Obama: Arrogant Then – Arrogant Now

Almost a year ago I wrote the following, and it is as true today as it was then. The dishonesty and arrogance displayed hasn’t changed except to become more pronounced. His glib and dismissive, belligerent, attitude about the concerns of those suffering deserves our contempt. Read his comments back then, listen to what he is saying now, and ask yourself if he can be trusted with another term. I correct myself, he’s proven he cannot be trusted, the question to ask is should he have another term?

OBAMA ARROGANCE: UNBOUNDED (WND.com; 4/12/11)
With a smile, Obama glibly told a gathering in New York, “I remember what it was like pumping gas.” Yeah well, good for you, slick, because we remember what it was like to have leadership – and you ain’t it.

Speaking before an Al Sharpton organized group, Obama joked, “I’m not out of touch, I remember that.” Ha-ha-ha, Barry, stop it – you’re killing me – no, I mean it – you’re killing me, and you’re killing my country.

What compounds his insult is his arrogance. Gas prices are up, not because of dependence on foreign oil, but because of a lack of dependence on our own oil and natural gas that he refuses to let be drilled.

Obama claims he wants to move toward a future where America is less dependent on foreign oil and more reliant on clean energy. “That will happen by reducing oil imports … and shifting the nation to renewable and less polluting sources of energy, such as wind.” He continued by saying that it would not happen overnight and any politician who says it’s easy isn’t “telling the truth.”

Here again we witness Obama’s unhesitant cozenage. His statement was an attempt to minimize the strength of argument of those who would truthfully point out that there is oil ready to be delivered, but that it isn’t happening because he shut them down – even as he was not only encouraging and giving money to Brazil to help them drill, but promising them America would be their best customer. Which begs the question of whom he was lying to – the Brazilians or us. One cannot end dependence on foreign oil and at the same time promise to purchase it from a foreign country – unless he believes Brazil is one of the 57 states of America he referred to as a candidate.

Moving on to the subject of wind energy – it doesn’t work for basically the same reason solar energy doesn’t work, because on a level sufficient to make it worth the cost, it’s too intermittent and the energy flux is too low.

“The Baillieu government … dumped Victoria’s renewable energy targets after a scathing audit report found the proportion of the state’s power generated using solar, wind, and hydro had barely increased over the past decade, despite hundreds of millions of dollars of government spending.” (“ALP energy targets a ‘gimmick,’” The Age.) “Energy and Business Minister Michael O’Brien has labeled the renewable targets… an expensive gimmick.”

This is not ipse dixit. In Texas, www.wind-watch.org reports that 30 percent capacity of the wind costs almost three times as much per unit of electricity.

Another thing Obama failed to acknowledge is that his administration’s policies, including regulations on greenhouse gases – the EPA’s backdoor Kyoto – are responsible for some of the price spike we’re experiencing. (See: “Obama’s Presser and Gas Prices: Which Time Was the Left Lying?” March 11, 2011, Christopher Horner, Biggovernment.com.)

Obama no longer even attempts to mask his feeling of insult at being challenged by the mere likes of us. He views with contempt any challenge or question of his authority. That, I argue, lends credibility to what we have been hearing his family life is like. But I digress. He was signaling that, despite its having been turned away twice, he has not given up on cap-and-trade, which he is currently trying to allow the EPA to manage.

Which brings me to my greatest angst with Obama. It’s not only that he is (as far as my cursory research found) the only leader in history to have hidden his entire past, it’s not only that he is the first president in my lifetime to scold and scorn the American public, it’s not just that he and his wife display a regal attitude while you and I struggle to make ends meet in today’s economy.

The ease with which he misleads the American people is cozened and morally opprobrious. That he is then arrogant enough to make condescending jokes about his good fortune at our expense shows forth a scrofulous individual who displays the same contempt for the common man kings and queens of old exhibited for their people.