Vincent J. Curtis
29 July 2016
The climax of Wednesday night of the Democratic National
Convention was the speech by U.S. president Barack Obama. Here’s the thing you have to understand about
Barack Obama: Bill Clinton was the first
black president of the United States, and Barack Obama is the first black
Clinton.
Obama entered the American political scene at the 2004
Democrat Convention as a state senator from Illinois. He wowed the crowd with a speech that called
for an end to racial divisions in America, “There is no black America, there is
no white America, there is only the United States of America!” he shouted to
the crowd over great cheering. Here was
a man for the future, a black man who was articulate, “clean”, devoid of the
ghetto patois accent, and seemed to be the one who could end racial division in
the United States once and for all.
By 2008, and only two years a US senator, Obama won the
Democrat nomination by defeating Hillary Clinton and then won the general
election by defeating John McCain, despite growing doubts about his
authenticity and person record, to say nothing of his actual intentions as
president.
Little need be said here about his record in office, except
that it betrayed his promise and most of what he said. Racial divisions have gotten worse, the
economy has failed to recover adequately, respect for law and order has fallen
in large part from his example and his leadership. International terrorism has gotten worse due
to his ill-advised policy choices in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. He has exacerbated civilized political
discourse due to his habits of rhetoric and laziness in thinking. He is president to the 52 % who voted for
him, and king to the 48 % who didn’t. His
signature Obamacare law has disrupted medical economics without improving care
or access to care, and is expected to collapse by 2018 due to the faulty
economics upon which it was deceitfully pushed through. Deceit was also employed throughout his
Administration to attain policy goals, and some even boasted about the deceit. Obama is an extreme ideologue with little
tolerance for opposition. This is not
the hope and change America was expecting from that man of 2004. The signs were there, however, for those with
eyes to see and ears to hear as early as 2007.
On Wednesday, Obama lionized Hillary Clinton as the person
most qualified ever for the office of president. So, why did he run against her in 2008?
He spoke of how great America was in 2016, after eight years
of complaining about what was wrong with America. His 2008 promise to “fundamentally transform
America” was based upon the belief that there was something fundamentally wrong
with America that needed radical change to fix.
And thus his program of action.
Now, however, everything is great in spite of the fact that, if America
has changed, it has been for the worse.
Perhaps the most galling thing to Obama is the knowledge
that he is responsible for the phenomenon of Donald Trump.
In his desperation to avoid a Trump take-over, he is
praising Hillary as he never did in 2008, and is saying things about America
that he never did between 2008 and July 26, 2016.
The man of 2004, the man of Hope and Change, the man of the
Audacity of Hope, the man of Dreams of My Father, came back Wednesday night to
praise Hillary Clinton in 2016 as he never would when his ambition was on the
line. His ambition now is to halt the
Trump Train.
The Obama of 2004 came back, and to stop the Trump Train he
rebuked the Obama of 2008 – 2016.
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