INTRODUCTION
T his book is about a young presidency—young, but already the most destructive in American history.
Everything about Barack Obama’s radical background signals his visceral contempt for America—its culture, its values, and its political and economic systems. His unmistakable goal is to bring America down to size—an America that has been, in his view, too big for its britches, selfish, exploitive, unfairly wealthy, arrogant, and dismissive.
Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly promised to bring “fundamental change.” The week before the election, he ominously declared, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” That same week, I expressed these concerns in my syndicated column:
I am sincerely worried that if Obama wins, the checks and balances incorporated into our Constitution may not be enough to prevent a radical and irreversible diminution of our individual liberties because a confluence of factors has emerged to create a climate conducive to fundamental change. These factors are: a shockingly unknown candidate, whose mysterious past and numerous shady alliances are deliberately left unexplored by a corrupt, supportive media; the candidate’s charismatic qualities that inspire a cultish loyalty; his intellectual trappings that create a fascination and allure among the intellectual elite, including some hypnotized conservatives; a major financial crisis that exacerbates the people’s fears and uncertainties; a largely manufactured cloud of negativity placed over America by the media and a grossly partisan Democratic Party that places its self-interest above the national interest; and an apparently discredited Republican Party and conservative movement that have been blamed for our actual and perceived problems.
. . . All of these factors could coalesce to give Obama a mandate to fundamentally move our economy toward socialism in the name of economic fairness and emasculate our war on terrorists in the name of our international image.
I wish I had been wrong, but it turns out my fears were hardly exaggerated. Though Obama denied his extreme liberalism during the campaign, he couldn’t conceal it entirely. Since his first day in office he has been trying to uproot our national moorings and “transform” the country into a land consistent with his socialist, secular, multicultural vision for America—an America that in his view has squandered its power and potential for good by: a) failing sufficiently to atone for its racial sins; b) subscribing to an antiquated and discriminatory system of values; c) having an economic system that fosters an “inequitable” distribution of wealth; d) selfishly consuming a disproportionate share of the world’s resources; and e) imperialistically projecting its power in the world.
But Obama does have some ambivalence about America. On the one hand he deeply dislikes this country; on the other, he sees in it great potential—a potential he believes, immodestly, he can personally unleash as president. He admires America’s wealth and power, even if undeserved in his view, but he is passionate about redirecting them and remaking us into a truly great nation—a part of the global community that shares rather than exploits its resources. In 2007 he told a Rolling Stone reporter he has faith in America’s capacity for acts of outstanding virtue, but as a black man, he “feels very deeply that this country’s exercise of its great inherited wealth and power has been grossly unjust.” Obama added, “I’m somebody who believes in this country and its institutions, but I often think they’re broken.” 1
Tragically, Obama’s ideological blindness precludes him from recognizing America’s unparalleled record of benevolence as the world’s greatest superpower. It numbs him to the wonders of America’s free-market system, which has produced unprecedented prosperity for Americans
T his book is about a young presidency—young, but already the most destructive in American history.
Everything about Barack Obama’s radical background signals his visceral contempt for America—its culture, its values, and its political and economic systems. His unmistakable goal is to bring America down to size—an America that has been, in his view, too big for its britches, selfish, exploitive, unfairly wealthy, arrogant, and dismissive.
Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly promised to bring “fundamental change.” The week before the election, he ominously declared, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” That same week, I expressed these concerns in my syndicated column:
I am sincerely worried that if Obama wins, the checks and balances incorporated into our Constitution may not be enough to prevent a radical and irreversible diminution of our individual liberties because a confluence of factors has emerged to create a climate conducive to fundamental change. These factors are: a shockingly unknown candidate, whose mysterious past and numerous shady alliances are deliberately left unexplored by a corrupt, supportive media; the candidate’s charismatic qualities that inspire a cultish loyalty; his intellectual trappings that create a fascination and allure among the intellectual elite, including some hypnotized conservatives; a major financial crisis that exacerbates the people’s fears and uncertainties; a largely manufactured cloud of negativity placed over America by the media and a grossly partisan Democratic Party that places its self-interest above the national interest; and an apparently discredited Republican Party and conservative movement that have been blamed for our actual and perceived problems.
. . . All of these factors could coalesce to give Obama a mandate to fundamentally move our economy toward socialism in the name of economic fairness and emasculate our war on terrorists in the name of our international image.
I wish I had been wrong, but it turns out my fears were hardly exaggerated. Though Obama denied his extreme liberalism during the campaign, he couldn’t conceal it entirely. Since his first day in office he has been trying to uproot our national moorings and “transform” the country into a land consistent with his socialist, secular, multicultural vision for America—an America that in his view has squandered its power and potential for good by: a) failing sufficiently to atone for its racial sins; b) subscribing to an antiquated and discriminatory system of values; c) having an economic system that fosters an “inequitable” distribution of wealth; d) selfishly consuming a disproportionate share of the world’s resources; and e) imperialistically projecting its power in the world.
But Obama does have some ambivalence about America. On the one hand he deeply dislikes this country; on the other, he sees in it great potential—a potential he believes, immodestly, he can personally unleash as president. He admires America’s wealth and power, even if undeserved in his view, but he is passionate about redirecting them and remaking us into a truly great nation—a part of the global community that shares rather than exploits its resources. In 2007 he told a Rolling Stone reporter he has faith in America’s capacity for acts of outstanding virtue, but as a black man, he “feels very deeply that this country’s exercise of its great inherited wealth and power has been grossly unjust.” Obama added, “I’m somebody who believes in this country and its institutions, but I often think they’re broken.” 1
Tragically, Obama’s ideological blindness precludes him from recognizing America’s unparalleled record of benevolence as the world’s greatest superpower. It numbs him to the wonders of America’s free-market system, which has produced unprecedented prosperity for Americans
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