{"id":694,"date":"2012-06-18T00:25:24","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T00:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=694"},"modified":"2013-02-20T00:29:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T00:29:48","slug":"the-potemkin-president-disintegrates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-potemkin-president-disintegrates\/","title":{"rendered":"The Potemkin President Disintegrates"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n

FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n

After nearly four years in office, the tinsel and cardboard persona of Barack Obama is starting to fall apart. The political unifier who claimed, \u201cThere is not a liberal America and a conservative America \u2014 there is the United States of America,\u201d has been exposed as one of the most divisive and partisan presidents of modern times. The post-racial candidate who supposedly transcended our racial divisions has intensified them, whether by crudely racializing incidents like the Trayvon Martin shooting, or by allowing the Justice Department to facilitate race-industry attacks on state voter-identification laws, or by calling his own grandmother \u201ca typical white person\u201d for fearing black criminals. The decrier of how money has corrupted our politics has spent more time at the campaign contribution trough than he has governing. The \u201ccentrist\u201d who set aside partisan politics for the greater national good has been exposed as a doctrinaire progressive adept at bare-knuckled class warfare. And the \u201csmartest guy ever to become President,\u201d as one historically challenged historian put it, has turned out to be remarkably ignorant about a multitude of issues from the economy to foreign policy.<\/p>\n

Yet we didn\u2019t need the past three years to learn the truth about Obama. The evidence was all there from the start. What allowed the fantasy Obama to gain the White House was the collusion of a corrupt mainstream media that failed to ask the hard questions or follow through on stories that had managed to get the nation\u2019s attention. The recent\u00a0revelation<\/a>\u00a0from the Breitbart outfit that a publisher\u2019s promotional booklet in 1991 bragged that Obama had been \u201cborn in Kenya\u201d is just the latest evidence of how stubbornly and willfully indifferent the media have been to asking the penetrating questions of the sort that have dogged every president, especially those since Lyndon Johnson. The media\u2019s dereliction of duty has allowed Obama to construct\u00a0ad hoc<\/em>\u00a0identities that suit his political agenda and obscure his unsavory past and ideology.<\/p>\n

For example, the continuing questions about Obama\u2019s birth-country renewed by the Breitbart discovery are significant for exposing his long history of fabricating an identity to suit his careerist needs. The Hawaii prep-schooled, white-raised Barry Dunham discovered on getting to college that the exotic name Barack Hussein Obama, like the Indonesian childhood, was more useful for sending a diversity thrill down the leg of liberal white professors and admissions committees. So too with publishers, eager to display their multi-cultibona fides<\/em>\u00a0by promoting a Third-World author \u201cborn in Kenya,\u201d who would chronicle his struggles against neo-colonial racism. Like many other hustlers \u201cof color,\u201d Obama was no doubt happy to oblige and collude in the deception \u2014 until national political ambitions required that he tone down the \u201cother\u201d vibe, at least until after the election.<\/p>\n

So too with the unasked questions about Obama\u2019s radical past. The media saw nothing to report about Obama starting his political career in the living room of ex-terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. You remember Ayers, the ex-Weatherman who bragged in his memoirs about getting away with his terrorist violence and being \u201cfree as a bird.\u201d Obama assured us that Ayers was \u201cjust a guy who lives in my neighborhood,\u201d despite serving on two foundation boards and appearing at conferences with him. As is the media\u2019s wont, perfunctory \u201cinvestigations\u201d revealed that there was nothing to the stories, taking on faith Obama\u2019s incredible assertion that there was no significance to the fact that one of America\u2019s most notorious terrorists was a part of his life and political development. The same media that ran with a hit-piece on George Bush supported only by an obviously fabricated letter, and that currently is intensely picking over the past history of Bain Capital, Romney\u2019s treatment of the family dog, and his alleged high-school bullying \u2014 that same media four years ago didn\u2019t think there was anything newsworthy in the Democratic candidate for president having ties with an unrepentant left-wing terrorist. Instead, they helped construct Obama\u2019s new identity as a pragmatic centrist beyond partisan politics.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the Reverend Jeremiah \u201cGod-damn America\u201d Wright, whom Obama credits with leading him to Christianity, who officiated at his wedding, who gave him the title of his second book, and whose church he attended for 20 years. When the videos of Wright\u2019s sermons surfaced, Obama claimed that he was \u201cshocked, shocked\u201d by the rancid anti-Americanism and racism weekly preached by Wright, and the media accepted that preposterous rationalization. Even John McCain dutifully refused to demand an explanation, declaring Wright \u201coff limits.\u201d Indeed, any mention of Wright even today calls forth shrill charges of \u201crace-baiting\u201d and \u201cracial politics\u201d from the Democrats and MSNBC. The same media that in 2006 hyperventilated over Republican Senate candidate George Allen saying something that sort of sounded like what maybe was an obscure ethnic slur apparently didn\u2019t see a story in the fact that Obama\u2019s spiritual mentor hates white people and had glorified the terrorist attacks of 9\/11 as \u201cchickens coming home to roost.\u201d Obama needed to be a mainstream post-racialist Christian for the election, so the media were happy to help him throw his one-time spiritual mentor under the bus.<\/p>\n

Once again, none of those intrepid \u201cwatchdog\u201d reporters from the legacy media were interested in digging for the true Obama, and in stripping away the carefully constructed fa\u00e7ade to find out what, if anything, Obama sincerely believed in. All they needed to know was that he was going to \u201cfundamentally transform America\u201d into the progressive paradise. Like Lincoln Steffens on the train heading for the Soviet Union, the facts could be damned: the media had already seen the future, and it worked.<\/p>\n

And this is just the beginning of the Obama mysteries left unexamined by the media. Why has the guy whose \u201cI.Q. is off the charts,\u201d as that same historian claimed, refused to release his college transcripts? Is there something in his course-work and grades that could explain the numerous historical gaffes, such as his assertion in the 2009 Cairo speech that Muslims were practicing tolerance in Cordoba centuries after they had been driven out by the Spaniards, or his repetition of internet apocryphal history, as when he claimed President Rutherford B. Hayes had dismissed the telephone\u2019s future, when in fact he installed the first telephone in the White House? Is there some transcript evidence that illuminates the source of howlers such as \u201c57\u201d states or the \u201cAustrian\u201d language? Why have a media that reveled in documenting daily George Bush\u2019s alleged stupidity maintained a studied indifference to this genius\u2019s academic record?<\/p>\n

Or why, in this age of meticulous intrusion into every last detail of a politician\u2019s life and health, has Obama\u2019s complete medical records been kept secret? What doesn\u2019t he want us to see? Why can\u2019t we read the Columbia thesis of this universally acknowledged \u201cbrilliant\u201d writer? Why did he receive \u201cforeign student aid\u201d? Why, as Roger Kimball\u00a0asks<\/a>, are his Illinois state senate schedule and records, Selective Service registration, and law practice client list all sealed? Perhaps there are innocuous reasons for all this secrecy, but no other candidate for the most powerful political job in the world would ever be allowed to keep this information from the public.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92012 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine After nearly four years in office, the tinsel and cardboard persona of Barack Obama is starting to fall apart. The political unifier who claimed, \u201cThere is not a liberal America and a conservative America \u2014 there is the United States of America,\u201d has been exposed as one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[146,22,271],"tags":[1051,12,192,1026,1055,1044,93,67],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-bc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1138,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/its-the-president-stupid-the-referendum-on-barack-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":0},"title":"It’s the President Stupid: The Referendum on Barack Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton RightNetwork.com The people have spoken, and what they have said concerns more than just the wrong-headed policies the Democrats have inflicted upon us in the past few years. This election was never just about policy \u2013\u2013 it was also about Barack Obama and the repudiation of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3300,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-race-card\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s Race Card","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The liberal media are in full Captain Renault mode, \u201cshocked, shocked\u201d to find race injected into the presidential campaign by a \u201cSwift-boating\u201d John McCain. How shameless can you get? The Obama campaign\u2013\u2013indeed, the whole of Obama\u2019s public existence\u2013\u2013is about nothing other than his perceived\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":663,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/get-ready-for-more-charges-of-racism\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":2},"title":"Get Ready For More Charges of Racism","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton FrontPage Magazine The implosion of the Obama administration will create more and more desperate narratives on the part of progressives as we head toward the November election. With no record of achievement to run on, Obama must try to misdirect voters by shifting blame elsewhere: so far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1067,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-racial-politics\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":3},"title":"Obama’s Racial Politics","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Never has America been more assimilated, integrated, and intermarried \u2014 as is evident in everything from politics to popular culture, from statistics to anecdotes. Yet from late 2007 to 2012, Barack Obama has been establishing new rules of racial referencing. In general, his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Identity Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Identity Politics","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/identity-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":602,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-medias-racial-prison\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":4},"title":"The Media’s Racial Prison","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton Frontpage Magazine Two incidents last week suggest once more that our confused, hypocritical, and politicized notions of race and relations will play a huge role in the presidential election. In the first, Virginia state senator L. Louise Lucas, part of Obama\u2019s \u201cTruth Team\u201d campaigning for the president\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8124,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/8124\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":5},"title":"The Progressive Racial Narrative and Its Beneficiaries","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Debunking the lies about race in America. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine A recent NBC\/Wall Street Journal poll reveals that nearly 6 in 10 people believe race relations are bad, with 23% saying they are \u201cvery bad.\u201d The causes of these perceptions are many, including nationally publicized police\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Contributors"","block_context":{"text":"Our Contributors","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"al_sharpton_speaking_reuters-450x337","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/al_sharpton_speaking_reuters-450x337.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":695,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions\/695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}