THE CHARADE

Barack Obama is very good at double talk.  If you don't count squandering other people's money, it's what he does best.  It's a skill he mastered to con ill-informed voters and the means by which he was elected president.  His second inaugural address is a case in point.  If being disingenuous was an art form, it would be his Mona Lisa.

Couched in benign platitudes and empty catch phrases, Barack Obama's second inaugural address was designed to portray Obama as a pillar of traditional American virtues.  Its purpose was to give him cover to finish the job he started in his first term.  But Obama's own words and actions blew his cover and betrayed his real intentions.  The speech was so chocked full of inconsistencies and contradictions that it could have passed for satire.

Obama began the speech by paying lip service to "the enduring strength of our Constitution", and the duty to keep safe our founding principles, but only a few paragraphs later, he casually declared that we all don't have to define liberty the same way or even agree on the role of government.  Unlike our nation's founders, Obama doesn't believe in absolutes.  He thinks that everything is relative, and he often changes his rhetoric to suit his purposes.  On January 21st Obama praised the wisdom of the United States Constitution, but in 2001, then Illinois State Senator Obama complained that it prevented "redistributive change".  When Obama made a similar gaffe dfuring the 2008 campaign he was confirming his game plan.

In his second inaugural address, Obama cautioned his audience that government cannot cure all of society's ills, and that outworn programs are inadequate in today's world.  But off stage, to the tune of $6 trillion in new debt, Obama is orchestrating the most massive expansion of government handouts in the nation's history.  Later in the same address he made it abundantly clear that any plans to reform Medicare and Social Security are completely off the table.  He purposely ignores their impending bankruptcy.

Obama went on to proclaim that "We cannot cede to other countries the technology that will power new jobs and new industries".  Of course he didn't bother to mention that while he was speaking his Treasury Department was busy approving the sale of electric car battery manufacturer A123 Systems to China, but only after first giving the company $249 million in green energy stimulus funds.  American astronauts hitching rides on Russian space capsules might well argue that they could have made better use of the taxpayers' dollars.

With a straight face Obama then declared "We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms".  Apparently he thinks that unilaterally cutting US nuclear defenses by one third while Russia and China are increasing their military capabilities will somehow make Americans safer.  His plans to cut 100,000 active duty Army and Marine troops and reduce the US Navy to its lowest level since 1917 must be based on similar logic.

Adding insult to injury, Obama proudly proclaimed that "America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe."  Fortunately for him, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't in the audience - or the presidents of Poland and Czechoslovakia - allies he threw under the bus when he cancelled their missile defense shields to appease Vladimir Putin.

About the only time Obama was sincere was when he said "when times change, so must we" and then went on to talk about making the hard choices to reduce the cost of healthcare, (by rationing) and the need for "collective" action.

That's because these are the things Barack Obama really believes in.  He has no use for the Constitution, free market solutions or self-reliant men and women.  He wants to "transform America", because he doesn't like it.  He spent his first year in office apologizing to the rest of the world for America's success.  On the eve of his election, Michelle Obama gloated that she could finally be proud of the United States.

ACORN, the S.E.I.U., MoveOn.org and Occupy Wall Street are Obama's core constituencies.  Government run healthcare, Cap & Trade and Agenda 21 are the means to satisfying their craving for "social justice", (aka payback).  The man who launched his political career in the living room of former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers doesn't want to restore the political and economic systems that have given Americans the highest standard of living the world has ever known.  He wants to destroy them and put in their place massive bureaucracies, run by elitists who will intrude into every facet of American life and make the American people dependent on government for all of their material needs.

Obama masquerades as the champion of America's middle class.  But if he succeeds, America's middle class will become a permanent underclass.  November's election results confirm that almost 50% of Americans already understand that.  As soon as 51% do, Barack Obama's charade will come to an end.