Barack Obama and the Ministry o’ Truth
Oy vey, mon president! In a recent interview with the BBC former President Barack “if you like your health care plan you can keep it” Obama complains about the lack of truthiness currently available in the USA:
There are millions of people who subscribed to the notion that Joe Biden is a socialist, who subscribed to the notion that Hillary Clinton was part of an evil cabal that was involved in pedophile rings.
Stupid, definitely. But then the president went on to say
I think at some point it’s going to require a combination of regulation and standards within industries to get us back to the point where we at least recognize a common set of facts before we start arguing about what we should do about those facts.
This is yet another dose of illiberal liberalism that is becoming quite the fashion among the soggy center left these days, similar to, though mercifully briefer than, the extended what to do what to do hand-wringing recently provided by New York Times gal Emily Bazelon, causing me to erupt in a brief yet vivid display of old man harumphing “Freedom OF Speech or Freedom FROM Speech? Emily Bazelon is confused”.
Barack was an editor at the Harvard Law Review and Emily had the same job at Yale. But both think we should have government tribunals to decide for example whether “Barack Obama is a Muslim” or “Donald Trump is an honest man” are true statements and, I guess, to first reprimand and then, if necessary, punish with fines or jail terms media outlets that continue to publish those that fail to pass muster. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing? It seems that a lot of knowledge is too!
Afterwords
Years ago, the French government had a wonderful display of original manuscripts at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, everything from the Duc de Saint Simon to Proust. Included among them was a “fair copy” of Émile Zola’s “J’accuse” letter. I am proud to say that I wept at the sight of it, and it is “interesting” to note that a great many of the statements in that letter are false—not that Zola knew they were false, but they were, and he was convicted twice, “correctly”, for criminal libel. I guess Barack and Emily would approve.
(Hat tip to Kyle Smith of the National Review, whom I probably agree with less than I do with Barack, for catching this.)
Have you got enough rope, Kevin? Because you’re going to need it!
Over at the National Review, Kevin D. Williamson has a brief snicker at abortion groups for dropping the names of racists like Margaret Sanger. “Now that those awful eugenicists have been memory-holed,” sniggers Ken, “ Planned Parenthood et al. can go back to butchering unborn children exclusively for respectable reasons.” And, in a “better” world, I guess we could go back to hanging women who “butcher” their unborn kids, eh, Kev?
Mr. Williamson lost a job at the Atlantic when he suggested hanging women who get abortions, probably a “joke” along the lines of “since abortion is murder and we believe in capital punishment and because hanging is actually the most humane form of capital punishment we ought to hang women who get abortions”. However, when he was called on it, Mr. Williamson apparently lacked the testicles to tell a pack of yapping “feminists” that “Sorry, ladies, I was just being a dick.” Because real men don’t apologize!
Newt Gingrich couldn’t really be anti-Semitic, could he?
What is it with right-wingers and anti-Semitism? They just can’t lay off the stuff, can they? In a recent appearance on “Fox News”, speaking of Joe Biden, the Newtster had this to say:
I think he [Biden] would have to do a lot to convince Republicans that this is anything except a left-wing power grab financed by people like George Soros, deeply laid in at the local level. And, frankly, I think that it is a corrupt, stolen election.
Really, Newt? You had to go for the Jew? It couldn’t have been Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos, or Warren Buffet, or the Clinton Foundation, or any of those? It had to be George Soros? I guess nothing gets those right-thinkin’ folks in the fly-overs in a check-writin’ mood like a little taste of anti-Semitism in the morning. I just can’t wait for Newt’s special gift edition of the Protocols of Zion in hand-tooled leather. Nothing but class, Newt! Nothing but class!
