Well, no sooner had I written that denying that the Islamic terrorists are Muslims (as the president does), would be like denying that the Crusaders were Christians, than Mr. Obama uses the Crusades as a means of chastening us, declaring that we should not "get up on our high horse," because terrible things have been done in the name of Christianity.
In making this sophistic moral equivocation, the president does not realize that he has undercut his own position. If horrors were committed by the Crusaders in the name of Christ, then the Islamists' horrors are being committed in the name of Allah. And if the Crusaders were Christians, which he affirms, then the terrorists are Muslims, which he denies. He cannot have it both ways; of course, unless the media permits him to do so, which they have.
And now comes the latest embarrassment: the Man in the Mirror, stick-selfie episode. I could not at first understand what I was seeing -- I thought it was some kind of parody or joke. I did not realize that it had actually been done by the president; but when that was clear, though it came as little surprise, it was nonetheless shocking to me. Who advises this man? Who tells him that such stunts are acceptable, even cool? And what the hell was the president thinking? What does he think his job is? This is a man who does not have time to mourn the public murder of American journalists and aid workers, but has plenty of time for golf; a man who could not manage to attend the massive free speech rally in Paris, but permitted himself to be interviewed by a woman in fluorescent green lipstick who bathes in breakfast cereal; a man who has no time to meet with the Prime Minister of Israel, coming to warn us of the Iranian nuclear threat, but who does find time to play the fool in front of a mirror, before the entire world.
This is shameful, it is a disgrace. Leaving aside the impression that this spectacle must make on the minds of our enemies -- real people who really want to kills us -- it demeans the presidency in a way that should have been unthinkable. Not long ago, Bill O'Reilly was taken to task for his aggressive questioning of the president in an interview, on the grounds that he was disrespecting "the majesty of the office." Well, so much for the majesty of the office.
The only effort to defend Mr. Obama's buffoonery was the lame argument that he was trying to appeal to Millenials to sign up for his health care scheme. Which makes one wonder: Just how stupid and shallow does he think the current generation is? Does he, or do his advisers, really think that this kind of clownish behavior on the part of the President of the United States, will appeal to the younger generation? Any intelligent, informed young person would find it scandalous.
It is true that Franklin Roosevelt appeared jovial in many of his public appearances, and that Abraham Lincoln liked to tell jokes. But neither descended to this level of foolishness; neither demeaned the dignity of the office. That this president has done so at a time when the world is in such a dangerous state, when Islamo-fascists are burning, beheading, and crucifying innocents, and old-fashioned Russian imperialism has resurrected itself, when there are very serious people very seriously threatening our civilization, makes me question more than Mr. Obama's judgment; it makes me question his sanity.
