Mr. President, You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All

Most Americans are aware of the controversy surrounding President Obama's invitation to speak at Nortre Dame's graduation ceremony. In his speech, Obama made the mistake of addressing the topic of abortion.  In reality, he didn't actually say anthing at all, but in doing so, said a lot. Al Mohler has written the best commentary I have read on this speech so far:

Mr. Obama went on to call for "Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words." In the end, the President's comments were entirely about how Americans should discuss or debate abortion. There was no serious consideration of abortion itself. President Obama merely talked about talking about abortion.

This was a moral evasion and an insult to the importance of the issue. If the President had actually addressed the issue of abortion -- if he had actually even offered a defense or rationale for his own position -- he would have dignified the issue. Instead, Mr. Obama issued what amounted to a call for civility.

When the President called for Americans to agree that, while differing on abortion, "we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually," he failed to make clear why this is so. If the unborn baby is not a person who possesses an intrinsic right to life, why is the decision to abort so "heart-wrenching?" If the fetus is just a collection of cells, why the angst? Furthermore, does the fact that a decision is "heart-wrenching" make it right or rational?

When the President acknowledged that, in the end, the two positions on abortion are irreconcilable, he was on more solid ground. Both sides frame the issue as a question of rights -- specifically a woman's "right" to control her reproductive destiny by any means, including abortion vs. the unborn child's right to live. The weakness of the pro-abortion (or "pro-choice") position becomes evident at this point. The claimed right of control over reproduction is not commensurate with another person's right to live, and not to be killed in the womb.

If President Obama had actually spoken of abortion itself, rather than addressing abortion only as an issue of controversy, he would have found himself defending the indefensible, which explains why he avoids this discussion at all costs. Yet, now that he is President, he cannot get by with claiming that this question is "above my pay grade."

[Mohler's conclusion] At the University of Notre Dame President Barack Obama talked about talking about abortion. One day, he will have to talk about abortion itself. He will put that day off as long as possible.

Read the whole thing

Read more...

John Piper speaks to President Obama regarding Abortion

Read more...

Obama in the Morning

How about a little Obama in the morning? Let me clarify, Obama in the morning = a hand full of stupid pills and a cup of coffee. Does that sound appealing? It does to a lot of people. Here are some comments from Mark Steyn in the National Review:

Apparently, nothing testifies to the American virtues of self-reliance, entrepreneurial energy and the can-do spirit like joining the vast army of robotic extras droning in unison, “The government needs to do more for me…”

Most Americans don’t yet grasp the scale of the Obama project. The naysayers complain, oh, it’s another Jimmy Carter, or it’s the new New Deal, or it’s LBJ’s Great Society applied to health care… You should be so lucky. Forget these parochial nickel’n’dime comparisons. It’s all those multiplied a gazillionfold and nuclearized – or Europeanized, which is less dramatic but ultimately more lethal. For a distressing number of American liberals, the natural condition of an advanced, progressive western democracy is Scandinavia, and the US has just been taking a wee bit longer to get there.

Even in its heyday – the Sixties and Seventies - the good times in Europe were underwritten by the American security guarantee: The only reason why France could get away with being France, Belgium with being Belgium, Sweden with being Sweden is because America was America. Kagan’s thesis – Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus – will look like paradise lost when the last conventional “great power” of western civilization embraces the death-cult narcissism of its transatlantic confreres in the full knowledge of where that leads. Why would you do anything so crazy? Ah, but these are crazy times: Europeans are from Pluto, Americans are from Goofy.

I wonder what else Obama could do to ensure that America can never recover. I guess I will just have to wait a couple of weeks to see what he does next. The only possible upside I can see to all of Obama’s destruction is that if we become just like much of Europe, then maybe we can follow in their footsteps regarding beer production. Anyone want to share a Heineken and watch America become the next Amsterdam?

Read more...

Obamanomics Vs. Reaganomics

Peter Ferrara recently wrote an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal contrasting Reagan’s and Obama’s economic policies. If you are too lazy to read the entire article, then Matt Perman has a great summary. Here is one of the conclusions:

• What is the current result of Obama’s plan?

• This is why America seems so hopeless right now, and so depressed. We are stuck going in exactly the wrong direction on economic policy because of currently dominant ideological fashions.
  

Read more...