OBAMA’S ‘SAFE SPACE’ HYPOCRISY
I’VE never understood the excitement many Americans feel when President Obama speaks. When it’s Presidential Lecture Time, I usually flip the channel to “Cops” reruns or daydream about Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
There is, however, one exception to the tediousness of Obama’s homilies: when he tells college kids to grow a pair. During these rare moments of common ground, conservatives rediscover the audacity of hope.
There’s been a wealth of news stories or viral videos of millennial meltdowns over any perceived slight or injustice. Many are silly, like the annual freakouts over Halloween costumes. Others, like the proliferation of campus speech codes, are outright disturbing.
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that these kids peeve the president. As a former law-school lecturer, he knows firsthand how much campus politics have deteriorated. As the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, Obama knows the p.r. damage these overgrown children do to the progressive cause.
And he’s not shy about saying so. This week, Obama told NPR that students shouldn’t “go around looking for insults” and instead should “engage . . . [the] ideas” of their ideological opponents.
Sounds good. But it’d sure be nice if the president took some of his own advice.
Obama has transformed the White House into one of the most luxurious, and powerful, safe spaces in the world. No, Obama doesn’t turn to coloring books or therapy dogs when Republicans object to his policies or when the media point out the economy’s lackluster recovery. But he has repeatedly exercised an unwillingness to even acknowledge his opponent’s positions beyond a vulgar caricature.
During the presidential campaign, Obama blasted Republican leaders for “feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years.” There’s no doubt many Republican voters have bought into boorish or inane conspiracy theories about the president. Yet it’s clear that’s not just what Obama’s referring to — in that same speech, he derided the Republicans’ agenda as “based on lies [and] based on hoaxes.”
When Obama attacks “crazy” ideas, he’s really attacking the average voters’ dissatisfaction with ObamaCare’s implementation and rising health-care premiums, or his basic aversion to uttering the words “Islamic terrorism.” Like a college student quivering at the thought of a conservative speaker having a platform on campus, the president dismisses any other political perspective as outside the realm of normal discourse.
After all, it’s easier to question the sanity of Republicans — just like it’s easier for a college student to dismiss a speaker based on his skin color or gender — than to understand their argument.
During the initial Syrian refugee crisis, Obama belittled Republicans’ concerns about allowing thousands of refugees into the country as a “fear of widows and orphans.” Such dishonesty and childishness would’ve been right at home on the college campus.
To both Obama and the hysterical college student, opposition to their noble cause must be rooted in hatred. Assigning such a label immediately shuts down the conversation. Just like so many campus protesters wouldn’t back down after all the facts were released about the killing of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer, don’t expect the president to revise his position on Syrian refugees despite the news that intelligence agencies here and in Europe believe terrorists are exploiting the weak vetting system.
Obama’s practice of creating straw men has been a consistent theme throughout his term. In his final State of the Union address, the president implied Republicans were somehow under the impression that “food stamp recipients [caused] the financial crisis” instead of Wall Street.
Has the White House truly become so insular that it can’t tell reality from a “Saturday Night Live”-esque parody? Statements like these from the president suggest his understanding of conservatism is no better, and perhaps worse, than a sophomore Gender Studies major.
Speaking out against college intolerance is nice. But for such a supposed intellectual, Obama doesn’t even feign an understanding of his critics. The president presumably believes the college activists attempting to censor conservatives on campus will heed his advice. Thing is, a lot of college kids might think they need to give the president that same advice.