On Tuesday, President Obama shed tears during a speech wherein he mentioned previous shootings as motivating his new executive directives on gun violence. His tears are a nauseating display of masterful chicanery, a sign that he’s determined to make his last year his most unforgettable.
Obama, the Benevolent Dictator
During his speech, Obama said, “Our unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those rights were stripped from college kids in Blackburg and Santa Barbara and from high schoolers in Columbine and from first graders in Newton…first graders…Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.”
After imprinting the image of Sandy Hook in our minds, Obama revealed a set of proposals to tighten loopholes. The Wall Street Journal says they are limited in reach but symbolically powerful. In other words, it’s emotional manipulation either way, as it’s all about making laws to make people feel better about themselves rather than making more effective laws (or repealing laws that have evil unintended consequences).
To conservatives, as David Harsanyi said, “Perhaps no post-World War II president (and maybe none before) has justified his executive overreach by openly contending he was working around the law-making branch of government because it has refused to do what he desired.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan also failed to be impressed. “Rather than focus on criminals and terrorists, he goes after the most law-abiding of citizens. His words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty.”
Tears, Schmears
To ensure that Obama’s gun proposals were well-received, he cried. Liberals were elated and in awe of the humanity of their president. (I don’t recall liberals applauding Obama when the New York Daily News reported he cried tears during Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman.”)
THIS is a President. We'd be incredibly lucky if we ever have another in the same league. 2016 wannabes = not close. https://t.co/rprgu1JgCl
— Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) January 5, 2016
I guess Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain” never goes out of style for some people, even when subsequent events prove ineffective empathy worsens than the original problem.
Folks are speculating about whether the tears are real. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Crying manufactured tears smacks of deception but crying real tears doesn’t make executive overreach better, either. In the one case, it’s deliberate emotional manipulation, and in the other it’s a weird display of a lack of self-control and self indulgence.
Since Obama did appear to actually cry regardless, it raises the question: Why didn’t he cry during any of his previous addresses immediately following a shooting? If one were feeling emotional, empathetic, or even frustrated, tears then would be natural, even understandable.
Other presidents have certainly cried while in office, but these moments listed here are all generally “off-camera” (even those of Clinton) or occur while reminiscing a difficult decision, not explaining a proposal that reeks of political posturing.
Why? Because aside from offering condolences or, as was one case, “politicizing” the event, Obama had no real agenda then. He has one now. With his tears he revels in how well he has managed to pull the wool over the eyes of Second Amendment wafflers; with his tears he marvels at how well he pulls the puppet strings of the media elite; with his tears he misrepresents the gun issue in America, making a joke of our Second Amendment rights; most of all, with his tears he mocks the victims of every shooting, since he’d rather cry over them in public during a gun-control briefing than weep quietly with their families in private.
Obama’s tears are a nauseating foreshadowing of the year that is to come: As easily and calculatedly as he cried during a political stunt that further seals his reputation, he will with just as much repose manipulate and maneuver his way around the rights and concerns of American citizens.
Now that is something to cry over.
