Day 1: White House bashes George Bush

FROM WND

Official U.S. site rips ex-prez for ‘unconscionable ineptitude’

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

 

Unable to let go of its campaign mantra blaming the nation’s ills on the “failed policies” of George W. Bush, the White House of President Barack Obama immediately posted on its website charges that Bush broke promises and allowed “catastrophic failures” responding to the needs of Americans.

The WhiteHouse.gov website listing for Obama’s “agenda” cites the ongoing reconstruction in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

“President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur,” the agenda states.

“President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration’s ‘unconscionable ineptitude’ in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business, and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.”

The Obama campaign repeatedly criticized the “failed policies” of Bush. A Google search reveals millions of references to the words when linked to Bush.

But among those noting the focus on the “failed Bush policies” during the Obama campaign was a blogger who concluded any “failures” perhaps should generate shared blame.

“The Obama campaign keeps saying that voting for McCain will only be voting for four more years of ‘failed Bush policies.’ While President Bush’s approval rating is low, there is a branch of government with an even lower rating. That branch is the one that Obama is currently a part of, the Legislative branch. Congressional approval ratings are in the single digits, setting a historic record for the lowest approval rating for any person or branch of the federal government since the ratings were first tracked,” the blogger wrote as the election wound down.

“This is the branch that Obama is claiming his record for reform comes from, which, from the approval rating, it appears not much is actually getting reformed,” he wrote.

“So when Obama gets to the White House, what are his big plans? Apparently from what Joe Bide[n] says out on the campaign trail, they will pick up the same failed strategy of working to ‘get’ George W. Bush rather than devoting their time to enact all that ‘change’ they keep talking about,” the blogger said.

At the PajamasMedia.com blog, the issue also was raised by blogger Ronald Radosh, an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

“There is a strange symmetry between the Bush hatred that emanated from the Left and what the writer John Avlon calls ‘irrational Obama exuberance.’ Barack Obama has not spent one day as president, yet his admirers speak and write as if he has not and will not do anything wrong,” the blogger said at the time.

“If you consider Obama the closest man can get to God, you are probably among those who think that George W. Bush is the closest man can get to being the devil,” he said.

Radosh wrote that while Bush’s achievements “will only be told by future historians,” judgment already has been issued by “today’s academy.”

“A year or so ago, the eminent historian Sean Wilentz wrote a cover story for Rolling Stone in which he called Bush ‘the worst president in all American history.’ Most of his colleagues readily agreed with his call,” he continued. But, he said, “Bush and his defenders have good reason to be angry at Wilentz’s premature verdict.”

Radosh cited Bush’s work to battle AIDS throughout Africa, his role in keeping America free of terrorist attacks since 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

“To the Left and the antiwar activists, the very entry into the war and the toppling of Saddam Hussein was unnecessary, wrong and immoral. Evidently, leaving one of the greatest contemporary tyrants and butchers of his own people in office was not a problem. And although intelligence turned out to be deeply flawed, the spurious charge that ‘Bush lied us into war’ has no mettle. Virtually every major Democrat saw the same intelligence as the Bush administration. …”

On the public forums section of website, several answered the question that was posed by Radosh in his commentary, “Will Bush-bashing end?”

“Obama is the only one who could stop it and he won’t for this one reason: He needs a scapegoat for any policy initiative of his that fails. This way he can blame it on Bush,” wrote one.

“Bush-bashing will only fall from acceptable behavior when history comes by to vindicate him,” said another.

“No, it will not stop. Bush will be the convenient scapegoat for every Obama mistake,” wrote a third.

The White House site, on a page with Bush’s biography, does credit him for working with Congress “to create an ownership society and build a future of security, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans.”

“Because President Bush believed the strength of America lies in the hearts and souls of our citizens, he supported programs that encourage individuals to help their neighbors in need,” the biography states.

WND reported just one day ago how Obama-supporting crowds booed Bush, shouted obscenities and lined up to throw shoes at his effigy during Obama’s inauguration.

MSNBC hosts called the booing “bad form” in their coverage.

Inaugural prayer slam prompts Obama smile

FROM WND

Rush Limbaugh: Lowery ‘just insulted this country’

 By Chelsea Schilling 

 Outrage is erupting over the inauguration benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery, an 87-year-old civil rights pioneer, for asking God to help mankind work for a day when “white would embrace what is right.”

Lowery, known for co-founding the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr., opened with a quote from the “Black National Anthem.” He then asked God to encourage America to make “choices on the side of love, not hate, on the side of inclusion not exclusion, tolerance not intolerance” after President Barack Obama took the presidential oath.

Then he ended his prayer with, “Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around – when yellow will be mellow – when the red man can get ahead, man – and when white will embrace what is right.”

Obama reacted to the benediction with a smile.

The crowd cheered and boomed with a loud “Amen.”

However, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Lowery’s prayer “offended” and was “far more memorable than the inaugural address by President Obama.”

Referring to Lowery’s “When black will not be asked to get in back” comment, Limbaugh responded, “When does that happen today? Did we not just inaugurate a black man as president of the United States?”

Limbaugh went through each statement about color, attempting to decipher Lowery’s intended message.

“I know it’s a left over from the ’60s thing,” he said. “It’s not relevant today! Everybody here is living in the past, and they don’t want anybody to think we’ve made any progress at all despite inaugurating Barack Obama as president today.”

Repeating Lowery’s “When white will embrace what is right” statement, Limbaugh said, “He just insulted this country, large numbers of which elected Barack Obama president of the United States.”

Several angry bloggers posted reactions to Lowery’s prayer, including the following:

• Didn’t whites just do that by electing Jesus Christ president?

• Am I allowed to be offended?

• Race card pulled during the inauguration. Wow that didn’t take long.

• It is completely inappropriate to have that in any prayer, much less a prayer at an inauguration that is supposed to be about how “We’re all one.”

• Black … brown … red … yellow … white? I’m stunned. The prayer is so racist and so inappropriate. Is Rev. Lowery just a kinder, gentler Rev. Wright?

• You guys are all spelling it wrong. That’s the problem. I’m sure that if you look at his notes you’ll see that it says “… whites will embrace what is Wright.”

Obama retakes oath of office

Barack Obama has retaken the oath of office that was administered by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts at the ceremonial inauguration yesterday.

Legal experts had suggested the move because of the multiple stumbles and flubs at the original event.

Obama ended up transposing the word “faithfully” during his inauguration in Washington. When he should have said he would “faithfully execute the office of president of the United States,” he instead said he will “execute the office of president of the United States faithfully.”

WND previously reported on the flub, and the following video reveals the circumstances:

Roberts began administering the oath by stating the president-elect’s name, but Obama cut him off before he could finish.

“I Barack …” Obama eagerly chimed in before Roberts could complete the first sentence.

Obama then allowed Roberts to continue.

“I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully,” Roberts said.

“That I will execute …” Obama said.

Roberts repeated, ” … faithfully the office of president of the United States.”

“The office of president of the United States faithfully,” Obama said.

“And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God,” he finally finished.

According to a Fox News report, Roberts went to the White House late today and administered the oath, correctly, to Obama. Also present were a pool reporter and a White House photographer.

The Associated Press reports, “The president said he did not have his Bible with him [for the second oath], but that the oath was binding anyway.”

Josh White of the Washington Post said the oath of office is required of a new president “before he can execute his power.”

And he noted, “the Constitution is clear that its 35 words must be spoken exactly.”

“He should probably go ahead and take the oath again,” Jonathan Turley had told the Post.

The professor of constitutional law at George Washington University said without doing that, “there are going to be people who for the next four years are going to argue that he didn’t meet the constitutional standard.”

In case you missed it, get WND’s special in-depth report on THE SECRET LIFE OF BARACK OBAMA.

According to the chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Charles Cooper, a mistake in the oath should be fixed.

 

The newspaper said two previous presidents, Chester A. Arthur and Calvin Coolidge, both repeated the oath later because of similar mistakes.

“Out of a super-abundance of caution, perhaps he should do it again,” Akhil Reed Amar, a Yale professor, had suggested.

Retaking the oath, however, will not answer the multiple questions about Obama’s eligibility that have been raised in a long list of lawsuits filed over his election in November.

The lawsuits allege in various ways Obama does not meet the “natural born citizen” clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which reads, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

Some allege his birth took place in Kenya, and his mother was a minor at the time of his birth – too young to confer American citizenship. They argue Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan citizen subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time and would have handed down British citizenship.

There also are questions raised about Obama’s move to Indonesia when he was a child and his attendance at school there when only Indonesian citizens were allowed and his travel to Pakistan in the ’80s when such travel was forbidden to American citizens.

One California lawsuit, on which the United States Justice Foundation is working, was filed on behalf of presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others, and describes the potential damage an ineligible president could create.

“Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void,” argues a case brought on behalf of Keyes, “Americans will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal.”

A number of the arguments have reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which so far has declined to give any of the cases a hearing.

However, another conference before the justices is scheduled on the dispute Friday. The case is brought by Orly Taitz, a California lawyer.

Taitz said her arguments rest on precedents from both the California Supreme Court, which years ago removed a candidate for president from the ballot because he was only 34, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s affirmation of the ruling. The Constitution requires a president to be 35.

She also raised the issue of the concealment of Obama’s records.

“Obama has refused to submit certified copies of any of his original long form ‘vault’ birth certificates in Hawaii to any public officer or to any Petitioner. Relevant records in Kenya have also been officially restricted,” she said. “Obama has sealed all educational records which might reveal his stated citizenship. These include Punahou High School, Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School.”

Obama has claimed in his autobiography and elsewhere that he was born in Hawaii in 1961 to parents Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Kenyan national, and Stanley Ann Dunham, a minor. But details about which hospital handled the birth and other details provided on the complete birth certificate have been withheld by Obama despite lawsuits and public demands for release.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi went to both Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama’s birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, Obama hasn’t simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor’s office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

MARY

Fire in the Hole

 

I’ve often wondered what it would have been like to have been there when Jesus was crucified.  It was the darkest time of the disciple’s lives – a time of doubt and despair that they would have to struggle through alone.

They were hunted men – hunted by the very church order that was supposed to be of the same God that they all worshipped.  The Sanhedrin had killed the ringleader, and would now set about to destroy the rest of Jesus’ followers to stamp out forever this new heresy of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  This was not supposed to be the way it ended.  There was supposed to be a new kingdom of God on the Earth, but now Jesus was dead, and the priests had won.

They couldn’t be with him in his last dying moments.  As their beloved Master hung in agony, they had to stand afar off to watch while he was surrounded with two dying thieves and some drunken Roman soldiers.  The two Mary’s stood nearby, but in the end, it was a lawyer and a politician that took his body down, wrapped it in linen and spices, and carried it off to a proper burial tomb.

What a time if introspection!  They never understood anything about the death and resurrection of the Messiah, nor did they expect that Jesus would rise from the dead in just a few days.  All they knew was that He was dead, they were alone, and it was over.  The enemy had won.

Did they ever wonder if it was real, or if it had just been a dream?  Had they been so enamored with the power of His speech that they had willingly allowed themselves to be carried away with their dreams, or was Jesus really the one spoken about by the prophets?  But if he was, then why did God allow Him to die and the wicked to triumph?  Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?  Aren’t the good guys supposed to win, and the wicked be defeated?

And so, the sheep were scattered.

Except for the two Mary’s.  They came as soon as dawn broke. 

The task that was before them was gruesome.  They had to unwrap the linen, scented with the heavy smell of death and blood, which by now was dried and stuck to his wounds. It would have to be ripped off the wounds, tearing his precious body even more.  Every inch of his body would have to be cleansed, anointed, and rewrapped with clean new linen.  It was a job only those who truly loved him could endure, because it was not only the body that had died, but the dream, the hope, and the vision of God’s deliverance for Israel.  The hope of the kingdom of God had died along with him.  It was a death beyond death.

Shattered and numb, but driven by their devotion, the two Mary’s came early. 

There is something unstated about that which touches the very foundation of faith.  Joseph and Nicodemus weren’t there, even though they had stood in face of their peers to take him to this tomb when no one else dared.  The disciples were in hiding, and how many hundreds of other followers had simply turned back to go home, disillusioned at what seemed to be the ultimate defeat of their hope. 

But both Mary’s came early.  Jesus was still their Lord.  Nothing could change that, not even death.

Faith is unique in that it flourishes in an atmosphere of persecution, grows in soil that is watered with blood, and blooms most brightly in an atmosphere of darkness.  Some will answer that it comes by hearing, but in order to hear, your ears must be opened, and that happens in times of stark realities that shatter the soft glow of comfort and pierces the mollified conscience of complacency.  It has to be tested in persecution to grow, and must be taken to its breaking point to flourish, bloom and bring forth fruit that will replenish the earth.  There is something about the sufferings of the Body of Christ that wins souls.

The challenges Mary faced were like a high wall before her whose height stretched to the heavens.  There was no way to breach it or get around it.  Her Lord and Master had been lost to the finality of Death, and it was finished.  She knew nothing of theological genealogies or prophetic intricacies.  She neither knew about nor would have understood that Jesus would rise from the dead.  He was gone, and she was now driven onward, not by any religious understanding or belief, but by a love and devotion that transcended everything else.

It is that kind of love for Truth and righteousness that forms the bedrock upon which faith stands.  But as faith rises from that bedrock it is also bound to the sufferings of the Body of Christ in order to flourish and grow.  Only in such a climate do we attain to the victory that conquers Death, Hell, and the Grave.

In this darkest time of Mary’s life, Jesus was still her Lord.  In the face of all adversity, despair, and pain, she held on to the one who had saved her and given her Life.  It had finally brought her to the gardener, whose answer forever broke the power of darkness and answered her broken heart when he turned to her and said, “Mary”.

 

Praise the Lord,

Brother Dale

dale@revivalfire.org