Home | Commentary | News | Forum | The Loft | Online Activist | State News | Resources | Classifieds Subscribe | Mobile | RSS | Contact
Comment
E-mail
Print

Obama's Moral Clarity Deficit
By J. Matt Barber
July 8, 2009

Relativism is as relativism does and Barack Obama does it well. His less than tepid response to evidence of a rigged election in Iran a few weeks ago and the subsequent brutalization of the Iranian people by an Islamofascist regime says more about our President's worldview than it does his foreign policy.

Amid Tehran's bloody election protests the internet was awash with images of Iranian citizens -- many beaten, even murdered -- desperately reaching out to Uncle Sam for cover. "Obama, please help us, they are killing our young children," implored one protester's sign.

Obama's response? He launched the most vapidly uninspired course of inaction since the days of one-term Jimmy: "It's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling," he lectured.

Critics pounced, calling the President's hyper-measured reaction "timid" and "passive." So he stepped it up a notch. This time he expressed "deep concerns about the elections," promising to "monitor the situation." Nonetheless he urged calm saying that he was "waiting to see how it plays out." (Just what Granny needs while she's being mugged: A would-be champion to "monitor the situation" and "see how it plays out.")

Of course an abundance of "concern," "monitoring" and about eighty-nine cents will buy you a bitter cup of coffee. So, as Obama's critics got tougher, so did his rhetoric. The next day he again modified his official position, this time mustering enough righteous indignation to upgrade from "deeply concerned" to "appalled" and "outraged."

Still, his instinctive impulse to equivocate was more than Obama could bear. In the same breath he reassured Iran's despotic Mullahs and their puerile presidential puppet, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that "the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not at all interfering in Iran's affairs."

Not really a "tear down this wall" kind of moment, but, with this president, I guess it'll have to do.

All the same, what's most puzzling to me is why anyone's remotely surprised. Obama is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal; a postmodern "progressive"; a committed social and moral relativist.

The moral relativist, by definition, is bereft of moral clarity. The only thing immoral is to reckon there are things immoral. The only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth. No fixed right or wrong; no black or white; only shades of gray.

Indeed our debonair young Commander-in-Chief sees the world through the murkiest of gray-colored glasses. Though evidence of this abounds, I can think of no starker example than his opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

Born Alive very simply requires that when a baby survives an attempted abortion -- when she is "born alive" -- further attempts to kill her must immediately cease and steps must be taken to save her life.

In 2002, Born Alive passed the U.S. Senate with unanimous, bipartisan support. Yet Obama, while serving in the Illinois Senate, vehemently opposed its Illinois twin. He complained that "adding an additional doctor" (read: an actual doctor) to save the child's life is "really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion."

>> Continued -- Page 1 2

 

++ Check out the GOPUSA home page for the latest information.

Last Updated:
Friday 2:46 pm EDT



Not a member? Click here.
Wal-Mart to slash grocery prices by qrayjack
Let's Chat ~ March 15 - 19 by ReneeCA.
Let's Chat ~ March 15 - 19 by ReneeCA.
New poster with Querry by qrayjack
Discuss Issues in the Forum

Action Alerts
Action Alert: Urge fiscal restraint on Obama budget!
Alert: No More Bailouts!

Legislation and Votes
H.R. 1913 - Hate Crime Bill
S. 773 - Cybersecurity Act of 2009
H.R. 450 Enumerated Powers Act
Roll Call Vote - To tax AIG execs at 90% rate
H.R. 1503 - To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require proof of citizenship for presidential candidates.

Grassroots Survey Team
View recent survey results
Join the survey team!




GOPUSA Cartoons
Click here!

++ Don't be fooled: health care is not dead

++ 2010 Grassroots Survey, Tell Us What You Think, and Want

++ Reagan: It's Time for a Second Tax Revolt