At the same time the IRS was ramping up its harassment of Tea Party groups in 2011, liberals were outraged and President Obama threatened to veto the debt ceiling legislation when Republicans tried to end public financing of Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills and incessant political advocacy. Even now, Planned Parenthood continues to receive public funding and also operates a 501(c)(4), presumably with private contributions, although accounting gimmicks make this separation highly dubious. Meanwhile, Tea Party groups whose stated mission is to educate citizens about the Bill of Rights and accept only private donations were held to a much higher level of scrutiny.

The contrast is spectacular and revealing: for modern liberalism, abortion is a public good but freedom of speech is not. Obama made this explicit when he told Planned Parenthood, “God bless you” and then went on to tell the graduates of Ohio State to reject the voices that warn that tyranny is just around the corner. If the revelations of the past few days have taught us anything, it is that the phrase “unaccountable bureaucrat” is not just a political cliché, and pace Obama’s assurances, there really is a petty tyrant that is always lurking around the corner of every page of ambiguous and ill-conceived legislation—and ObamaCare is by far the most heinous example.

President Obama claimed in a press conference yesterday that he had no knowledge of the IRS program, but this does not absolve him of responsibility. During his State of the Union address in 2010, President Obama made it clear that he was vehemently opposed to 501(c)(4) organizations engaging in political activity and urged Congress to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Perhaps, like the knights who killed Saint Thomas á Beckett after hearing Henry II wish for his death in a fit of rage, the IRS employees were just trying to please their boss.

“Paying the Tax,” by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, c.1620

This should give us pause when we consider the wide-ranging powers granted to the IRS under ObamaCare. Indeed, the landmark ruling of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius only upheld ObamaCare by interpreting its most onerous provisions as an exercise of the taxing power. Liberal pundits echo Obama’s claim that we have nothing to fear, but they said the same thing about the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups. In this light, the words of the Declaration of Independence reverberate through the centuries as a warning that is just as relevant today, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” The HHS contraceptive and abortifacient mandate is only a foretaste of what is to come.

In the age of Obama, we can no longer hope that the executive branch will exercise prudence and sound judgement in the enforcement of the law. Whenever the law allows for discretion, it also allows for abuse. As far as we know, this scandal is not the product of some Nixonian conspiracy, although the scope and longevity of the IRS program do not reflect well on Obama’s leadership if nobody ever thought to bring it to his attention. As the saying goes, “A fish rots from the head down.”

Most likely, these abuses are simply the result of an incompetent and ineffectual President who despises the citizens that elected him and takes no interest in the task of governing when it does not suit his latest initiative to remake American society. If we can take Obama at his word, the IRS employees were simply left to their own devices without proper oversight. It is only natural that they would follow the example of a President who never misses an opportunity to chastise his conservative opponents and to politicize every function of the government under his control. Sadly, in his peevish aloofness, Obama is the pettiest tyrant of them all.

—

Correction Note: the original version of this article referred to the debt ceiling debate as taking place in May 2012 when it was in fact the summer of 2011.

That adequately explains why I am entirely and completely unimpressed with the anger of the pastor at a parish who called me, irate that a group of volunteers I organized were putting pro-life leaflets on cars in his parish parking lot. He complained about how much difficulty it will cause him.

Difficulty? What difficulty? He didn’t know we were going to do it, so there is no possibility of legal difficulties.

The material was entirely consistent with the Church’s teaching on life and a Catholic’s obligations vis-a-vis voting and the “non-negotiables,” so it couldn’t possibly be controversial among his parishoners, could it?

One of the most powerful spots on the planet. Souls can be emboldened for the good or scandalized. Minds can be enlightened or confused. Hearts can be set afire or made lukewarm.

I mean, if his parishoners are well informed on the issues and well educated by their teachers in the faith concerning what is and what is not negotiable then the worst problem would be a few leaflets fluttering around in the breeze after parishoners left.

Perhaps a few parishoners who refused to accept the teaching of the Church might be upset, and perhaps a few might call him, thinking he had orchestrated the leafletting. In that case, it seems like a grand opportunity to collect a wayward sheep and coax him back to the fold, while assuring the parishoner that he, the pastor, had absolutely nothing to do with, nor knowledge of, the leaflets being distributed. So that’s not really a difficulty—it’s his job.

I’m flush out of what the difficulty might be. Whatever it is, I’ll wager that it pales in comparison to the difficulty a child in the womb feels during an abortion. Anyhow, I think you know where I’m going with this.

The Romney campaign was horrid at Hispanic/Latino outreach, which accounts for them not getting much of that vote. But not voting for one guy doesn’t mean one automatically votes for the other guy. If Catholics of any ethnicity cast a vote for a politician as antithetical to Catholic non-negotiables as Obama, that strongly suggests a failure on the part of those charged with forming the faithful on their faith and the duties the faith requires.

That sort of failure doesn’t happen just in the weeks and months leading up to the election, it goes back years.

All the faithful have a duty to educate themselves and one another on responsible citizenship, but if the shepherds do not lead the sheep scatter. There will, naturally, be some sheep who persist in their error and refuse to be led—we still have free will, pride, and concupiscence; and God ratifies our choices. But those ought to be the exception, not the majority. Sheep who ignore the shepherd and persistently leave the fold get eaten by wolves.

Christ said we are to be the salt of the earth, to season it, draw out its goodness. But if salt loses its flavor it is useless. It seasons nothing. It is worthy only to be cast out and trodden underfoot.

I worked in politics and political activism in DC for a number of years before going to seminary. When I was accepted to seminary I would joke with people that I was “leaving politics to go into the Church….”

A laugh line, of course.

There is a difference, however. An essential, very significant, difference.

Politics, the back-and-forth of compromise and coalition building to craft public policy and move the body politic in a particular direction, is the substance of the state. Sure we have a Constitution, but it’s only as good as it is applied by the legislators, president, and judges, according to their thinking and ideology.

In the Church, the politics are ancillary. Jockeying for position within the chancery, the Curia, the monastery, the parish, the religious education office; pushing your brand of Catholicism, your preferred spirituality, your devotions, your preferred form of the Mass… All important, as far as they go, but none is essential to what the Church is and what it is here for. The Church is the earthly institution of God, guided by His Holy Spirit. The substance of the Church is the life of God in the world, and our actions, machinations, and pursuits will not alter God.

We might believe disaster is about to befall the country, we might think this election signifies a dangerous and possibly irreversible fundamental change in this country, and we may be right.

We may think certain leaders of the Church are failing the Church and therefore the world, and we may be right.

But in both cases the way forward will not be in our own machinations but it will be in embracing the substance of the Church and bringing her to the world and the world to her. We make a difference when we affect hearts, which move minds, and the heart is moved when the Holy Spirit is allowed to move in the heart.

We are children of God before we are citizens of any nation or subjects of any sovereign. We fight the good fight in the politics of the world to bring about the good and true in the world precisely because we are first children of God, and we have been called to affect the good in the world, so that more of us might end up in heaven with God in eternity.

Let us forge ahead with full hope in the promise of God’s love, anchored in God’s Church, affecting the world for the good and the true.

In the end, God has already won anyhow.

With the barest of imagination you should have no problem transmuting Reagan’s remarks from 48 years ago to the wars, bad fiscal policies, and threats to freedom we face in the present day. Stunning, huh?

Note especially the *outrageous* figures he tosses about concerning the amount of money being wasted by social welfare program back in 1964. Quaint, huh?

Amazing how timely it still is.

This means we aren’t going to solve the problems and root out bad thinking in our own lifetimes; the best we can do is hold the line and make things a little better than they are now.

So we vote for the candidate who can win and whom we believe will take us in a good direction. No, unfortunately there is no Reagan in this election, but there’s still a clear choice and a responsibility to affect the good in the short and long term.

Romney has been endorsed by many pro-life activists and activist organizations.

Right off the bat, let it be known that Mitt Romney was my fourth choice among the GOP primary candidates.

Check my writing in this space from that time and you’ll see me talking up Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum, with barely a word in support of Romney. Since he won the nomination I’ve written a whole lot about how awful Barack Obama is but still barely anything in favor of Romney.

I think that establishes that this is far from blind loyalty speaking.

I am supporting Mitt Romney wholeheartedly in this election and I would like to share with you why I think you really ought to as well.

It comes down to this: we have a responsibility, as citizens, to be engaged in the public policy process to move public policy in the direction of the true and good. Our most direct and important means of doing this is voting. We are about to vote for President of the United States, the single most powerful secular political office in the world. There are two, and only two, candidates with any chance of winning the presidency next Tuesday. A vote for anyone apart from those two candidates will not affect public policy at. all. If one of the two candidates with a chance to win is morally acceptable then that candidate is eligible for your vote. But further, if one of the two candidates is morally reprehensible, then the other has a lower threshold to overcome to be deserving of your vote.

That applies to voting in general. We as Catholics have special considerations, teachings from our church on what is more or less important when casting a vote. There are five “non-negotiables:” abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, gay “marriage,” and human cloning. We cannot ever support policies that go against the Truth on these matters. Other areas that are negotiable—taxation, capital punishment, social welfare, waging war, etc.—allow for legitimate disagreement within a spectrum guided by Church teaching but ultimately up to the individual’s conscience. In this post I’m not talking about the negotiables.

On those non-negotiables, some seem to think we cannot vote for a candidate who is not darn-near pure as the driven snow. In his recent rather flippant post on such a consequential matter Mark Shea seems to be in this category.

After some undeserved and flimsy shots at Romney and Paul Ryan he concludes:

My point is this: If the five non-negotiables are this negotiable, something is wrong. My idea is that the five non-negotiables really are non-negotiable and that our selective negotiability has, over the past 30 years, cost the prolife movement a whole lot more than it has gained it anything. I think we should return to refusal to negotiate on non-negotiables–and re-evaluate our voting based, not on the negligible impact our vote has on election outcomes, but on the massive impact compromising on non-negotiables has had on the prolife movement.

First, his arguments against Romney in his preceding paragraph read more like sour grapes than anything else. Romney is endorsed by plenty of legitimate, respected pro-life groups and provides ample assurance that he will protect life, religious liberty, and marriage. I did not support Romney in the primary because I believed the other three would be better champions of these causes, but I am not afraid of a Romney presidency, and certainly not as afraid as of four more years of Barack Obama.

But second, based on that paragraph I quoted, which is more important to Shea, the “prolife movement,” or actually affecting public policy for the good over the next four years? He talks up the “prolife movement” at the expense of Romney and Ryan. He disparages the “negligible impact” of our individual sovereign vote. You could almost get the impression that Shea would be okay with four more years of Obama so long as the “prolife movement” gets stronger at some indeterminate point in the future. Ridiculous, and counterproductive for actually moving public policy in the direction of the good and true.

Shea may consider his version of the “prolife movement” more legit than others, but then what kind of movement is it if so many within the main bulk of the movement have already gone another direction?

Regardless of the present power or leadership of the “prolife movement,” public policy will be formed  both over the next four years, as well as in that as-yet unattainable epoch when the “prolife movement” is strong enough to satisfy Shea. It is imperative that we do what we can to affect public policy now, and in the future. Voting is our most immediate and important means of affecting public policy. We live in the now, and the next four years of public policy will likely roll by before that coalescing of the “prolife movement” Shea so desires, so we need to act to affect the now. Romney *is* the only candidate for president who both has a chance to win and is acceptable on the non-negotiables. Romney is not perfect—no one is, not even the three I preferred over him—but the alternative is Barack Obama. And this much is true: If you sit out today and withhold your vote “to teach a lesson,” or in pursuit of ideological purity you will achieve neither in this fallen world of constantly shifting political factions and fads. It just doesn’t happen.

Politics, the rough-and-tumble, back-and-forth competition of coalitions and compromise by which we get public policy, is about doing what you can, when you can, with the team you can put together at the moment, to advance the ball as far as you can, every opportunity you can. Politics is not about taking your ball and going home when you don’t hit the 90-yard touchdown strike on the first play from scrimmage. If you pursue that strategy you will lose, badly, and not be taken seriously by those who are actually trying to, and are content to, advance the ball by increments toward the goal. Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl, Jeff George did not. Don’t be Jeff George.

George Weigel, writing in National Review Online, essentially agrees:

Catholics who are still pondering their presidential vote will have heard, endlessly, that no political party fully embodies the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. That is certainly true. And it is also largely irrelevant. For the choice in 2012 is not between two parties that, in relative degrees, inadequately embody the Catholic vision of the free and virtuous society. The choice is between a party that inadequately embodies that vision and a party that holds that vision in contempt, as it has made clear in everything from the “HHS mandate” through the Charlotte convention votes against God to the [Lena Dunham] ad. Catholics who do not like their Church, or their vote, or themselves to be held in contempt could make the decisive difference in 2012 — not so much as a “Catholic vote” bloc, but as a community of American citizens determined to restore the decencies to public life and American culture.

(emphases mine)

On religious liberty, abortion, defense of marriage, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, defense of marriage, and human cloning, the question is not, “Is Mitt Romney perfectly, solidly Catholic on these positions?” but “Will Mitt Romney or Barack Obama present the better opportunity to advance public policy toward the true and good, and will either of them be truly deleterious to these causes?”

I make no categorical claim that a President Mitt Romney will have a perfect record on all of these areas—only fools make categorical claims about the future actions of politicians. But the nearest to a categorical claim any of us can make is that Barack Obama, if given the chance, would continue to be the most anti-life, anti-religious liberty president we have ever endured.

So in my view the choice is clear: If you value life and liberty in the way the Church admonishes us to you must vote for Mitt Romney.

"When I am lifted up from the earth I shall draw all men to myself." (John 12:32)

In the liturgical calendar of 1962 the Feast of Christ the King was assigned to the final Sunday of October. The feast was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI as a response to the rising tide of secularism. The inhuman pall of atheistic ideologies that would see the murder of hundreds of millions over the next century—all in the name of “progress”—was spreading like aggressive cancer in the wake of the Great War. Pius XI wished to remind the faithful, through an annual feast, that Jesus Christ is Lord and King over all time, all hearts, all truth; no earthly government could usurp his dominion over all human hearts.

Here in Steubenville, the main chapel at Franciscan University is named and dedicated in honor of Christ the King. Today’s 4 p.m. Mass will be celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, making it the patronal feast of our chapel. Accordingly, we will mark the occasion with a Solemn High Mass.

Fitting, I think, that the second-to-last Sunday before our election day should invite us to recall that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Alpha and the Omega, through Whom all things were made and without Whom nothing was made; who came unto His own, who received Him not, but to as many as received Him, to them He gave eternal life. He who, as scion of David, proclaimed the kingdom of God not as an earthly kingdom of armies and borders, but as a spiritual kingdom of truth and love that holds dominion over every human heart. He who reigned from His throne, winning his people to Himself by being nailed to the cross, a crown of thorns on His head, the derision of the mobs before Him, offering His life, His flesh, His precious blood, His everything as an offering of love and peace.

“Because of this, God highly exalted him and bestowed upon him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every head shall bow, every knee shall bend, and every tongue profess, to the glory of God the Father, that JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!”

But there is more to it than merely saying “Lord, lord,” for even the demons recognize that He is Lord, and they shudder. If you profess with your tongue but do not submit with your heart, do not live your life accordingly, what good is it?

And consider the nature of Christ’s kingship. When questioned directly about his kingship by Pontius Pilate Jesus responded, “Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” (John 18:37) He did not directly respond, “Yes, I am a king.” Perhaps because the kingship Pilate meant—that of a political ruler of a geographic territory—is not the kingship that Christ possesses. His response was meant to prevent confusion.

If I may be so bold, I propose this restating of Christ’s response: “You say I am a ‘king,’ but my dominion is not what you are thinking of. My dominion is one of timeless Truth that binds all persons together, regardless of their location in time and space, if only they listen to the words I speak to them.”

Pilate’s response lends credence to this interpretation: “What is truth?” Or, “Truth? Who cares about ‘truth.’ I have the power, regardless of what is ‘true,’ to have you released or crucified.”

There, however, is the cross-over into our own times and activities. Christ is the king of all time and space by being the Lord of truth, but what good is truth if it is not observed in activity. We are talking here about the kingship of Christ and not merely his directives on living a good life, so we must consider the import of Christ’s kingship of Truth on our political activity.

We have an obligation to bring truth to bear in our votes, voting to advance the cause of truth and goodness in society. Voting for candidates who, both, will move our civil laws in the direction of truth and goodness and who have a real shot at winning their election. We do no good for the advancement of good and moral laws if we vote for someone with no chance of winning, regardless of their positions. If a candidate is available who both has a chance to win and also will move us in a better direction, especially if all other candidates with a chance to win are morally reprehensible, then it behooves us to vote for that candidate.

In 2005, Archbishop Charles Chaput, then of Denver, spoke at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on this same theme—his speech was stirring then, with the events of the last few years it is downright alarming now.

He spoke on the statement in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” His text is so tight but simple that summary and commentary is useless; I’ll simply post it here:

I grew up in Concordia, Kansas. It’s a typical small farming community of less than 7,000 people. But in those days Concordia was also the hometown of Senator Frank Carlson, who was a major player in Congress. So it wasn’t unusual for people in Concordia to think they had something important to say about government affairs and life in Washington, DC.

That’s the way it should be. That’s what the Founders of our country intended. All of us, no matter how little we are, have a voice in our nation’s public life and a major part to play.

Additionally, Catholics see politics as part of the history of salvation. For us, no one is a minor actor in that drama. Each person is important. And one of the most important duties we have is to use our gifts in every way possible for the glory of God and for the common good. That’s why Catholics and other Christians have always taken an active role in public life. What we believe about God shapes how we think about men and women. It also shapes what we do about promoting human dignity.

Today’s national discussion about religion and politics is sometimes so very strange. If God is the cen- ter of our lives, then of course that fact will influence our behavior, including our political decisions. That’s natural and healthy. What’s unnatural and unhealthy is the kind of public square where religious faith is seen as unwelcome and dangerous. But that seems to be exactly what some people want: a public square stripped of God and stripped of religious faith.

Our duty, if we’re serious about being Catholics, is to not let that happen. But our work as citizens does- n’t end there. Our bigger task is to help renew American public life by committing ourselves ever more deeply to our Catholic faith — and acting like we really mean it.

Catholics spent the first 200 years of our nation’s life trying to fit in and be accepted. Well, congratu- lations, we did it. We made it. We’ve arrived. But we should remember St. Paul’s words: “Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord” (2 Cor 10:17).

Have we really examined the cost of our fitting in? Since the 1960s, many American Catholics have been acting like we’re lucky just to be tolerated in the public square. In other words, we’d better not be too Catholic or somebody will be offended. That’s a mistake. It’s a recipe for losing our faith and throwing away any hope for a national political discourse based on conviction. It’s also important to notice that most of today’s anti-Catholic prejudice in the public square is different from the past. It doesn’t come from other religious believers. It comes from people who don’t want any religious influ- ence in public debates.That’s not pluralism. It’s not democracy. Democracy and pluralism depend on people of conviction fight- ing for what they believe through public debate – peacefully, legally, charitably and justly; but also vig- orously and without excuses. Divorcing our personal convictions from our public choices and actions is not “good manners.” On the contrary, it can be a very serious kind of theft from the moral treasury of the nation, because the most precious thing anyone can bring to any political conversation is an hon- est witness to what he or she really believes.

This applies to elected officials. It applies to voters. It applies to you and me. Belief in God has pro- foundly shaped what Americans believe about human dignity; the law; the common good; and justice. To cut God out of the public square is to cut the head and heart from our public life.

What we really believe, we conform our lives to. And if we don’t conform our lives to what we claim to believe, then we’re living a lie. When public officials claim to be “Catholic” but then say they can’t offer their beliefs about the sanctity of the human person as the basis of law, it always means one of two things. They’re either very confused, or they’re very evasive. All law is the imposition of somebody’s beliefs on somebody else. That’s exactly the reason we have debates, and elections, and Congress – to turn the struggle of ideas and moral convictions into laws that guide our common life.

Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost, which is the birthday of the Church. In Catholic churches around the world, lectors read the following passage from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

Now, that may sound like the right way to read it, but it’s wrong. That passage should really be read this way: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord!’ except by the Holy Spirit.” It’s the fire of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that enables us to make this profession of faith; that gives us the kind of energy and zeal to live our lives based on our faith in Jesus Christ.

We need to understand that in the early Church, those words – “Jesus is Lord” – were a political state- ment. The emperor claimed to be Lord both in the private and public lives of the citizens of the empire. When Christians proclaimed Jesus as Lord, they were proclaiming the centrality of Jesus not only in their personal lives, but in their public lives and their decision-making as well. That took real courage. And it had huge consequences for their lives. Jesus was hung upon the cross because of his claim of Lordship. Christianity was illegal for the first 250 years of the Church’s life because Christians pro- claimed, “Jesus is Lord.”

Americans re-elected President Bush because most voters saw him, and see him, as a man of dedica- tion and a leader deserving of our respect — but he is not “Lord.” Our political parties – whether Democratic or Republican — are not “Lord.” Congress is not “Lord.” The Supreme Court is not “Lord.” And neither are we “Lord”; nor our spouse or friends or possessions or talents. None of these people or things is Lord. Only God is God, and only Jesus Christ is Lord. And Christ’s relationship with each of us as individuals, and all of us as the believing Catholic community, should be the driving force of our personal lives and for all of our public witness – including our political witness.

“God” need not be on our lips every minute of every day. But He should be in our hearts from the moment we wake, to the moment we sleep. Only Jesus is Lord. The Church belongs to Him; not to us, but to Him. And there’s no way — no way – that we should ever allow ourselves to be driven from the public square by those who want someone else, or something else, to be Lord.

St Augustine, who had such a deep influence on the mind of our new Holy Father, once wrote that, “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” Are we angry enough about what’s wrong with the world — the killing of millions of unborn children through abortion; the neglect of the poor and the elderly; the mistreatment of immigrants in our midst; the abuse of science in embryonic stem cell research? Do we really have the courage of our convictions to change those things?

The opposite of hope is cynicism, and cynicism also has two daughters. Their names are indifference and cowardice. In renewing ourselves in our faith, what Catholics need to change most urgently is the habit and rhetoric of cowardice we find in our own personal lives, in our national political life, and some- times even within the Church herself.

Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost. This coming Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Holy Trinity. Every year during this week between Pentecost and Trinity Sunday, I reflect on what the Church means when she talks about the season of “ordinary time.” There’s a spot just west of Denver as you descend out of the Rocky Mountains where the mountains suddenly stop, and the horizon opens up, and you gaze out on the beginning of the Great Plains – a thousand miles of flatland between Denver and the Mississippi River.

It reminds me of where we spend most of our lives. Not in the mountains, but on the plains – raising families, doing our jobs, making the daily choices that shape the world around us. Ordinary time is the space God gives to each of us to make a difference — between the past and the future, between Pentecost and Jesus’ Second Coming.

What we do with that ordinary time – in our personal choices and in our public actions — matters eter- nally. Solzhenitsyn once said that “the line separating good and evil runs not through states, nor between classes, nor even between political parties, but right through the center of each human heart, and every human heart.”

Renewing our hearts — that’s where we begin. Renewing the world – that’s our goal. Reclaiming the fire and courage of Pentecost – that’s how we’ll get there. Say it, and mean it, and live it: Only God is God, and only Jesus is Lord. When our actions finally follow our words, then so will our nation, and so will the world.

Note, he did not extol President Bush as the perfect candidate or as the Lord’s representative on earth. He said Bush was reelected because he is “a man of dedication deserving our respect.” I believe that this time around the choice is even more stark, and clear, than it was in 2004. The stakes are higher. The problems and fissures, deeper. Neither candidate is the candidate “of God,” but one clearly desires to lead in a direction of respect for life and liberty while the other supports abortion-on-demand.

So then the question each of us must ask, then, is, “how do you say ‘Jesus is Lord’”? Do you mutter it into your sleeve lest someone hear? Do you follow it up with “, but…”? With a roll of the eyes? “Personally opposed, but…”?

Or does it have an exclamation point? With a heart afire with love for your fellow man? With a determined and unflinching firmness? With a compassion for others and a desire to share the glory of the kingship of Christ with them?

And how will it affect your vote?

———–

Barack Obama hasn’t had an honest-to-goodness press conference with the White House press corps since April. Helen Thomas is gone, but a fair number of them are still on his side.

Instead he has deigned to be interviewed by such tough critics as Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, David Letterman, the ladies on The View, MTV, and a few ridiculous local radio shows.

They’re all good at what they do, but they are there to entertain, not to hold a president’s feet to the fire and insist on answers to tough questions.

So how in the heck did Kyle Murphy Clark slip past the guard? To be sure, he was only doing the job any good reporter should do: recognize the issues of the day and ask the unresolved questions. But that is exactly what Obama and his people have avoided the past six months in every forum apart from the debates.

Murphy Clark asks a tough question on Benghazi, then follows up with a more direct question when Obama said many words but did not answer. Recognizing that Murphy was actually being a reporter and not just another entertainer Obama began to filibuster. Murphy only got in a few questions, but he made his questions worth it.

Watch the whole thing:

Here are a bunch more. I do not pretend that this is an exhaustive list of the lies, flip-flops, failures, and dangerously incompetent things Barack Obama has done as president, but I do think it’s a good sampling.

Let’s get right to it:

While campaiging In 2008 Barack Obama decried adding $4 trillion to the debt over Bush’s 8 years* to get it to the lofty heights of $9 trillion as “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.” Now, after fewer than four years of Obama the debt is $16 trillion.

Bonus second lie on this one is that also during the 2008 campaign Obama said he would not question the patriotism of anyone. He promised it. Ah, well.

Then there was the follow-on lie (or indication of gross incompetence, either way it ain’t attractive) that came once he was president: “I am pledging to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office.”

He was already president, so the economy was already in the tank, he already had grand designs for the Stimulus and a health care overhaul, and he already knew he was dealing with the war on terror and ongoing wars. Yet he still pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. And yet, each of his years has had a deficit in excess of $1 trillion. One might use words like “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” to describe such governance if one were so inclined.. At the very least, even if we cannot call it a “lie” because he really believed it at the time, it is gross incompetence.

That leads us to his claim that if he didn’t have the economy turned around in three years he’d be a “one-termer proposition“, which doesn’t jibe with his recent comment that it will take more than one term.

On the stimulus. It was sold to the American people largely on the strength of loads and loads of “shovel-ready jobs,” public works projects, we were informed, that were ready to go—designed, scheduled, entirely ready to go—but were merely waiting for the funding. The stimulus didn’t work and the economy isn’t turned around in part because those shovel-ready jobs “were not as, uh, as shovel-ready as we thought.” (A laugh line, apparently.)

He lamented gasoline prices, and they’ve gotten worse.

He said he would not allow lobbyists in his administration. He has.

And then there’s this video. You really should watch that one and just sit agape at how bold and sweeping his plans for government transparency were. They were inspiring, really, they were. The problem is that the promises didn’t seem to last beyond the point when the sound waves dissipated in the arena. He promised to let bills passed by Congress be online for five days before he signs them (he hasn’t); he promised to root out earmarks and porkbarrel corporate welfare (he’s done quite the opposite, and frequently); he promised to put meetings between lobbyists and policy makers online (hasn’t happened — they frequently meet in a nearby coffee shop to avoid all scrutiny); he promised to make it harder for lobbyist cash to influence government (his own campaign has the most lax standards possible, making it impossible to know if donations are coming from overseas or from people who have already maxed out their giving); and he promised to make government more open and transparent (The Fast and Furious coverup, the Benghazi coverup, and the process that cobbled together the healthcare law say otherwise).

And then there’s Libya.

It wasn’t the movie. They knew it wasn’t the movie from early on. At the very least the evidence that it most definitely *was* the movie, which was their claim for more than a week afterward, was tenuous at best. They continued to insist it was the movie until they simply could not any longer. And that sordid affair just keeps getting worse.

Eventually we found out that they knew within 24 hours that it was an assault by organized terrorists. We found out that Stevens had been requesting beefed up security in Benghazi, to no avail. Then we found out there never was a protest before the attack that simply “turned violent.” Next we find out that the administration knew within 2 hours of the start of the 7-hour attack that the White House had information about the nature of the attack and that a terrorist group had claimed responsibility. Today it comes to light that the CIA guys on the ground requested military backup while it was happening, and was denied 3 times, leaving Stevens and Smith to fend for themselves, and forcing Wood and Doherty to disobey orders in order to go to the rescue of their fellow Americans under attack.

The question becomes, at what point do people begin to recognize that President Obama is a pathological liar, grossly (and now fatally) incompetent, or both?

———–

*If you go back and check, more than half of the debt Bush racked up was after the Dems had taken Congress in 2006. The Dems controlled the purse strings in the House of Representatives, so while Bush’s presidency did add a whole lot to the national debt the congressional Dems share the blame on that one.

[W]e have no illusions about the audacity of hope, no faith that the re-election of President Obama alone will accomplish the radical change this magazine has championed. For America to be on a different path in 2016 from that of 2012, progressive movements will have to “occupy” all the levers of power—in Washington, in the states and in the streets.

then immediately wrote this:

Most immediately, that means strengthening the progressive coalition in Congress that includes Senators Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders, who are up for re-election, and adding crusaders like Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren to the mix.

(Article here.)

Catch that? Barack Obama has not been far enough to the left for them, but Sherrod Brown? He’s their guy! Right up there with self-described socialist Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, who riffed on “You didn’t build that” before Obama, and Tammy Baldwin, one of the most liberal members of the House of Representatives, who is running for Senate in Wisconsin.

His ads paint him as some kind of centrist, and now that he needs the political support he’s trying to get back the Delphi pensions he didn’t seem to care about before. But Ohio is not nearly as far-left liberal as Sherrod Brown.

Can Ohio afford someone as far-left liberal as Sherrod Brown?

More to come…

Yes, Sherrod Brown is to Obama's left.

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I said my next "Obama is a liar" post would be on tax raises, and that one is coming, but the emerging exploding scandal over the Benghazi attack and the administration's inept lying and then coverup delays that one another day or two.

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All about a video, eh? That was laughable on its face, everyone knew it was, and yet they kept saying it anyway.

Disgusting. But it gives me a starting point for a post I've been mulling over for a while...

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"Obama, Obama, We are all Osama!" they chanted.

"Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive," Vice President Biden has been fond of saying.

Setting aside the dubious claim that the present state of GM is "alive" rather than "zombie/undead," let's look at the first half of that supposedly stirring line on Obama's reelection resume.

Osama bin Laden is, indeed, dead...

...And?

See: Democrats hammered George W. Bush because, they claimed, he irresponsibly took his focus off of getting Osama bin Laden in favor of invading Iraq and the "global war on terror." They seemed to believe that the only necessary action in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks here in the U.S. was the apprehension of Osama bin Laden and bringing him to justice, nothing more.

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[Added 10-10-12 at 5:15 p.m.]

The book about to be released includes this:

On May 26, 2009, four months into his presidency, [President Obama] had ended a routine national security briefing in the Situation Room by pointing to [then-Deputy National Security Adviser Tom] Donilon, Leon Panetta, his newly appointed CIA director, Mike Leiter, director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, and Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff. “You, you, you, and you,” he said. “Come upstairs. I want to talk to you guys about something.”As Donilon would tell [Bowden], Obama said: “Here’s the deal. I want this hunt for Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to come to the front of the line. I worry that the trail has gone cold. This has to be our top priority and it needs leadership in the tops of your organizations [...] And I want regular reports on this to me, and I want them starting in thirty days.”

At his regular daily briefings, [President] Bush would routinely ask, “How’re we doing?” and everyone knew what he was talking about. It was the same with Obama. After that impromptu meeting in his office with his new intelligence chiefs in 2009, he would bring it up at nearly every security briefing.

“Are we any closer?”

“What have we learned?”

…
The newly elected president did make it clear that he regarded the hunt for bin Laden [...] as the top national security priority of his administration. But did that really change anything? One senior intelligence official told [Bowden] that it did not [...]

Emphasis mine. The article goes on to explain that while the President’s focus on this did cause the intelligence community to work harder producing reports and briefings, it did not accelerate the acquisition of information.

And the actual decision to go in with a raid to get Osama… does anyone really believe that any other President would have decided differently? So then where are we? We are still with a dead Osama bin Laden, but possibly with a still-diminished Al Qaeda incapable of murdering an ambassador and torching a consulate. Alas.

[End addition]
————

But Osama bin Laden was never the only terrorist mastermind, financer, or field general. There were always others ready and willing to step up when “Al Qaeda’s number 2″ or “the leader of Al Qaeda in X country” was killed or apprehended, which happened with some regularity under Bush. That was precisely because Bush recognized that the struggle against those who attacked us on 9/11 could not be simply against the specific chain of command that planned, financed, and executed that specific attack. He recognized that the struggle against global Islamist terrorism would have to attack the whole cancerous ideology and all workings of those networks.

This approach was effective. Remember: during the seven-plus years after September 11, 2001, during which Bush was president there was not one more successful major terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Embassies and consulates count as American soil. If there was actionable intelligence, we acted on it, and stopped the attack.

Oh, sure, Osama was still alive—hiding in caves in Waziristan, scrambling for his dialysis, issuing grainy videos and more calls for death to America—but his effectiveness and that of his network were, clearly, diminished. They were on the run.

So which is more important? Getting that one guy who leads the network, or crippling and stopping the network’s activities such that it is no longer an effective terrorist force?

Both would be great, but I think if you’re forced to choose between them the answers will differ based on your mindset.

On the one hand you have folks like George W. Bush (and me, fwiw) who are more interested in keeping America and her allies safe while promoting our shared interests abroad. This mindset would like to get that one guy who is the leader of the opposing non-lateral paramilitary outfit, but reducing his effectiveness to practically nil while continuing to hunt him is also good. This mindset is also less concerned with the PR optics of an ample and appropriate security force for an ambassador in a war-torn region. His safety, as my representative there, is paramount. Since they are U.S. Marines his ample security force will not threaten those who do not wish us ill, and it will deter those who do.

On the other hand you have folks like Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, who don’t regard the interests of our historic allies (or even our own historic national interests) with anything but disdain, and who think the proper response to any given terrorist attack is to either vaporize the terrorist via drone strike (which is far worse than anything Bush is accused of doing) or to try the non-citizen terrorist, taken on the foreign field of battle, in federal court as though he were a common criminal with all rights of due process available to a U.S. citizen. To this set of people, reducing the visibility of our presence in a country is more important than anyone’s personal safety or promoting the safety and interests of America and her allies.

The first mindset kept us safe and oversaw the establishment—belated, and more difficult than it ought to have been, no doubt—of a competent consensual government in Iraq. The second mindset has seen our consulate burned and our ambassador and three other Americans murdered in Libya by Osama bin Laden’s resurgent Al Qaeda, our embassies attacked by people chanting “We’re all Osama,” and Iraq signing a massive arms deal with Russia.

All just “bumps in the road” to Barack Obama.

If four murdered Americans and a resurgent Al Qaeda are mere “bumps in the road,” I have no desire to see where this road is leading.

But hey: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and GM is alive,” and, it was all about a video (until it wasn’t).

MEMRI caught this screen capture.

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Note: I added “or apprehended” at 11:24 p.m. to the second sentence of the paragraph that starts “But Osama bin Laden was never the only terrorist mastermind.” I think this more accurately captures a major difference between Bush and Obama: the former was interested in collecting intelligence to further cripple the network, which requires getting information out of the terrorists, which requires taking them alive, if possible; the latter just vaporizes them with drone strikes, which means no information gathering is possible.