BY THOMAS SOWELL
When
President Barack Obama and others on the left are not busy admonishing the rest
of us to be “civil” in our discussions of political issues, they are busy
letting loose insults, accusations, and smears against those who dare to
disagree with them.
Like so many people who have been beaten in a verbal encounter, and who can
think of clever things to say the next day after it is all over, President
Obama, after his clear loss in his debate with Mitt Romney, called Governor
Romney a “phony.”
Innumerable facts, however, show that it is our commander-in-chief who is
phony-in-chief. A classic example was his speech to a predominantly black
audience at Hampton University on June 5, 2007. That date is important, as we
shall see.
In his speech — delivered in a ghetto-style accent that Obama doesn’t use
anywhere except when he is addressing a black audience — he charged the federal
government with not showing the same concern for the people of New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina hit as it had shown for the people of New York after the 9/11
attacks, or the people of Florida after Hurricane Andrew hit.
Departing from his prepared remarks, he mentioned the Stafford Act, which
requires communities receiving federal disaster relief to contribute 10 percent
as much as the federal government does.
Senator Obama, as he was then, pointed out that this requirement was waived
in the case of New York and Florida because the people there were considered
“part of the American family.” But the people in New Orleans — predominantly
black — “they don’t care about as much,” according to Barack Obama.
If you want to know what community organizers do, this is it — rub people’s
emotions raw to hype their resentments. And this was Barack Obama in his old
community-organizer role, a role that should have warned those who thought that
he was someone who would bring us together, when he was all too well practiced
in the arts of polarizing us.
Why is the date of this speech important? Because less than two weeks
earlier, on May 24, 2007, the United States Senate had in fact voted 80–14 to
waive the Stafford Act requirement for New Orleans, as it had waived that
requirement for New York and Florida. More federal money was spent rebuilding
New Orleans than was spent in New York after 9/11 and in Florida after hurricane
Andrew, combined.
Truth is not a job requirement for a community organizer. Barack Obama
cannot claim that he wasn’t present the day of that Senate vote, as he claimed
he wasn’t there when Jeremiah Wright unleashed his obscene attacks on America
from the pulpit of the church that Obama attended for 20 years.
Unlike Jeremiah Wright’s church, the U.S. Senate keeps a record of who was
there on a given day. The Congressional Record for May 24, 2007, shows Senator
Barack Obama present that day and voting on the bill that waived the Stafford
Act requirement. Moreover, he was one of just 14 senators who voted against —
repeat, against – the legislation which included the waiver.
When he gave that demagogic speech, in a feigned accent and style, it was
world-class chutzpah and a rhetorical triumph. He truly deserves the title
phony-in-chief.
If you know any true believers in Obama, show them the transcript of his
June 5, 2007, speech at Hampton University (available from the Federal News
Service) and then show them page S6823 of the Congressional Record for May 24,
2007, which lists how Senators voted on the waiver of the Stafford Act
requirement for New Orleans.
Some people in the media have tried to dismiss this and other revelations
of Barack Obama’s real character that have belatedly come to light as “old
news.” But the truth is one thing that never wears out. The Pythagorean Theorem
is 2,000 years old, but it can still tell you the distance from home plate to
second base (127 ft.) without measuring it. And what happened five years ago can
tell a lot about Barack Obama’s character — or lack of character.
Obama’s true believers may not want to know the truth. But there are
millions of other people who have simply projected their desires for a
post-racial America onto Barack Obama. These are the ones who need to be
confronted with the truth, before they repeat the mistake they made when they
voted four years ago.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution. © 2012 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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