{"id":8252,"date":"2015-03-02T07:30:38","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T15:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8252"},"modified":"2015-03-02T07:30:38","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T15:30:38","slug":"the-liberal-circus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-liberal-circus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Liberal Circus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media<\/a><\/p>\n

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This Nov. 28, 2012 file photo shows then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton listening as President Barack Obama speaks in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lately liberalism has gone from psychodrama to farce.<\/p>\n

Take Barack Obama. He has gone from mild displeasure with Israel to downright antipathy. Suddenly we are in a surreal world where off-the-record slurs from the administration against Benjamin Netanyahu as a coward and chickensh-t have gone to full-fledged attacks from John Kerry and Susan Rice, to efforts of former Obama political operatives to defeat the Israeli prime minister at the polls, to concessions to Iran and to indifference about the attacks on Jews in Paris. Who would have believed that Iranian leaders who just ordered bombing runs on a mock U.S. carrier could be treated with more deference than the prime minister of Israel? What started out six years as pressure on Israel to dismantle so-called settlements has ended up with a full-fledged vendetta<\/a> [1]<\/sup> against a foreign head of state.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton likewise has gone from a rather run-of-the-mill liberal grandee to a political grafter<\/a> [2]<\/sup>. She apparently solicited donations from foreign government officials and wealthy foreign nationals to contribute to the Clinton Foundation \u2014 and this was while she was secretary of State conducting the foreign policy of the United States. If those charges are proven accurate, how could she ever be trusted to become commander in chief? Unfortunately, in the last year almost every cause that Hillary Clinton has taken up has been belied by her own actions.<\/p>\n

Inequality and fairness? At time when students struggle under a collective $1 trillion-plus student debt, much of it because of universities hiking fees and tuitions above the inflation rate, Hillary has serially charged universities well over $200,000<\/a> [3]<\/sup> for 30-minute boilerplate speeches.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s issues? We learn that women on Senator Clinton\u2019s staff once made considerably less than their male counterparts<\/a> [4]<\/sup>. Had Bill Clinton worked at a university, corporation or government bureau, his sexual peccadillos long ago would have had him thrown off the premises. The latest disclosures about his junkets with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> [5]<\/sup> are so bizarre that no one quite knows what to make of them \u2014 the would-be first female and feminist president married to a man who serially cavorted with a convicted sexual pervert?<\/p>\n

Transparency? Consider the recent disclosures that Hillary knew almost immediately that the Benghazi killings were the preplanned work of terrorists and not due to spontaneous rioters angry over a video \u2014 and yet continued to deceive the public that just the opposite was true. The problem with Hillary\u2019s scandals are not just that they reveal a lack of character, but that they are illiberal to the core on hallmark progressive issues of concern for equality, transparency and feminism.<\/p>\n

We no longer live in an age of debate over global warming. It has now transmogrified well beyond Al Gore\u2019s hysterics, periodic disclosures about warmists\u2019 use of faked data, embarrassing email vendettas, vindictive lawsuits, crony green capitalism, and flawed computer models. Now Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, has taken the psychodrama to the level of farce in a two-bit McCarthyesque effort<\/a> [6]<\/sup> to demand from universities information about scientists who do not embrace his notions of manmade global warming. Where are the ACLU and fellow Democratic congressional supporters of free speech and academic freedom to censure such an Orwellian move? Finally, even the American Meteorological Society had to condemn the unhinged Grijalva for his bizarre efforts.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Eric Holder came into office alleging racism and calling the American people cowards, and six years later is exiting, still blaming racism for his own self-inflicted failures. In between, Holder became the first attorney general to be cited for contempt by Congress. He stonewalled the Fast and Furious investigations. His plans to try terrorists in federal civilian courts were tabled almost immediately. He ordered electronic taps and surveillance on the communications of Associated Press and Fox reporters for supposed leaks.\u00a0 He ignored wrongdoing in the IRS mess, a scandal that continues to grow. He got caught using his government jet<\/a> [7]<\/sup> to take his daughters and their boyfriends to the Belmont Stakes.<\/p>\n

But Holder will be remembered largely for his racialist tenure. He dropped a strong case of voting intimidation by armed Black Panthers at the polls. In congressional testimony, he referred to blacks as \u201cmy people\u201d; anyone else \u2014 except Joe Biden \u2014 who had said the same would have been asked to resign. He promised federal action on Ferguson and the Trayvon Martin shootings \u2014 and then quietly backed off when the evidence for civil rights violations did not meet his own rhetorical excesses. The problem, he pleaded, was not that his targets were not guilty under the law, but that the law itself had to be changed to make them guilty.\u00a0 Holder claimed repeatedly that opposition to Obama was race-based, and he leaves office as a caricature of incompetence and racial divisiveness.<\/p>\n

The IRS scandal likewise went from melodrama to farce. The president said there was not a \u201csmidgeon\u201d of corruption in the selective targeting of conservatives. Lois Lerner, the focus of investigations, pled the Fifth Amendment after having received over $100,000 in merit bonuses. When congressional investigators wanted to subpoena her computer records, IRS officials claimed both that her hard drive\u00a0 had crashed and that its data was unrecoverable. The latter proved untrue; but then so far so has everything the IRS has said. The only lesson is that any private citizen who replied to IRS inquiries in the manner that the IRS responded to public subpoenas would be jailed.<\/p>\n

Debt? Barack Obama stated out in 2008 calling George W. Bush unpatriotic for piling up nearly $5 trillion in eight years; he may be on target to double that amount \u2014 and trump the combined red ink of all prior presidents. Obama raised taxes, slashed defense, and still ended up with over a $500 billion annual deficit, as he declared the age of austerity over.<\/p>\n

So it has become with most liberal issues. The debate over illegal immigration has gone from arguments over closing the border to Social Security cash rebates to illegals and presidential threats to punish Border Patrol officers who enforce existing law. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf assures us that poverty and unemployment are catalysts to terrorism<\/a> [8]<\/sup>, just as so-called Jihadi John, the psychotic ISIS beheader, is revealed to be a preppie British subject<\/a>[9]<\/sup> from the upper middle class. The president brags that gas prices have gone down because frackers ignored his efforts to stop them \u2014 and then vetoes the Keystone Pipeline.<\/p>\n

The Trayvon Martin controversy descends from the purportedly preteen of released photos who was shot down in cold blood by a white vigilante into doctored NBC tapes, airbrushed photos, the New York Times\u2019<\/i> invented rubric \u201cwhite Hispanic,\u201d the president weighing in on Trayvon\u2019s shared racial appearance, girlfriend Rachel Jeantel\u2019s explanation of Trayvon\u2019s violence as a sort of homophobic act of \u201cwhoop ass\u201d \u2014 only to be echoed by MSNBC talking head Melissa Harris-Perry\u2019s ugly sanction of violence on Martin Luther King Day with the amplification of Jeantel\u2019s term \u201cwhoop\u201d: \u00a0\u201cI hope [Martin] whooped the sh-it out of George Zimmerman<\/a> [10]<\/sup>.\u201d It would be hard for a satirist to make all that up.<\/p>\n

Michael Brown goes from the icon of a \u201cgentle giant\u201d in vain calling out \u201chands up, don\u2019t shoot\u201d only to be gunned down by a white racist cop \u2014 to a thug who strong-armed a store clerk, walked out into the middle of the road under the influence and then attacked a police officer. Conspiracists once warned us that the government was buying up ammo to prevent private gun owners from purchasing it; now we learn that Obama by executive order may ban<\/a> [11]<\/sup> the most popular type of sporting ammunition. Is there one element of Obamacare that has not been modified, delayed, or ignored \u2014 from the employer mandate to the fine for noncompliance?<\/p>\n

Why this descent into travesty?<\/p>\n

The liberal left got what it wanted in 2009 with a supermajority in the Senate and large majority in the House, a subservient mainstream media, the good will of the American people, and the most liberal president in American history. It only took that the liberal hierarchy six years to erode the Democratic Party to levels that we have not seen since the 1920s. Almost every policy initiative we have seen \u2014 whether climate change, foreign policy, health care, or race relations \u2014 has imploded.<\/p>\n

The answer to these failures has not been introspection, humility, or reevaluation why the liberal agenda proved unpopular and unworkable, but in paranoid fashion to double-down on it, convinced that its exalted aims must allow any means necessary \u2014 however farcical \u2014 \u00a0to achieve them.<\/p>\n

The logical result is the present circus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Article printed from Works and Days: http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/victordavishanson<\/strong><\/p>\n

URL to article: http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/victordavishanson\/the-liberal-circus\/<\/strong><\/p>\n

URLs in this post:<\/p>\n

[1] with a full-fledged vendetta: http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2015\/03\/01\/obama-threatened-iaf\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[2] to a political grafter: http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept\/2015\/02\/25\/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[3] well over $200,000: http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/theoval\/2013\/07\/12\/hillary-clinton-speeches-20000-bill-clinton\/2511459\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[4] than their male counterparts: http:\/\/www.powerlineblog.com\/archives\/2015\/02\/the-appalling-hypocrisy-of-obama-and-hillary.php<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[5] convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein: http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/2015\/02\/06\/sex-offender-who-mixes-princes-and-premiers-302877.html<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[6] McCarthyesque effort: http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2015\/02\/25\/democrats-witch-hunt-global-warming\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[7] using his government jet: http:\/\/weaselzippers.us\/196206-holder-uses-government-owned-jet-to-fly-daughters-and-their-boyfriends-to-attend-belmont-stakes\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[8] catalysts to terrorism: http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2015\/02\/17\/another-day-at-nbc\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[9] a preppie British subject: http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2972333\/First-picture-Jihadi-John-adult.html<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[10] whooped the sh-it out of George Zimmerman: http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2015\/02\/25\/nbc-hopes-trayvon-whooped-zimmerman\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[11] Obama by executive order may ban: http:\/\/www.powerlineblog.com\/archives\/2015\/02\/the-obama-administrations-ar-15-ammo-ban-whats-it-all-about.php<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2015Works and Days. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media Lately liberalism has gone from psychodrama to farce. Take Barack Obama. He has gone from mild displeasure with Israel to downright antipathy. Suddenly we are in a surreal world where off-the-record slurs from the administration against Benjamin Netanyahu as a coward and chickensh-t have gone to full-fledged attacks […]<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[145,11,187,262,185],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-296","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8431,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-and-hillary-are-all-too-happy-to-coerce-acceptance-of-their-agendas\/","url_meta":{"origin":8252,"position":0},"title":"Obama and Hillary Are All Too Happy to Coerce Acceptance of Their Agendas","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online What happens when the public does not wish to live out the utopian dreams of its elite leaders? Usually, the answer for those leaders is to seek more coercion and less liberty to force people to think progressively. Here at home, President\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hillary Clinton"","block_context":{"text":"Hillary Clinton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/public-figures\/hillary-clinton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via NRO","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/pic_giant_033015_SM_Hillary-Clinton-Dark-G-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8293,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hillary-or-bust\/","url_meta":{"origin":8252,"position":1},"title":"Hillary or Bust!","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"She\u2019s weighed down with negatives, but do the Democrats have a choice? by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online Hillary Clinton will not run in 2016 on the slogan of continuing the hope-and-change policies of Barack Obama. 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