark oratory could not convince a skeptical nation of the wisdom of his extravagant plans. Moreover, his personal magnetism proved ineffective on foreign leaders—including those of our enemies, whose fists remain stubbornly clenched against us.

But rather than adjusting his policies to these unpleasant realities, he persisted—and still persists—in his maximalist course, convinced that his growing legion of critics simply don’t comprehend the beneficence of his actions. The notion that his detractors, and the American people overall,
do
understand what he’s doing, and that’s precisely why they are increasingly hostile to his agenda, is an unacceptable concept to our budding autocrat.

Chapter Two

FRAUD AGAINST THE ELECTORATE

CRIMES AGAINST THE PUBLIC TRUST

P
resident Obama came to office with a strong wind at his back. He established high expectations for himself, and the public took him at his word. He set himself up as having extraordinary gifts that could unite people around a new consensus to solve America’s problems. Though distinctly ideological—the nonpartisan
National Journal
ranked him as the most liberal U.S. Senator in 2007
¹
—he managed to convince many Americans he was above ideology and partisanship and was committed to implementing the best ideas, no matter on what side of the ideological spectrum they originated.

Even a disappointing number of conservative intellectuals came to believe he transcended ideology and possessed a refreshing mental acuity. Pete Wehner, former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, admitted Obama was “an appealing figure to many Republicans,” who “would find it hard to generate much enthusiasm in opposing him.” Why? Because of his “eloquence,” his “personal grace and dignity,” and because he appeared to be a “well-grounded, decent, thoughtful man” who came across as “nonpartisan” and seemed to “transcend politics.” “Even when he disagrees with people, he doesn’t seem disagreeable,” marveled Wehner. Beyond Obama’s personal attributes, Wehner credited part of Obama’s appeal to his message, which “at its core, is about unity and hope rather than division and resentment.”
²

Wehner’s praise for Obama was no isolated incident. As conservative philosopher and columnist Thomas Sowell observed, many Republicans were planning to vote for Obama, Republicans whom fellow columnist Robert Novak labeled “Obamacons.”
³
Pollster John Zogby said he had “polling showing one-fifth of conservatives supporting Obama.”
⁴

Christopher Buckley, the son of the godfather of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr., endorsed Obama, citing his “first-class temperament” and “first-class intellect.” Buckley acknowledged Obama is a “lefty” while insisting, “I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and oldfashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets.” But, said Buckley, “I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate.” Oddly, Buckley persuaded himself that through the sheer power of his presumed intellect, Obama would “surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves.”
⁵

Similarly, Doug Kmiec, head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Reagan and George H. W. Bush, endorsed Obama, believing “him to be a person of integrity, intelligence, and genuine good will.” Like Buckley, Kmiec was impressed with Obama’s books and what they supposedly revealed about his intelligence and bipartisanship. “I am convinced, based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing, that on each of these questions [abortion, traditional marriage, constitutional interpretation, and religious freedom] he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view and, as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.”
⁶

David Brooks, the
New York Times
’ reputedly conservative columnist, gushed that he was “dazzled” by Obama’s intellect, based on an interview with him where Obama effortlessly expostulated the “very subtle thought process” of Reinhold Neibuhr, which is “based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you.” Brooks was also impressed with Obama’s “tremendous powers of social perception,” in part, at least, because Obama noticed that Brooks, in a column he had written attacking the Republican Congress’s excessive spending, had thrown in a few sentences attacking Democrats to make himself feel better.
⁷

Francis Fukuyama, author and Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, a neo-conservative who had become disillusioned with the war in Iraq, endorsed Obama. Like Obama’s other center-right supporters, Fukuyama expressed optimism in Obama’s potential for “delivering a different kind of politics.”
⁸
Scott McClellan, a former spokesman for President George W. Bush, jumped on the Obama bandwagon for similar reasons: in his view, Obama had “the best chance of changing the way Washington works.” Ken Adelman, described by the
Wall Street Journal
as “a prominent conservative on foreign policy matters,”
⁹
told the
New Yorker
he was supporting Obama “primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and judgment.”
¹⁰
Former Massachusetts governor William Weld, while by no means a staunch conservative, endorsed Obama as a “once-in-a-lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America’s standing in the world.”
¹¹

Shortly before the election, former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein announced his support for Obama.
¹²
Around the same time, a group of five former appointees of Republican president Dwight Eisenhower released a statement endorsing Obama, saying he “has the judgment, the intellect, the character, the vision, the values, the empathy, the natural leadership ability and the capacity to attract the most qualified people to his administration—all the qualities that would make him a great President.”
¹³
Even the
Economist
magazine, whose editorial board is considered fiscally conservative, backed Obama, citing his “style, intelligence and discipline.”
¹⁴

THE EXPLOITATION OF A GIFT

Alas, Obama’s self-portrait as a uniter was at best an exercise in self-delusion, at worst an example of old-fashioned deceit. As
Newsweek
revealed in its behind-the-scenes retrospective of the campaign, Obama knew he had a gift, “a way of making very smart, very accomplished people feel virtuous just by wanting to help Barack Obama.” He exploited this talent in his successful run for president of the
Harvard Law Review
in the mid-1980s. Though his politics were “conventionally liberal,” he garnered the support of conservatives because he “was a good listener, attentive, and empathetic, and his powerful mind could turn disjointed screeds into reasoned consensus.” But there was something more—something deeper. As a black man, he appeared to have moved beyond racial politics and narrowly defined interest groups, seeming indifferent to “the politics of identity and grievance” and showing “no sense of entitlement or resentment.”
¹⁵

But, the article continued, “Obama had a way of transcending ambition, though he himself was ambitious as hell.”
Newsweek
might as well have simply said Obama was not—at least as regards personal ambition—as he appeared. It could have made the same point regarding his seeming indifference to the politics of identity and grievance or his showing “no sense of entitlement or resentment.”
¹⁶

For in fact, while Obama talked a good game about having risen above race issues, eschewing any sense of entitlement, rejecting identity politics, and demonstrating a willingness to listen to all sides and bring them together into a magical consensus, the reality was starkly different. Obama’s unifying facade only appeared when dealing in the generalities and routine doubletalk of a campaign. Once in office, when he began encountering resistance to his extreme liberal policy agenda, the congeniality and counterfeit bipartisanship withered away, to be replaced by the strident, arrogant, patronizing narcissism that brooked neither criticism nor opposition. His trademark “cool” also gave way, at times, to impulses of haughty impatience and intolerance to ideas outside his ideological comfort zone.

He proved to be anything but post-racial, as we saw in his Justice Department’s summary dismissal of the slam-dunk case against New Black Panther Party members for voter intimidation. He was anything but post-partisan, as we saw in his repeated “calling out” of Republicans for their alleged dishonesty when they dared oppose his agenda on its merits. He was anything but post-grievance when he repeatedly denounced America’s blemished history, for which it clearly had to atone.

And resentment? It permeated his every speech and policy proposal: resentment at America’s history on race, resentment at capitalism for allowing disparities of income, resentment at America for consuming too many natural resources, resentment at America for its “arrogance” and “dismissiveness” and “imperialism” in dealing with other nations, and resentment at banks, corporations, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, conservatives, and small-town Americans for all their supposed sins.

None of this should have surprised conservatives, especially self-described intellectual ones, who should have seen through his feigned centrism and bipartisanship to his uncompromising liberalism. Signs of his radicalism were everywhere, from his parents, mentors, and college and post-college associations, to his autobiographies, to his street organizing and other political activism in Chicago, to his record in the state senate and U.S. Senate, to his church and its illustrious, America-hating, racially obsessed, Marxist-leaning pastor, to his spontaneous statements on the presidential campaign trail.