A Shrink Asks: What's Wrong with Obama?

From American Thinker
By Robin of Berkeley

So what is the matter with Obama? Conservatives have been asking this question for some time. I've written a number of articles trying to solve the mystery.

Even some liberals are starting to wonder. James Carville railed about Obama's blasé attitude after the catastrophic oil spill. The New York Times' Maureen Dowd revamped Obama's "Yes We Can" motto into "Will We Ever?"

The liberal women of the TV show "The View" have expressed sympathy for Michelle Obama's living with a man so out of touch. Peggy Noonan, hardly a vehement Obama foe, recently pronounced him disconnected.

Obama's odd mannerisms intrigue a psychotherapist like me. He also presents a serious diagnostic challenge.

For one, Obama's teleprompter and the men behind the Blackberry keep him well-scripted. We know so little about the facts of his life.

But it's more than just a lack of information. Obama himself is a strange bird. He doesn't fit easily into any diagnostic category.

Many people attribute Obama's oddness to his narcissism. True, Obama has a gargantuan ego, and he is notoriously thin-skinned.

Yet a personality disorder like narcissism does not explain Obama's strangeness: his giggling while being asked about the economy; his continuing a shout-out rather than announcing the Ft. Hood shootings; or his vacations, golfing, partying and fundraising during the calamitous oil spill.

Take also Obama's declaring on the "Today Show" that he wants to know whose ass to kick. Consummate narcissists would never stoop to this vulgar display of adolescent machismo.

Obama is flat when passion is needed; he's aggressive when savvy is required. What's most worrisome is that Obama doesn't even realize that his behavior is inappropriate.

So if it's not just simple narcissism, what is wrong with Obama? Since I've never evaluated him, I can't say for sure. But I can hazard some educated guesses.

If I saw a client as disconnected as him, the first thing I would wonder: Is something wrong with his brain? And I'd consider the following theoretical diagnostic possibilities.

--Physical problems: There are a multitude of physiological conditions that can cause people to act strangely. For instance: head injuries, endocrine disturbances, epilepsy, and toxic chemical exposure.

It makes me wonder: Did Obama ever have a head injury? His stepfather in Indonesia was purportedly an alcoholic abuser. Was Obama subject to any physical abuse?

-- Drugs and alcohol: Damage to the brain from drugs and alcohol can also cause significant cognitive impairments. Obama once said that there were 57 states -- and didn't correct himself. Memory problems can be caused by both illicit and prescription drug use.

Obama admits to a history of drug use in his youth. Did his usage cause some damage? Does Obama still use?

--Asperger's Syndrome: Also known as high-functioning autism, Asperger's causes deficits in social skills. A person with Asperger's can't read social cues. Consequently, he can be insensitive and hurtful without even knowing it.

Could Obama have Asperger's? He might have some mild traits, but certainly not the full-blown disorder. In contrast to Obama, those with Asperger's get fixated on some behavior, like programming computers. Obama lacks this kind of passion and zeal.

--Mental Illness: Obama's family tree is replete with the unbalanced. His maternal great-grandmother committed suicide. His grandfather, Stanley Dunham, was particularly unhinged: He was expelled from high school for punching his principal; named his daughter Stanley because he wanted a boy; and exposed young Barry to not just drunken trash talk, but unrestricted visits with alleged pedophile Frank Marshall Davis (who might or might not be Obama's biological father). Barack Sr. was an abusive, alcoholic bigamist.

Since mental illness runs in the family, does Obama have any signs? Yes and no. No, he is not a schizophrenic babbling about Martians. But there are red flags for some other conditions.

While Obama doesn't appear to hallucinate, he seems to have delusions. His believing he has a Messiah-like special gift smacks of grandiose delusions. His externalizing all blame to conservatives, George W. Bush, or the "racist" bogeyman hints at persecutory delusions.

Along with a delusional disorder, Obama may fit for a mild psychotic disorder called schizotypal disorder. It may explain some of Obama's oddness.

People with schizotypal disorder hold bizarre beliefs, are suspicious and paranoid, and have inappropriate and constricted affect. They have few close friends and are socially awkward. A schizotypal is someone like your strange cousin Becky who is addicted to astrology, believes she is psychic, and is the oddball at social gatherings.

Schizotypal Disorder does ring some bells vis-à-vis Obama. One way the diagnosis doesn't fit, however, is that schizotypals are generally harmless, odd ducks. Not so with Obama.

--Trauma: My gut tells me that Obama was seriously traumatized in childhood. His mother disregarded his basic needs, dragged him all over the place, and ultimately abandoned him.

But I think there may be something even more insidious in his family background. While I can't prove it, the degree of Obama's disconnect reminds me of my sexually abused clients.

With serious sexual abuse, the brain chemistry may change. The child dissociates -- that is, disconnects from his being -- in order to cope. Many adult survivors still dissociate, from occasional trances to the most extreme cases of multiple personality disorder.

Apparently, young Barry was left in the care of Communist Frank Marshall Davis, who admitted to molesting a 13-year-old girl. As a teenager, Obama wrote a disturbing poem, "Pop," that evoked images of sexual abuse -- for instance, describing dual amber stains on both his and "Pop's" shorts.

Would trauma explain Obama's disconnect? In many ways, yes. A damaged and unattached child may develop a "false self." To compensate for the enormous deficits in identity and attachment, the child invents his own personality. For Obama, it may have been as a special, gifted person.

Let's return now to my original question: What is wrong with Obama? My guess is a great deal. The answer is complex and likely includes some combination of the above.

Along with the brain issues are personality disorders: narcissism, paranoia, passive-aggressiveness. There's even the possibility of the most destructive character defect of all, an antisocial personality. Untreated abuse can foster antisocial traits, especially among boys.

If my assessment is accurate, what does this mean?

It means that liberals need to wake up and spit out the Kool-Aid...and that conservatives should put aside differences, band together, and elect as many Republicans as possible.

Because Obama will not change. He will not learn from his mistakes. He will not grow and mature from on-the-job experience. In fact, over time, Obama will likely become a more ferocious version of who he is today.

Why? Because this is a damaged person. Obama's fate was sealed years ago growing up in his strange and poisonous family. Later on, his empty vessel was filled with the hateful bile of men like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.

Obama will not evolve; he will not rise to the occasion; he will not become the man he was meant to be. This is for one reason and one reason alone:

He is not capable of it.

This article is not intended to offer any definitive diagnoses, but for educational purposes only.

David Maraniss and Obama's Communist Mentor

From American Thinker

By Paul Kengor

Barack Hussein Obama and Communist Mentor Frank Marshall Davis

It's interesting that not only does Barack Obama need continued vetting, but so do his biographers. The culprit is the same: the liberal bias that dutifully protects Obama like white knights guarding the king's castle, shamelessly tossing journalistic objectivity right out the window. As Sean Hannity likes to say, when it comes to Obama's background, it has fallen to us conservatives to do the job that the mainstream "Obama-mania media" plainly refuses to do.

The most recent Obama biography getting a vetting by conservatives is David Maraniss' Barack Obama, the Story. Here at American Thinker, Jack Cashill has intrepidly taken up the charge, thereby provoking the wrath of the nation's "journalists" for daring to flag the contradictions in their reporting. In his most recent post, Cashill looked at several Maraniss passages related to Obama's mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. He quoted my forthcoming book on Davis, The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, the Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mentor. I had sent Cashill a galley copy of my book, and he has done his homework well, juxtaposing my research on Davis with that of Maraniss. I'd like to here follow up.

More Evidence That Obama Is A Phony And Socialist

From The Bulletin

By Herb Denenberg

Senator Barack Obama is the gift that just keeps on giving when it comes to those who want to expose him for the phony, socialist and race hustler, that he is at his very core. He now plays like a centrist, but he is in fact a radical, left-wing extremist who campaigns in the center but would govern to the loony left. He pretends to be a reformer, but is a Chicago machine politician who has always gone along with whatever it takes to win, including working with everyone from crooks to the terrorists. There isn't a drop of reform or bipartisanship in his record. I documented this trend most recently in a three-part series on Obama: "Presidential Catastrophe for America," "More Reasons Not to Vote for Obama," and "The Final Six Reasons Not to Vote for Obama," three columns that can be found on The Bulletin's Web site at www.thebulletin.us, along with about 35 more of my columns about what the mainstream media are failing to report on the greatest presidential fraud in history.

Obama The Phony

As we've pointed out many times, Sen. Obama's rhetoric is the opposite of his reality. He talks about bringing everyone together but his record and his proposals are far-left and divisive as are his associates including Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the racist and America hater; William Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn, the terrorists; his adviser Professor Cornell West, who calls himself a "progressive socialist" and is a close associate and admirer of tyrant Hugo Chavez; his "moral compass" and campaign adviser, Father Michael "hate whitey" Pfleger; adviser Robert Malley who resigned after it was reporting he was meeting with the terrorist group Hamas; and fundraiser Jodie Evans, another admirer of Chavez, who asked, "Why is being a communist anti-American?" Sen. Obama was greatly influenced by radical community organizer, Saul Alinsky, for whom "change" met radical socialism and the redistribution of wealth, and who preached the end justifies the means and ethics shouldn't get in the way of effective community organization. Obama early on went for Marxist professors when in college and even before that one of his mentors was a communist poet and journalist, Frank Marshall Davis.

The latest chapter in the hypocritical views of Senator Phony came in regard to education. Sen. John McCain pointed out that Sen. Obama opposes school choice, but sends his own children to private schools. As is his custom, Sen. Obama recommends one rule for himself and another rule for everyone else.

Sen. McCain notes he sent his own children to private schools. But he recommends school choice for himself and for everyone else. Sen. McCain also explained why Sen. Obama must oppose school choice. He is enslaved by the teachers' unions and will not dissent from their positions. McCain told the National Urban League, "My opponent talks a great deal about hope and change, and education is as good a test as any of his seriousness. If Sen. Obama continues to defer to the teachers' unions instead of committing to real reform, then he should start looking for new slogans."

The Obama position hurts the low-income and underprivileged the most. Those with high incomes - such as Sen. Obama - simply buy themselves out of failing public schools and send their children to private schools. But those without those resources are trapped in a failing public school system, and will only be rescued by school vouchers and a system based on choice. Sen. Obama, sad to say, would rather lose a generation of children to lousy education than lose the support of the teachers' unions.

Obama The Socialist

Whatever the problem, from energy to poverty, Sen. Obama's reflex reaction is income redistribution - take from those who have more money and give it to those favored by Sen. Obama's latest hare-brained idea.

Dick Morris has pointed out his "soak the rich" philosophy would mean that those not paying taxes would be in the majority, and more and more burdens would be heaped on the rest of the population, who already pay more than there share under the present steeply progressive tax system. The Tax Foundation in their latest summary of federal individual income tax date reports that the top 1 percent of tax returns paid "about the same amount of federal individual incomes taxes as the bottom 95 percent of tax returns." That isn't good enough for Sen. Obama who wants to soak the wealth, the incentive, and the entrepreneurship out of the wealthy to carry out his social income redistribution schemes.

Take his approach to energy issues as his standard answer to all problems. He doesn't want to do the obvious, such as drill in the Atlantic, Pacific, in the Gulf, and in Alaska and he doesn't want to take advantage of the oil in Rocky Mountain shale. He doesn't want to try nuclear and coal. No, he wants to tax the oil companies. He wants a windfall profits tax on the oil companies to fund a $1,000 emergency checks to consumers who are being hit by skyrocketing energy bills. The Obama campaign stated, "Obama simply asks that big oil companies contribute a reasonable share of the windfall profits they receive from high oil prices over the next five years by enacting a windfall profits tax on big oil companies."

Sen. Obama doesn't take into account that a windfall profits tax will not produce an extra gallon of oil or gas. It will simply mean less oil and gas, as there will be less incentive to explore for it and produce it. It will mean failure, as excess profits tax have a history of failure and a history of killing incentives and killing productivity. It will also mean failure as it is a temporary fix that doesn't get to the basic problem increasing supply or decreasing demand.

His latest scheme is to take oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move that would imperil our national security. That reserve is intended for true emergencies when national survival may be at stake. And his views on solutions are irrational when subjected to analysis. For example, he just said that offshore drilling would not help solve our short-term or long-term energy problem. Think about that, and it is obvious that it is silly to say that tapping hundreds of millions of barrels and more won't help solve our energy problems. He has more substantial measures in mind ... such as everyone checking their tire pressure. I would think this political Messiah would have more than a tire gauge in hand when he comes to perform his miracles.

Remember if Obama gets the White House he will have a rubber-stamping Congress headed by Sen. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. With a veto-proof Congress and the White House, there will be no end to the liberal lunacy that the Democrats will inflict on America. The political temperament of this leadership is demonstrated by Ms. Pelosi, who won't even allow a vote on offshore drilling, and nothing will happen without that vote. She says she is saving the planet, but says there can be no vote on drilling, a measure supported by a majority of the Congress and the American people. Yet Sen. Obama does not use his leadership position and prestige as presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party to urge Pelosi to take a vote on the matter. Yes, Obama talks of compromise, even flipping on drilling, but he's all talk and no real bipartisanship. He's all hat and no cattle as his failed leadership on the energy issue demonstrates. He talks reform, change, and hope but walks the path of left-wing partisanship and political expediency.

Obama keeps going back to the socialist idea of redistributing income from oil companies, from the "rich" and from any one else that might become a future target. He has also indicated that health-care profits are too high. That would include the HMOs, insurance companies, and drug companies. He will be trying to confiscate the profits of health-care to pay for his socialization of medicine. Under an Obama administration, anyone making high profits will be penalized by some sort of windfall profits tax usually tied to the endless redistribute-the-wealth schemes he is so in love with. He thinks the oil companies made too much money last year, so they have to disgorge some of it. I think he made too much on his semi-fiction autobiographies, and he therefore ought to disgorge part of his profits. Once you go down that path of confiscating profits and income, there's no end.

He is not satisfied with taking from the "rich" to giving to the "poor" in America. He has already proposed a massive redistribution of wealth to pay for all global poverty. One of his Senate proposals is Senate Bill 2433, the Global Poverty Act [which should be called the Global Poverty Tax and Spend Act]. After he redistributes wealth from oil companies, via income taxes, and all the rest, he wants the taxpayers to finance the poor of the world. The Global Poverty Act would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product on foreign aid to end global poverty. That's for a total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends on foreign aid. Obama's move is in keeping with U.N. plans to end global poverty

So Sen. Obama would end global poverty by taking from the American taxpayer and making gifts to the poor of the world, without any attention to improving productivity for the long run or without accountability. He proposes an international welfare system at taxpayer expense.

Conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly, whose work appears in The Bulletin, sees Obama's Global Poverty Bill as a U.N. approved tax with no concern that "U.S. handouts go into hands of corrupt dictators who hate us and vote against us in the U.N., and that only 30 percent of American foreign aid ever reaches the poor." Ms. Schlafly sees the Obama Global Poverty Act as "a giant step toward ... global governance and international taxes on America." Obama seems more interested in being a "citizen of the world" than a citizen of the U.S. He takes the European view with contempt for national borders and national sovereignty, and a preference for international controls that would destroy constitutional democracy, as we know it, which has historically survived only in the nation state.

Jerome R. Corsi, of Swift Boat fame, discusses this Act in his important new book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality: "America's middle-class voters, already feeling the economic squeeze from globalization and outsourcing of U.S. jobs to India and China, would probably not appreciate Obama's plan to increase taxes on U.S. citizens to pay for world poverty through the United nations. Their resentment could be expected to grow after realizing Obama himself liberally takes campaign contributions from the very investment bankers and law firms benefiting from globalization and outsourcing. In this context, Obama's railing against the rich appears little more than a leftist resentment traceable to his days in Hawaii and in college, smoking marijuana and drinking liquor while listening to the likes of aging communist poet Frank Marshall Davis rail against capitalism."

When all of Obama's leftist taxes are implemented and all of his social programs are put into effect, the only certainty is that would wreck the economy, and the health care delivery system as well. But he's always been a tax and spend liberal by default, and only his campaign language has changed.

Obama The Race Hustler

The post-racial candidate proved he is on par with the other race baiters and race hustlers of our time, by portraying himself as a victim of racial discrimination, and resorting to politics at its sleaziest and slimiest. In fact, Sen. Obama clearly and deliberately interjected race into the campaign by his own comments. Obama did that in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by claiming McCain and the Republicans were trying to scare voters by pointing out that Obama has a "funny name" and by noting that "he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills." He repeated that line not once but three times during the course of the day's campaigning.

As usual, his campaign spokesman offered the usual irrational explanation of the comment by saying Obama meant he doesn't have the same background, the same Washington connections, as the usual president on American currency. An Obama spokesman, Robert Gibbs said, "What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn't get here after spending decades in Washington. There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene. He was referring to the fact that he didn't come into the race with the history of others. It is not about race." But that's nonsense, as you don't see a president's background and how "new" he is to the political scene by looking at his picture on a dollar bill. You would think that the a former head of the Harvard Law Review would be able to say what he means without having to resort to a parade of often inconsistent explanations and double talking.

Obama's exact words were as follows: "Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

The intent of these comments is clear in the context of Obama's other references to his "funny name" and the fact that he is black. He often notes he has a "funny name." And he has specifically said, "they" will try to scare you by noting that funny name and noting he is black. At a fundraiser in Springfield, he recently said, "It's a leap, electing a 46-year-old black guy named Barack Obama." If that's not playing the race card, then nothing is.

Obama also clearly played the race card when he said at a Jacksonville fundraiser last month what he thinks the McCain campaign is and will say: "He's [i.e., Obama] young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black."

This sleazy tactic has a quadruple-barreled intent: First, to paint Obama as a victim of racial discrimination. Second, to try to demean McCain as a racist, a vicious slander coming from a man who promised to avoid the old politics. Third, Obama wants to suggest that some will vote against Obama because of racial prejudice. And fourth, by raising the specter of racial prejudice, Obama wants to inoculate himself from criticism.

That's all nonsense. The American people have already demonstrated that race will not make a difference if the candidate if fit to be president. That was demonstrated by the polling of General Colin Powell in the fall of 1995. The polls had Powell running ahead of Bill Clinton. What's more, Michael Barone has pointed out that many Americans are anxious to show that a black man can be elected president, so they are giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. This kind of support, Barone argues, more than offsets any who will vote against him solely because of his race. In other words, Obama is not a victim but a beneficiary when it comes to the race issue.

In addition, McCain is not a racist and has leaned over backwards to keep race and ethnicity out of the campaign. A while back when one of his loyal supporters called Obama by his middle name, Hussein, McCain severely reprimanded him and disassociated himself from those remarks. He also - mistakenly in my view - criticized a commercial linking Obama to Rev. Wright, the racist, bigot, anti-American that was a close associate of Sen. Obama for 20 years.

This all suggests that Obama, the empty-suit, the candidate of all style and no substance, is the opposite of the post-partisan, post-racial candidate he claims to be, is phony to the core, and is willing to use any sleazy and slimy tactics, including race hustling and race baiting to win. The only faintly presidential qualities he exhibits are oratory and boundless ambition, but he lacks the crucial presidential qualities -experience, character, integrity, and judgment. The most urgent matter of our time is simply giving the American voter the facts on Obama so they can make an informed decision. And it is clear that the mainstream media will only deliver Obama campaign propaganda, in the worst traditions of the dishonest, biased and fraudulent mainstream media.


Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences.

Will Blagojevich Trial Lead to Obama's Impeachment?

Two Daley Machine Street Thugs

Information relating to former Governor Rod Blagojevich's corruption charges and Barack Hussein Obama's involvement in the case, that was to be redacted and sealed, has inadvertently been published. Based on the evidence accidentally disclosed, it is clear that the Chicago street thug in the White House may be as guilty and deserving of impeachment as was the former Governor. A special prosecutor needs to be appointed and Republicans should demand prompt and thorough Congressional hearings on this matter.

From NBC Chicago

Former governor Rod Blagojevich's defense team asked Thursday to issue a trial subpoena to the President of the United States of America. The motion, intended to be heavily redacted, was improperly edited -- the full document was easily viewable if the text is copied and pasted to another document (an error first revealed on Capitol Fax). Below, the six revelations the redacted portions were meant to conceal.

1. Obama may have lied about conversations with convicted fraudster Tony Rezko
Blagojevich's lawyers allege that Rezko admitted breaking the law by contributing "a large sum of cash" to a public official. Blagojevich's attorneys say that public official is Obama. Obama said that Rezko never relayed a request from a lobbyist to hold a fundraiser in favor of favorable legislative action. But the point may be moot: regardless of Obama talking/not talking to Rezko, Blagojevich's attorneys say that Obama refused the request regardless.

Redacted portion: However, the defense has a good faith belief that Mr. Rezko, President Obama’s former friend, fund-raiser, and neighbor told the FBI and the United States Attorneys a different story about President Obama. In a recent in camera proceeding, the
government tendered a three paragraph letter indicating that Rezko “has stated in interviews with the government that he engaged in election law violations by personally contributing a large sum of cash to the campaign of a public official who is not Rod Blagojevich. … Further, the public official denies being aware of cash contributions to his campaign by Rezko or others and denies having
conversations with Rezko related to cash contributions. … Rezko has also stated in interviews with the government that he believed he transmitted a quid pro quo offer from a lobbyist to the public official, whereby the lobbyist would hold a fundraiser for the official in exchange for favorable official action, but that the public official rejected the offer. The public official denies any such conversation. In addition, Rezko has stated to the government that he and the public official had certain conversations about gaming legislation and administration, which the public official denies having had.

Redacted footnote: The defense has a good faith belief that this public official is Barack Obama.

2. Obama may have overtly recommended Valerie Jarret for his Senate seat
Blagojevich's defense team basically alleges that Obama told a certain labor union official that he (Obama) would support Valerie Jarrett's candidacy for the Senate seat. Jarrett, referred to as "Senate Candidate B", is now a senior advisor to the president.

Redacted portion: Yet, despite President Obama stating that no representatives of his had any part of any deals, labor union president told the FBI and the United States Attorneys that he spoke to labor union official on November 3, 2008 who received a phone message from Obama that evening. After labor union official listened to the message labor union official told labor union president “I’m the one”. Labor union president took that to mean that labor union official was to be the one to deliver the message on behalf of Obama that Senate Candidate B was his pick. (Labor union president 302, February 2, 2009, p. 7).

Labor union official told the FBI and the United States Attorneys “Obama expressed his belief that [Senate Candidate B] would be a good Senator for the people of Illinois and would be a candidate who could win re-election. [Labor union official] advised Obama that [labor union official] would reach out to Governor Blagojevich and advocate for [Senate Candidate B] ... [Labor union official] called [labor union president] and told [labor union president] that Obama was aware that [labor union official] would be reaching out to Blagojevich.” (Labor union official 302, February 3, 2009 p. 3).

3. A supporter of President Obama may have offered quid pro quo on a Jarrett senate appointment
Redacted portion: Supporter of Presidential Candidate Obama is mentioned in a phone call on November 3, 2008, having offered “fundraising” in exchange for Senate Candidate B for senator (Blagojevich Home Phone Call # 149).

4. Obama maintained a list of good Senate candidates
Redacted portion: President-elect Obama also suggested Senate Candidate A to Governor Blagojevich. John Harris told the FBI and the United States Attorneys that he spoke to President’s Chief of Staff on November 12, 2008. Harris took notes of the conversation and wrote that President’s Chief had previously worked as Blagojevich's press secretary. Obama agreed of Staff told Harris that Senate Candidate A was acceptable to Obama as a senate pick. (Harris handwritten notes, OOG1004463) President’s Chief of Staff told the FBI that “he could not say where but somewhere it was communicated to him that” Senate Candidate A was a suggested candidate viewed as one of the four “right” candidates “by the Obama transition team.”

5. Rahm Emanuel allegedly floated Cheryl Jackson's name for the Senate seat
Redacted portion: President’s Chief of Staff told the FBI that he had a conversation discussing the Senate seat with Obama on December 7, 2008 in Obama’s car. President’s Chief of Staff told the FBI “Obama expressed concern about Senate Candidate D being appointed as Senator.

[President’s Chief of Staff] suggested they might need an expanded list to possibly include names of African Americans that came out of the business world. [President’s Chief of Staff] thought he suggested Senate Candidate E who was the head of the Urban League and with President’s Chief of Staff’s suggestion.

6. Obama had a secret phone call with Blagojevich
Redacted portion: President-elect Obama also spoke to Governor Blagojevich on December 1, 2008 in Philadelphia. On Harris Cell Phone Call # 139, John Harris and Governor’s legal counsel discuss a conversation Blagojevich had with President-elect Obama. The government claims a conspiracy existed from October 22, 2008 continuing through December 9, 2008.6 That conversation is relevant to the defense of the government’s theory of an ongoing conspiracy. Only Rod Blagojevich and President Obama can testify to the contents of that conversation. The defense is allowed to present evidence that corroborates the defendant’s testimony.

Stephen Stone: A Path to Impeachment

From Renew America

By Stephen Stone

In his well-reasoned book in support of the movement to impeach and remove Barack Obama titled Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama's Impeachment, Andrew McCarthy — a former federal prosecutor who got the "Blind Sheik" convicted in 1995 for the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center — argues basically two things:

1. Barack Obama deserves to be impeached and removed for his deliberate subversion of the Constitution and the rule of law, resulting in a multitude of threats to our national security, material strength, and moral stability; and 2. Impeachment of the dangerously lawless Mr. Obama should not be attempted until there is sufficient "public will" to do so — otherwise the attempt might fail to produce his conviction and removal.

Here are a few excerpts from McCarthy’s book —

• “There is no doubt in my mind that President Obama ought to be impeached and removed from office.” (p.21)
• “I believe the president should be impeached because I am not confident the nation can withstand nearly three more years of his governance.” (p. 22)
• “[Obama’s] failure to execute the laws faithfully is a high crime and misdemeanor. [His] systematic faithlessness in this regard imperils our system and our liberties. If the process of impeachment and removal is not seen as a viable option, we are effectively resigning ourselves to the loss of what has made our nation prosperous and free.” (p. 92, emphasis added)
• “...[T]he Framers saw impeachment as the appropriate response to presidential corruption, lawlessness, and infidelity to the Constitution.” (p. 25)
• “As a practical matter, impeachment is the only plausible congressional remedy to stop systematic presidential lawlessness.” (p. vi)
• “The legal grounds — provable high crimes and misdemeanors — are vital to building a political case for impeachment, but the fundamental question is whether the president’s conduct is [seen as] so egregious that the public will support his removal.” (p. viii)
• “Well, the [‘I’] word needs uttering. Absent a frank discussion of what impeachment is, what it’s for, when it should apply, and why it is necessary (that is, why other remedies are inadequate), we will never know whether political support for impeachment can materialize. (p. 44)
• “Unless the point of the exercise is mere partisan foot stamping, it is not enough to have sufficient legal grounds for impeachment, even lots and lots of grounds. Real impeachment, removing the president from power, requires political support.... [It] requires moving public opinion.” (pp. 44-45)

This sampling of his words underscores McCarthy’s main contention that the effort to impeach and remove Obama, no matter how justified or well-conceived, must be driven by sufficient political demand among the American people if it is to succeed.

The rest of the book is devoted to laying out a detailed case for Obama’s impeachment and removal — in the form of fifty pages of carefully documented, ready-to-file Articles of Impeachment, followed by extensive notes.

Obama's College Classmate: 'The Obama Scandal is at Columbia'

From The Blaze

By Wayne Allyn Root

I am President Obama’s classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I am also one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators. Accurate enough that I was awarded my own star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. And I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years since graduating Columbia.

Grifter in Chief?

Barack Obama, the Illusion

 

From Canada Free Press

By Judi McLeod

If Barack Hussein Obama were a movie, he’d be the Steven Spielberg directed Catch Me if You Can.

Politicians and despots down through the ages have proven out as phonies, liars and thieves, but the one who took Barry Soetoro all the way to the White House as the self-proclaimed President Barack Obama, is a painstakingly crafted illusion.

How Obama Himself Made More Than 'Enough Money'

From American Thinker
By Jack Cashill

In defending his administration's efforts at putative financial reform, President Obama suggested a ceiling, perhaps government-imposed, for Wall Street executives. Although he did not begrudge them income that is "fairly earned," he added ominously, "I do think that at a certain point, you've made enough money."

The president may be projecting guilt from his own excellent adventures in greed. A surprising 2006 article for the American Century Foundation by liberal publisher Peter Osnos sheds useful light on this subject. As Osnos relates, a 1990 New York Times profile on The Harvard Law Review's first black president caught the eye of a hustling young literary agent named Jane Dystel.

Dystel persuaded Obama to put a book proposal together, and she submitted it. Poseidon, a small imprint of Simon & Schuster, signed on and authorized a roughly $125,000 advance in November 1990 for Obama's proposed memoir.

With advance in hand, Obama repaired to Chicago, where the University of Chicago offered him an office and stipend to help him write. Obama dithered. At one point, in order to finish without interruption, he decamped to Bali for a month. Obama was supposed to have finished the book within a year. Bali or not, advance or no, he could not. He was surely in way over his head.

"Obama had missed deadlines and handed in bloated, yet incomplete drafts," David Remnick tells us in The Bridge. Simon & Schuster lost patience. In the summer of 1993, Simon & Schuster canceled the contract. According to Osnos, the publisher asked that Obama return at least some of the advance.

Not surprisingly, the Obama-friendly Remnick skips some of the details that Christopher Andersen includes in his book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage, such as how Obama had spent $75,000 of the advance and could not pay it back. According to Andersen, the publisher let Obama keep the money only after he pled poverty due to "massive student loan debt" -- this despite a combined salary for the still childless Obamas well into six figures, not to mention the trip to Bali and a trip to Kenya for the couple as well.

As Osnos tells it, Dystel did not give up. She solicited Times Books, the division of Random House at which Osnos was publisher. He met with Obama, took his word that he could finish the book, and authorized a new advance of $40,000.

During this same period, Obama was working as a full-time associate at the law firm of Davis Miner, teaching classes at the University of Chicago Law School, and spinning through a social whirl that would have left Scarlett O'Hara dizzy. Writes Remnick, "He and Michelle accepted countless invitations to lunches, dinners, cocktail parties, barbecues, and receptions for right minded charities." Obama had also joined the East Bank Club, a combined gym and urban country club, and served on at least a few charitable boards.

In addition, Obama, as Remnick admits, was a slow writer. He would later explain his plodding, 19^th-century technique to Daphne Durham of Amazon. "I would work off an outline -- certain themes or stories that I wanted to tell -- and get them down in longhand on a yellow pad. Then I'd edit while typing in what I'd written."

As Andersen tells it, Obama found himself deeply in debt and "hopelessly blocked." At "Michelle's urging," Obama "sought advice from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers." What attracted the Obamas were "Ayers's proven abilities as a writer." Noting that Obama had already taped interviews with many of his relatives, both African and American, Andersen elaborates, "These oral histories, along with his partial manuscript and a trunkload of notes were given to Ayers." The result was Dreams From My Father.

Although Dreams did not do particularly well in 1995, the sales shot through the roof after Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. As Osnos relates, Obama unceremoniously dumped his devoted longtime agent after Dreams took off and then signed a seven-figure deal with Crown, using only a by-the-hour attorney.

Obama pulled off the deal after his election but before being sworn in as Senator in order to avoid the disclosure and reporting requirements applicable to members of Congress. Although an Obama-supporter, Osnos publicly scolds Obama for his "ruthlessness" and "his questionable judgment about using public service as a personal payday."

As to the question of income "fairly earned," Obama makes Fabrice 'Fabulous Fab' Tourre look like a lumberjack.

"... not ... because we begrudge success that is fairly earned."

Jack Cashill's latest book is Popes and Bankers.

Senator Barack Obama’s Faith: Is It Black Liberation Theology?

From The Traditional Values Coalition

To understand Obama’s legislative agenda, it is essential to understand the ideology espoused by his former Pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Black Liberation Theology is the basis for former Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s anti-American sermons at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago – a church attended by Sen. Barack Obama and his wife Michelle for more than 20 years.

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate and is expected to become the Democrat nominee for President of the United States after the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this year.

Obama’s legislative record includes opposition to bans on partial-birth abortion; opposition to marriage protection amendments and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA); opposition to our war on terrorism in Iraq; opposition to expanded military defense research and deployment of nuclear weapons to deter aggressors; and promotion of the Global Poverty Act, which will funnel billions of American tax dollars into United Nations’ poverty programs.

A politician like Sen. Obama is guided by a political and moral philosophy. What does he believe? To understand Obama’s legislative agenda, it is essential to understand the ideology espoused by his former Pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Why is this important? Because Wright served as Obama’s pastor for more than 20 years as well as his mentor and spiritual advisor. It is unlikely that a person can sit in a pew of a church for 20 years and not understand or disagree with the ideology being promoted every week in Sunday sermons and in published materials distributed by a church.

Only when Wright became a political liability did Obama eventually decide to leave the church. (His decision may also have been pushed forward by the rantings of Catholic Priest Michael Pfleger who ridiculed Sen. Hillary Clinton in a sermon at Trinity on May 25.) He accused Clinton of thinking she deserved the nomination because she’s white and “there’s a black man stealing my show.”

Pfleger has been a long-time confidant of Obama. According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times in 2004, it described Pfleger as one who helped Obama keep his moral compass. Pfleger claims that America is the greatest sin against God.

What is Wright’s theological viewpoint and where did it come from?

The Trinity United Church of Christ web site provides ample evidence and Wright’s own sermons show clearly that Black Liberation Theology is the foundational philosophy of this church and its leadership. The church has a Black Values System that each member must agree to. It is totally Afrocentric. (More about this later.)

Black Liberation Theology is the creation of Professor James Cone, who currently serves at New York’s Union Theological Seminary. In 1969, Cone wrote Black Theology and Black Power, which has become required reading at Trinity. In it, Cone observed: “When we look at what whiteness has done to the minds of men in this country, we can see clearly what the New Testament meant when it spoke of the principalities and powers.”

This reference from Ephesians refers to spiritual powers in Heaven, not whites or earthly governmental institutions.

Cone has also written:

... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

Professor Cone’s Black Liberation Theology is a mixture of Marxism and Afrocentric thinking. According to Cone, “Together, black religion and Marxist philosophy may show us the way to build a completely new society.” Capitalism is economic slavery imposed upon black Americans by whites. Cone serves as a contributing editor to Sojourners Journal, run by Jim Wallis whose leftist leanings are well documented in a report by TVC.

Cone has openly admitted that Pastor Wright “is really the one who took it [his philosophy] from my books and brought it to the church.” This Black Liberation Theology was adopted by Trinity 10 years before Sen. Obama and his family joined it in 1991. Every person who joins Trinity goes through a new member class, where he is taught Black Liberation Theology.

Cone has also written: “To be black is to be committed to destroying everything this country loves and adores.”

According to Black Liberation Theology, divine justice will only reign on earth when the black Jesus enables African-Americans to gain sufficient power to destroy “white greed” and white institutions and to replace them with a black value system.

James Cone writes a great deal about “hope” in his books and speeches. According to Cone, so-called “hope theology” “places the Marxist emphasis on action and change in the Christian context (and) is compatible with black theology’s concerns.” Pastor Wright’s sermon on the audacity of hope was adopted by Obama as the title of his second book, The Audacity of Hope. The “hope” theme appears to have gone from Cone to Wright’s sermons and into the book by Obama.

According to Cone, “I don’t see anything in (Obama’s) books or in the (Philadelphia race) speech that contradicts black liberation theology.” Obama simply sanded over the “radical edge to it” [Black Liberation Theology].

Pastor Wright’s sermons are the direct result of his adoption of Cone’s views on Black Liberation Theology. This is why they are filled with hateful comments about whites, America or are supportive of Marxist regimes, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and include wild conspiracy theories about how the U.S. government supposedly created the AIDS virus to kill black people.

Sen. Obama and his family sat in the pews listening to these sermons for 20 years. Are we being naïve to assume he wasn’t influenced by any of these sermons?

What Is The Black Value System?

Trinity United Church of Christ’s web site was sanitized after Wright became a political liability to Obama earlier this year. The original Black Value System site has been removed and replaced with a more harmless series of statements about this system.

The original version, however, is archived on the Internet and describes the real Black Value System advocated by the church leadership. In the original version, it states, in part, that members of the church must be committed to:

1. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"
2. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
3. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
4. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
5. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.

And:

1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.

This listing includes a “non-negotiable” commitment to the continent of Africa, but not a commitment to the United States. The entire list is Afro-centric and, by implication, anti-white in its expression. Instead of viewing themselves as Christians committed to Jesus Christ and loyal citizens of America, members of Trinity apparently identity as Black only with a loyalty to Africa, not this nation.

The idea of “economic parity” refers to Pastor Wright’s belief that America’s capitalistic system results in what he calls “economic mal-distribution.” This is basically a Marxist viewpoint that seeks to “take from the haves, and give to the have nots.” Wright clearly favors a socialist welfare state. As Dr. James Cone has written in For My People: “…the Christian faith does not possess in its nature the means for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism as a tool of social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality, and thereby help Christians to see how things really are.”

The newly sanitized version has an obvious anti-Capitalistic and anti-white viewpoint. Under “Disavowal of the Pursuit of ‘Middleclassness,” it describes the relationship between capitalism and blacks. It refers to blacks as “captives” and capitalism or whites as “captors” who train blacks to serve the capitalistic system.

The Black Value System criticizes those blacks who wish to achieve economic success in America and says that once they earn more money, they think they are better than others who are not seeking wealth. The statement warns against “the psychological entrapment of Black ‘middleclassness.’”

The Black Value System should be of great concern to most voters who are being asked to choose between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain to become the next President of the United States.

The Black Value System, the writings of James Cone and the sermons preached by Pastor Jeremiah Wright have clearly influenced the thinking of Sen. Obama.

Marxist Connections?

Black Liberation Theology is an admittedly Marxist worldview and one that has shaped the thinking of Sen. Obama.

However, there are more Marxist connections to Obama that must be taken into account.

In an earlier TVC report, we discussed the relationship between Obama and a member of the Communist Party, USA named Frank Marshall Davis.

Davis became a key mentor to Obama during his high school years in Hawaii. According to Marxist Professor Gerald Horne, Davis had a profound influence on Obama’s sense of identity and career moves. In fact, it was Davis who convinced Obama to move from Hawaii to Chicago, where he became a political community organizer for a Saul Alinsky-inspired group.

Chicago has been a hotbed of radical black and white Marxist organizing since the 1930s. In fact, TVC’s report on David Axelrod, Obama’s key strategist and speech writer, details the existence of Black Power radicalism in Chicago over the decades. (Axelrod’s own mother was involved in Marxist publishing back in the 1940s.)

Investigative journalist Cliff Kincaid and his associates recently published lengthy exposes on Obama’s Marxist ties both in Hawaii and in Chicago: Communism in Hawaii and the Obama Connection; Communism in Chicago and the Obama Connection.

What Are We Getting This November?

Liberal pundits routinely defend Obama when critics bring up Pastor Jeremiah Wright. They claim that Obama isn’t responsible for Wright’s comments any more than John McCain is responsible for any inflammatory statements made by TV evangelists who have openly supported his candidacy.

This is a bogus comparison. Sen. Obama, his wife Michelle attended Trinity for 20 years sitting under the teachings of a blatantly anti-American, anti-capitalist and racist pastor. If McCain had attended an anti-black church for 20 years, the comparison would be valid. He did not.

Intelligent voters must carefully consider the records and philosophies of McCain and Obama when they go to the polls in November. We must be well-informed about the choices we have for President of the United States and the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces.

---

References: “Obama’s Real Faith,” Investor’s Business Daily, January 23, 2007
“Obama’s Church,” Investor’s Business Daily, January 16, 2008
“Revisiting Obama’s Church,” Investor’s Business Daily, March 10, 2008
“Obama: Stealth Socialist?” Investor’s Business Daily, May 19, 2008

America after Obama

From American Thinker
By Richard Winchester

What will the United States of America be like after Barack Obama leaves the presidency on January 20, 2017 (assuming he does leave)?  

Five days before the 2008 election, Obama declared he would "fundamentally transform" America.  Obama has done much to fulfill that promise since January 20, 2009.  If he completes his agenda, the U.S. will be very much like a European-style welfare state. 

Obama is not personally responsible for some of the changes in American society that have facilitated the welfare state's growth.  Charles Murray (Coming Apart), Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint (Come On People), and Nicholas Eberstadt (A Nation of Takers) focus on different -- albeit complementary -- facets of American society that have deteriorated since 1960.  Murray focuses on increasing social dysfunction -- drug addiction, divorce, illegitimacy, single parenthood, etc. -- among (especially working class) whites during the last half-century.  Cosby and Poussaint deal with many of the same phenomena among blacks.  Eberstadt writes about the growth of dependence on government by a citizenry seemingly more adept at "gaming" the welfare state than they are at the habits of self-reliance that once were the heart of "the American character."

Another changing facet of American society for which Obama, although hardly an innocent bystander, is only tangentially connected, is the growing secularization of our culture.  There are many examples of this transformation, such as the on-going "war on Christmas," and secularists' reliance on sympathetic judges to drive Judeo-Christian religions from the public square.  The war on religion began long before Obama came on the scene and won't end when he's gone, but Obama and the Obamians have participated in the drive to cleanse America of any vestige of organized religion, except Islam.

An Examination of Obama’s Use of Hidden Hypnosis Techniques in His Speeches

Hat Tip to the Right Truth blog for the following very interesting explanation of how a radical, Marxist thug who collaborates with terrorists and racists, and who stands for policies that most Americans reject, can be a viable candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

An Examination of Obama’s Use of Hidden Hypnosis Techniques in His Speeches (pdf) (thanks to Right Truth reader Junichi)

THE EVIDENCE IS HERE: This document contains over 60 pages of evidence and analysis proving Barack Obama’s use of a little-known and highly deceptive and manipulative form of “hack” hypnosis on millions of unaware Americans, and reveals what only a few psychologists and hypnosis/NLP experts know.

Barack Obama’s speeches contain the hypnosis techniques of Dr. Milton Erickson, M.D. who developed a form of “conversational” hypnosis that could be hidden in seemingly normal speech and used on patients without their knowledge for therapy purposes. Obama’s speeches intentionally contain:

- Trance Inductions
- Hypnotic Anchoring
- Pacing and Leading
- Pacing, Distraction and Utilization
- Critical Factor Bypass
- Stacking Language Patterns
- Pre-programed Response Adaptation
- Linking Statements/ Causality Bridges
- Secondary Hidden Meanings/Imbedded Suggestions
- Emotion Transfer
- Non-Dominant Hemisphere Programming

Obama’s techniques are the height of deception and psychological manipulation, remaining hidden because one must understand the science behind the language patterns in order to spot them. This document examines Obama’s speeches word by word, hand gesture by hand gesture, tone, pauses, body language, and proves his use of covert hypnosis intended only for licensed therapists on consenting patients. Obama’s mesmerized, cult-like, grade-school-crush-like worship by millions is not because “Obama is the greatest leader of a generation” who simply hasn’t accomplished anything, who magically “inspires” by giving speeches. Obama is committing perhaps the biggest fraud and deception in American history.

Obama is not just using subliminal messages, but textbook covert hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming techniques on audiences that are intentionally designed to sideline rational judgment and implant subconscious commands to think he is wonderful and elect him President. Obama is eloquent. However, Obama’s subconscious techniques are shown to elicit powerful emotion from his audience and then transfer those emotions onto him, to sideline rational judgment, and implant hypnotic commands that we are unaware of and can’t even consciously question. The polls are misleading because some of Obama’s commands are designed to be triggered only in the voting booth on November 4th. Obama is immune to logical arguments like Wright, Ayers, shifting every position, character, and inexperience, because hypnosis affects us on an unconscious and emotional level. To many people who see this unaccomplished man’s unnatural and irrational rise to the highest office in the world as suspicious and frightening and to those who welcome it, this document uncovers, explains, and proves the deceptive tactics behind true “Obama Phenomenon” including why younger people are more easily affected.

EXPOSING OBAMA’S DECEPTION MAY BE THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT DEMOCRACY

The full article in pdf, pages, is located here and I suggest you read it all.

I found the following of great interest:

Specific examples of Obama using 14 separate hypnotic pacing statements in his Denver 2008 Convention speech Elementary pacing examples from Obama include, “now is the time”, and “as I stand here before you.” These statements are undeniably true in the simplest terms and commonly used parts of his pacing techniques, because of course now is the time, and if he is there speaking, of course he is standing before us.

These are things the hypnotist says that are verifiably true, and used to lower our critical factor defenses to allow implantation of subconscious messages. Looking at “pacing” statements alone, Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention Speech in Denver48 uses them throughout. Yet, nobody suspects these language patterns to be anything other than an innocent part of his powerful speech.

Three of Obama’s favorite hypnotic paces are “that’s why I stand here tonight”, “now is the time”, and “this moment.” Just these three pacing statements are used by Obama a total of fourteen (14) times throughout this single speech.

I suppose anybody can win the White House if you use hypnosis and illegal foreign campaign donations.

Why I Hate Obama's America

By Ben Shapiro

According to the left, I am now a member of a treasonous group. I cheered when President Obama and his newly made-over milquetoast wife made asses of themselves in Copenhagen while attempting to wheedle the Europeans into granting Chicago the 2016 Olympics. And I gnashed my teeth when the Nobel Prize Committee decided to fete Obama with the Peace Prize. So, that makes me an America-hater.

"Why, oh why, do conservatives hate America so?" asks Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, singling out Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck as paradigmatic of the conservative "hate America" movement. "The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn't possibly do anything right, and thus is unworthy of any conceivable recognition."

No, Eugene, that isn't the problem for us. Here's our problem: President Obama seeks an America that resembles modern France far more than the free and prosperous America our forefathers fought and bled and died for. President Obama's America is not America: It is the United Nations writ large, with socialist redistribution at its center and moral relativism at its core. I root against President Obama's America because I don't want to see it become a reality. And the only way it will become a reality is if President Obama is able to make it a reality.

And so I root for events that drain away Obama's political capital.

I rooted against him when he visited Copenhagen to bring the Olympics home. That's not because I opposed the Olympics going to Chicago -- a Chicago Olympics would have been great. I rooted against Obama because if he had achieved his goals with regard to the Olympics, too many Americans would have thought that such success somehow legitimated his agenda here at home -- an agenda totally at odds with all notions of constitutionality, limited government, and liberty of enterprise and thought. By winning in Copenhagen, he would have raised his chances of ramming through his domestic and foreign policy programs -- and that's the last thing I want to see.

I was enraged when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. That's not simply because I think he didn't deserve it, though he clearly doesn't. It's because the Peace Prize was just another sop to Obama's inflated ego. It was a blatant attempt by the "world community" to hand Obama a personal consolation prize for his fiasco in Copenhagen. It was their attempt to screw his courage to the sticking place, to reinforce his self-inflicted perception that he is a world leader destined to direct America toward a more global future.

The Nobel Committee gave Obama the Peace Prize because he has already demonstrated real commitment to undermining American strength on the world stage, and they want to see him follow through on that commitment.

In short, I don't root against President Obama because I hate America. I root against President Obama because I hate his vision for America. It is those like President Obama who see America as a dark and dangerous place that requires earth-shaking change along European lines.

It is those like President Obama who feel that Americans are nothing special -- and that America is nothing special. As Obama himself put it: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." In other words, America is not exceptional -- it's just because we live here that we feel it is. And the American people are not exceptional -- they are merely Greeks or Brits or Russians or Chinese or Frenchmen born within our borders, with values no better or worse than their foreign compatriots.

Obama's belief in America's unexceptionalism -- his view that America's government, not her people, is the formative force in her values; his view that the American people bear the stain of racial, sexual and military guilt; his view that America must abandon her scrupulous adherence to equality of opportunity in favor of equality of result, traditional morals in favor of alternative ethics, and liberty of enterprise in favor of redistributionism -- that set of beliefs is antithetical to what makes America great.

So yes, I hate Obama's America. Because Obama's America isn't America -- it's the European view of America, implemented from high office. Opposing the total redefinition of America isn't anti-American; it's patriotic. And opposing those, like Obama, who push for that drastic redefinition, isn't "hating America" -- it's fighting in favor of the America that ended slavery, built the greatest economic empire in world history and liberated tens of millions around the globe. If that isn't patriotic, I don't know what is.


Mr. Shapiro is a student at Harvard Law School. He is the author of author of "Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House", "Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future" (Regnery, a Human Events sister company and "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctinate America's Youth" Thomas Nelson).