(h/t Life With Monkeys via The Anchoress )
Lisa B. at No Quarter USA posted this. I’m republishing it here, but please visit that site as there is much of interest to be found and read there. Here’s Lisa’s post.
Editor’s Note: This is one of the most important stories we’ve published recently. Don’t miss it. BUMPED UP from December 21st because this critical expose of Obama by one of our nation’s best minds deserves more time on our front page.
| “I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had.”—Nat Hentoff |
This is fascinating. The legendary free-thinking Nat Hentoff — who wrote for the New Yorker for 25 years — thinks that Obama is dangerous for the country.
This interview with Hentoff on the Rutherford Institute website includes some blunt opinions. Hentoff even weighs in on “Obamacare”:
First, who is Nat Hentoff?
Nat Hentoff has had a life well spent, one chock full of controversy fueled by his passion for the protection of civil liberties and human rights. Hentoff is known as a civil libertarian, free speech activist, anti-death penalty advocate, pro-lifer and not uncommon critic of the ideological left.
At 84, Nat Hentoff is an American classic who has never shied away from an issue. For example, he defended a woman rejected from law school because she was Caucasian; called into a talk show hosted by Oliver North to agree with him on liberal intolerance for free speech; was a friend to the late Malcolm X; and wrote the liner notes for Bob Dylan’s second album.
Then the Q&A begins.
John W. Whitehead: When Barack Obama was a U.S. Senator in 2005, he introduced a bill to limit the Patriot Act. Now that he is president, he has endorsed the Patriot Act as is. What do you think happened with Obama?
Nat Hentoff: I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had. An example is ObamaCare, which is now embattled in the Senate. If that goes through the way Obama wants, we will have something very much like the British system.
If the American people have their health care paid for by the government, depending on their age and their condition, they will be subject to a health commission just like in England which will decide if their lives are worth living much longer.
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So in answer to your question, I am beginning to think that this guy is a phony. Obama seems to have no firm principles that I can discern that he will adhere to. His only principle is his own aggrandizement. This is a very dangerous mindset for a president to have.
Strong stuff. Hentoff does not like “Obamacare” and describes what he feels will happen should that “reform” come to light.
In England, you have what I would call government-imposed euthanasia. Under the British healthcare system, there is a commission that decides whether or not, based on your age and physical condition, the government should continue to pay for your health.
That leads to the government not doing it and you gradually or suddenly die. The present Stimulus Bill sets up the equivalent commission in the United States similar to that which is in England.
The tipoff was months ago on the ABC network. President Obama was given a full hour to describe and endorse his health plan. A woman in the audience asked Obama about her mother. Her mother was, I believe, 101 years old and was in need of a certain kind of procedure. Her doctor didn’t want to do it because of her age.
However, another doctor did and told this woman there is a joy of life in this person. The woman asked President Obama how he would deal with this sort of thing, and Obama said we cannot consider the joy of life in this situation. He said I would advise her to take a pain killer.
That is the essence of the President of the United States.
I remember that. Obama’s “pragmatism” in the face of that woman’s personal fear for her mother was chilling to see in a professional politician whose currency is caring for constituents. He clearly felt no need to offer condolences or express concern. If any woman had done this, she would have been pilloried for being so cold.
In fact, Hentoff wrote an earlier article called “The Cold Heart of Obama-Care,” where he wrote this:
Much of the press coverage of the Democrats’ health care legislation, now fiercely embattled in Congress, focuses on the public option, the actual long-term costs and tax increases, and the amendment barring funding for abortions. But the cold heart of Obamacare is its overpowering of the doctor-patient relationship – eventually resulting in the premature ending of many Americans’ lives for being too costly.
To call the dangers of this legislation “death panels” obscures the real-life consequences to Americans, not only the elderly, of a federal government-run health care bureaucracy. In the Senate bill, for instance, Medicare doctors whose treatments each year of certain, mostly elderly, patients costs more than a set government figure will be punished by losing part of their own incomes.
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I’m scared, and I do mean to scare you.
Back to the interview, though, and a helluva question from Williams to Hentoff about Obama.
JW: Do you consider Obama to be worse than George W. Bush?
NH: Oh, much worse. Bush essentially came in with very little qualifications for presidency, not only in terms of his background but he lacked a certain amount of curiosity, and he depended entirely too much on people like Rumsfeld, Cheney and others. Bush was led astray and we were led astray.
However, I never thought that Bush himself was, in any sense, “evil.” I am hesitant to say this about Obama. Obama is a bad man in terms of the Constitution. The irony is that Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He would, most of all, know that what he is doing weakens the Constitution.————-
JW: Do you think Obama is shallow?
NH: It’s much worse than that. Obama has little, if any, principles except to aggrandize and make himself more and more important. You see that in his foreign policy. Obama lacks a backbone—both a constitutional backbone and a personal backbone.
This is a man who is causing us and will cause us a great deal of harm constitutionally and personally. I say personally because I am 84 years old, and this is the first administration that has scared me in terms of my lifespan.
Hentoff adds that he feels AAs have not been well served despite their hopes for Obama, and that Hispanics and the disabled will also likely suffer.
As usual, the people who are poorest—the blacks, Hispanics and disabled people—are going to suffer more than anyone else under the Obama administration. This is a dishonest administration, because it is becoming clear that the unemployment statistics of the Obama administration are not believable. I can’t think of a single area where Obama is not destructive.
As for the Tea Party protests, Hentoff says they serve important political purposes and likens the protests to the early pre-revolutionary groups awakening people to the abuses of the British government. Hentoff then decries the lack of education many Americans possess about their own country and its founding documents.
Interesting stuff and worth your time to read. As some brave souls ever so gently start the delicate process of beginning to think about questioning our president, Hentoff simply flings down the gauntlet. Gotta respect that. But somehow I’ll bet he – all of a sudden – becomes a tired old man who has “lost touch.” He will be described as “confused” or of “misunderstanding” the issues.
Hentoff no doubt expects some pushback. It will be interesting to see what happens.
I first wrote about a Hentoff article in July 2008. He compared Obama BEFORE the election to a famous Boston political boss named James Curley. Hentoff’s opinion has changed only in intensity. (The link in my original article no longer works, unless you have a subscription to the Sacramento Bee and can access their archives.) This is the article: Barack Obama: The flimflam candidate
If you are interested in reading more Hentoff, Lisa has included a list of articles from 1999-2009 with links.
