A.J. DiCintio
The president's rhetoric
By A.J. DiCintio
Putting the crucial third leg on the imaginary support that the failed, pathetic salesman Willy Loman believed would allow him to ride successfully through life "on a smile and a shoeshine," Barack Obama has made the regular use of astonishingly vacuous rhetoric the hallmark of his political career.
For different reasons, that ridiculously empty language has exerted a magnetic effect on both the airy-headed and pragmatic-minded residents of Liberaldom. Moreover, and of infinitely greater importance, it has been received with benign tolerance or unconcern by many other citizens.
The liberal reaction to the president's rhetoric shouldn't drive us crazy; for it has long been apparent that the liberal mind is hopelessly condemned to shout "genius" at anyone or anything its love of power or roiling swirl of bumbling emotions perceives as advancing the tenets of leftist ideology.
However, the behavior of those other citizens shouldn't either, precisely because unlike liberals, they are capable of understanding exactly what George Orwell warned about when he observed that corrupt language corrupts culture, which, in a continuing cycle, causes more corrupt language and more corrupted culture.
So, as we celebrate Independence Day this year in the manner of our choice (not one made for us by the power loving Bloombergian bloodsuckers that are Washington's politicians and bureaucrats) let's not permit ourselves to be driven mad by a family member, friend, or neighbor who still touts the president as "intelligent" or "smart."
Rather, let's choose to do something that motivates others to convince themselves of the truth about the president's rhetoric.
For example, steering the conversation toward current political reality, we might ask folks what they believe Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping were thinking in '08, when they realized a person could actually be elected president of the United States by running on the perfect nothing of slogans such as "yes we can."
Having patiently listened to the reply, we can then solicit thoughts about what likely came to Vlad and Xi's meticulously pragmatic, fiercely competitive minds when Obama mightily amplified the insult of "yes we can" with the promise that a brave, new, prosperous world surely lies ahead for this nation once citizens simply understand "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
At this point, we will be tempted to invite explanations of other rhetorical insults delivered by the president, including why he never employed Plain English to define his idea of healthcare reform as a federal takeover of the system to be administered by an army of officials ensconced deep in the unapproachable labyrinths of Washington's monolithic bureaucracy and enforced by 15,000 newly hired IRS agents with access to every last health detail of every last citizen living in every last precinct in the nation.
Why upon assuming office, he immediately substituted the euphemism "overseas contingency operation" for "war" and "man-caused disaster" for "terror attack."
And why given his history with respect to Islam, which he loves to tout as one of his most valuable attributes, he just can't bring himself to say "Islamist jihadist" or "Islamist terrorist."
We will be tempted; but mindful of Shakespeare's observation that "brevity is the soul of wit," we should forbear, choosing, instead, to ask for reactions to the most recent of Obama's rhetorical perversities, specifically, the foul, astonishingly insulting one he issued in a typically lecturing speech in Berlin this month:
"We may strike blows against terrorist networks, but if we ignore the instability and intolerance that fuels extremism, our freedom will eventually be endangered."
Regarding those reactions, we can be certain that a great majority will ask the following question:
"So the Islamist terror that has plagued the planet for decades results from 'instability and intolerance'? Created by whom, Mr. President, by whom?
They will also ask this question, followed by a bitterly ironic declarative sentence:
"Indeed, Mr. President, exactly what 'instability and intolerance' lay behind the 9/11 attacks, the shootings at Fort Hood, the butchering of a soldier in Great Britain, the bombings in Indonesia and India?"
"People from New York to Washington to Shanksville to Killeen to Mumbai to Bali would love to know."
And they will make this interrogatory seething with sarcasm:
"Why do you think it was, Mr. President, that Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and millions of other American citizens never thought to cite 'instability and intolerance' as the underlying cause of the unspeakable atrocities committed by the psychopathic murderers and sociopathic haters of human rights who populated governments devoted to Hitlerian Fascism as well as Stalinist and Maoist Communism?"
Finally, as our open-minded family members, friends, and acquaintances continue to think for themselves about the president's rhetoric, they are certain to recall Orwell's warning about the power of corrupt language to further corrupt society.
As they consider that recollection, their minds will likely turn to the shocking, shamelessly insulting manner with which administration bigwigs have testified before Congress with respect to the many scandals plaguing this country, for example, the behavior of the Director of the FBI when he told a congressional committee he doesn't even know the name of the agent assigned to head the FBI's investigation into the all-important IRS scandal.
And as they think about the Director's behavior, this question will form in their minds:
"Is it madly outside the realm of possibility that the Director, the infinitely plastic Hillary Clinton, and all too many others who have been guilty of an ugly, dismissive arrogance in their congressional testimony are taking their cues from President Barack Obama?"
Finally, there is this last point.
Committing yourself to helping others educate themselves about the president's unconscionably corrupt and corruptive rhetoric will do more than keep you sane.
It will provide you with the satisfaction of joining hands with millions of other self-reliant citizens who are searching for a wise, honest man or woman to lead this country, not a fast and loose talking ideological messiah. . .for example, those responsible, according to a Quinnipiac poll, for sending the president's job approval rating in the bellwether state of Ohio plummeting to 57% negative.
© A.J. DiCintio
July 1, 2013
Putting the crucial third leg on the imaginary support that the failed, pathetic salesman Willy Loman believed would allow him to ride successfully through life "on a smile and a shoeshine," Barack Obama has made the regular use of astonishingly vacuous rhetoric the hallmark of his political career.
For different reasons, that ridiculously empty language has exerted a magnetic effect on both the airy-headed and pragmatic-minded residents of Liberaldom. Moreover, and of infinitely greater importance, it has been received with benign tolerance or unconcern by many other citizens.
The liberal reaction to the president's rhetoric shouldn't drive us crazy; for it has long been apparent that the liberal mind is hopelessly condemned to shout "genius" at anyone or anything its love of power or roiling swirl of bumbling emotions perceives as advancing the tenets of leftist ideology.
However, the behavior of those other citizens shouldn't either, precisely because unlike liberals, they are capable of understanding exactly what George Orwell warned about when he observed that corrupt language corrupts culture, which, in a continuing cycle, causes more corrupt language and more corrupted culture.
So, as we celebrate Independence Day this year in the manner of our choice (not one made for us by the power loving Bloombergian bloodsuckers that are Washington's politicians and bureaucrats) let's not permit ourselves to be driven mad by a family member, friend, or neighbor who still touts the president as "intelligent" or "smart."
Rather, let's choose to do something that motivates others to convince themselves of the truth about the president's rhetoric.
For example, steering the conversation toward current political reality, we might ask folks what they believe Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping were thinking in '08, when they realized a person could actually be elected president of the United States by running on the perfect nothing of slogans such as "yes we can."
Having patiently listened to the reply, we can then solicit thoughts about what likely came to Vlad and Xi's meticulously pragmatic, fiercely competitive minds when Obama mightily amplified the insult of "yes we can" with the promise that a brave, new, prosperous world surely lies ahead for this nation once citizens simply understand "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
At this point, we will be tempted to invite explanations of other rhetorical insults delivered by the president, including why he never employed Plain English to define his idea of healthcare reform as a federal takeover of the system to be administered by an army of officials ensconced deep in the unapproachable labyrinths of Washington's monolithic bureaucracy and enforced by 15,000 newly hired IRS agents with access to every last health detail of every last citizen living in every last precinct in the nation.
Why upon assuming office, he immediately substituted the euphemism "overseas contingency operation" for "war" and "man-caused disaster" for "terror attack."
And why given his history with respect to Islam, which he loves to tout as one of his most valuable attributes, he just can't bring himself to say "Islamist jihadist" or "Islamist terrorist."
We will be tempted; but mindful of Shakespeare's observation that "brevity is the soul of wit," we should forbear, choosing, instead, to ask for reactions to the most recent of Obama's rhetorical perversities, specifically, the foul, astonishingly insulting one he issued in a typically lecturing speech in Berlin this month:
"We may strike blows against terrorist networks, but if we ignore the instability and intolerance that fuels extremism, our freedom will eventually be endangered."
Regarding those reactions, we can be certain that a great majority will ask the following question:
"So the Islamist terror that has plagued the planet for decades results from 'instability and intolerance'? Created by whom, Mr. President, by whom?
They will also ask this question, followed by a bitterly ironic declarative sentence:
"Indeed, Mr. President, exactly what 'instability and intolerance' lay behind the 9/11 attacks, the shootings at Fort Hood, the butchering of a soldier in Great Britain, the bombings in Indonesia and India?"
"People from New York to Washington to Shanksville to Killeen to Mumbai to Bali would love to know."
And they will make this interrogatory seething with sarcasm:
"Why do you think it was, Mr. President, that Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and millions of other American citizens never thought to cite 'instability and intolerance' as the underlying cause of the unspeakable atrocities committed by the psychopathic murderers and sociopathic haters of human rights who populated governments devoted to Hitlerian Fascism as well as Stalinist and Maoist Communism?"
Finally, as our open-minded family members, friends, and acquaintances continue to think for themselves about the president's rhetoric, they are certain to recall Orwell's warning about the power of corrupt language to further corrupt society.
As they consider that recollection, their minds will likely turn to the shocking, shamelessly insulting manner with which administration bigwigs have testified before Congress with respect to the many scandals plaguing this country, for example, the behavior of the Director of the FBI when he told a congressional committee he doesn't even know the name of the agent assigned to head the FBI's investigation into the all-important IRS scandal.
And as they think about the Director's behavior, this question will form in their minds:
"Is it madly outside the realm of possibility that the Director, the infinitely plastic Hillary Clinton, and all too many others who have been guilty of an ugly, dismissive arrogance in their congressional testimony are taking their cues from President Barack Obama?"
Finally, there is this last point.
Committing yourself to helping others educate themselves about the president's unconscionably corrupt and corruptive rhetoric will do more than keep you sane.
It will provide you with the satisfaction of joining hands with millions of other self-reliant citizens who are searching for a wise, honest man or woman to lead this country, not a fast and loose talking ideological messiah. . .for example, those responsible, according to a Quinnipiac poll, for sending the president's job approval rating in the bellwether state of Ohio plummeting to 57% negative.
© A.J. DiCintio
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