President Obama, Reagan, and American History

Morning Bell: President Me

from The Foundry: Heritage Foundation Blog

Obama continues pattern of arrogant abuse of power

Rory Cooper

Over the past month we have witnessed several displays of arrogant power emanating from our White House, emphasizing fealty to a person over the integrity of an American institution.

Reflecting on his two terms in office, President George W. Bush said in 2010, “You realize you’re not it. You’re a part of something bigger than yourself.”

This is a sentiment President Barack Obama did not inherit from his predecessor. Over the past month we have witnessed several displays of arrogant power emanating from our White House, emphasizing fealty to a person over the integrity of an American institution. Some are more serious than others.

First, this week it was discovered that White House staff had edited the biographies of many past presidents on whitehouse.gov to include a bullet point or two inserting President Obama into each historical narrative.

For example, while President Calvin Coolidge had been the first president to make a public radio address, President Obama is on LinkedIn; and while Social Security was introduced by President Roosevelt, under President Obama it still exists. But in a far more egregious example, they incorrectly added to President Ronald Reagan’s biography:

“In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.”

This is not only a complete fabrication of what President Reagan said (even The Washington Post‘s ‘fact checker’ gave this familiar line two Pinocchios) but it is also a glaring example of the President putting himself ahead of the sacred institution he is sworn to protect for the nation as well as his predecessors and successors.

Heritage Distinguished Fellow Ed Meese who served as President Reagan’s Attorney General said: “They should not use the biographies of past presidents as campaign vehicles. What they have done is to spoil the integrity of the historical narrative. At the very least, the Reagan biography should be restored to the accurate version provided by the White House Historical Association. I’m sure those associated with other past presidents would feel the same.”

This is not the first time the Obama White House has engaged in this behavior. In March 2009, they were caught editing President Bush’s biography to soften his listed accomplishments. They quickly reversed course. In the Bush Administration, biographies were directly supplied by the White House Historical Association without addendums or qualifiers.

Former White House Internet Director David Almacy explained to The Heritage Foundation that under Bush, this editing practice would have been unthinkable, saying: “It was our intent to preserve the history of the White House as an institution as well as those who served as president from a non-partisan historical perspective.” Almacy added: “It was ingrained in Bush Administration staffers from day one that our time in service to our nation was a privilege and that we must separate political promotion from the institution as a whole.”

Affirming that culture, President Bush told a group of departing staffers in 2009: “Laura and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts for serving with us. I’ve had two great chiefs of staff, Andy and Josh. Their task was to assemble, and I would say this objectively, the finest group of people to serve our country, all of whom are here not to serve me, not to serve Republicans, but to serve the United States of America.”

This bipartisan approach evades the current White House. On April 20, President Obama’s campaign team released a Nixonian enemies list of Republican donors on their “Truth Team” website. This wasn’t about transparency, but intimidation. After each donor name, the Obama team highlighted why they felt the person was “less than reputable.” Essentially the person had either succeeded in a business field that was counter to the President’s worldview (i.e. oil production) or they made business decisions like outsourcing.

Prominent donors are often thrust into the spotlight in political campaigns, but this example was extraordinary and unprecedented. The writing was on the wall: If you give to an opposing cause, we will unleash a grassroots effort to destroy your personal reputation. This message delivered on behalf of the most powerful man in the nation has real implications. If the IRS were to audit one of these individuals, how could they not wonder if their political contribution was the root cause?

Following up on the story, the Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberly Strassel found that a week after this list was released, a political opposition researcher was found to be digging through divorce records of one of the men named. The target, Frank VanderSloot, told Strassel: “When I first learned that President Obama’s campaign had singled me out on his ‘enemies list,’ I knew it was like taping a target on my back…[but] the public beatings and false accusations that followed are no deterrent. These tactics will not work in America.”

Between the biographical trickery and their enemies list, President Obama’s team has engaged in tactics that put their boss above his predecessors and dangerously above his opponents. This is indeed a culture that emanates from the top.

Just last week President Obama told ABC News’ Robin Roberts in an interview: “When I think about — those soldiers or airmen or marines or — sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf…” My behalf.

Then there was also the consistent use of the pronoun “I” to describe the raid to kill Osama bin Laden. And the time, President Obama told 60 Minutes that he was our fourth greatest president ever, saying: “I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history.”

Finally, President Obama insinuated yesterday that if you don’t support his policies, it’s not due to philosophical differences, but because of his name. Answering a question on The View about tight polls, he said: “When your name is Barack Obama, it’s always going to be tight. Barack Hussein Obama.”

Any person selected to the highest office in the land is bound to indulge a small degree of narcissism. But when it permeates the entire attitude and culture of the executive branch, it begins to become a problem. No president is larger than the presidency.

Reagan, President Obama, and Socialism

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Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, and Good vs. Evil

Dinner Topics for Tuesday

Moments from American History: Reagan Evil Empire Speech, plus Rush commentary

Many of us who were alive and kicking in 1983 and understand all the great, wonderful things that took place then with the Reagan years, the economic rebound and so forth, we are sometimes frustrated, "What happened?" Why do people who lived through that prosperity, which continued into the nineties, how do they so easily forget it?  How were they so easily co-opted into thinking -- and we know the media with the constant history revisionism that goes on daily and has been since Reagan was in office, and the co-opting of the public school system, not teaching about Reagan, or if they do, lying about Reagan.  I'm not saying, "Please, can we have another Reagan."  That's not the point of this.  The point of this is to show you it's not new.  It's not weird.  It's not unique that people think this way, as Rick Santorum does.  Here's Reagan.  We have four or five bites of his speech in 1983.  In this bite he interestingly refers to Alexis de Tocqueville.

REAGAN:  That shrewdest of all observers of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, put it eloquently after he had gone on a search for the secret of America's greatness and genius, and he said, "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America.  America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."  I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities, the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.

RUSH:  Now, he was president when he made this speech.  He was not a candidate.  He'd been in office into his second year.  He was inaugurated in 1981.  This was basically two years later.  And we don't have the reaction, but the media went nuts, particularly when they heard him call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire.  Now, listen to him describe opposition then and think about it today.

REAGAN:  I don't have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to or at least out of step with a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based.  No matter how well-intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans.  And while they proclaim that they're freeing us from superstitions of the past, they've taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation.  Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority.

RUSH:  Now, we edited the applause, but it went on and on and on.  In this speech Reagan used the word "evil" nine times.  He used the word "good" eight times, "God" 18 times.  He never mentioned Satan in the speech, but it's what he meant by evil.  So that little sound bite there, we have the secularists today.  We have people who want to superintend us by government rule and regulation.  And their voices are louder and we think we're in the minority, but we're not.  Remember, he had won in a landslide just two years earlier.  Things haven't changed, in terms of who the opposition is.  What's changed is how the Republican Party is seemingly forgotten how to defeat them, as Reagan did.  In the next bite, Reagan acknowledges there is sin in the world and that we must oppose it with everything we have.

REAGAN:  More than a decade ago, a Supreme Court decision literally wiped off the books of 50 states statutes protecting the rights of unborn children.  Abortion on demand now takes the lives of up to one and a half million unborn children a year.  Human life legislation ending this tragedy will someday pass the Congress, and you and I must never rest until it does. (applause) Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected.  There is sin and evil in the world, and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.

RUSH:  The president of the United States saying this in 1983, sin and evil.  You know what I learned yesterday?  Speaking of abortion, Roe v. Wade, the law says that only doctors can perform the procedure in the first trimester.  I'm pretty sure I read that correctly, which of course now makes Roe v. Wade so outdated because you can go to a pharmacist and buy RU-486.  You can do your own abortion without a doctor.  You don't need a doctor.  So technically you're in violation of Roe v. Wade when you don't go to a doctor, if I read it right.  Anyway, just an illustration of how outdated and what a rotten law the Roe v. Wade bill is.  These two feature the lines we all remember.

REAGAN:  I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority.  You know, I've always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church.  So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals I urge you to beware of the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault; to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an Evil Empire; to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

RUSH:  He was urging people, don't give up on this, don't think both parties are the same.  The Evil Empire is evil, and here is his identification of it.

REAGAN:  Let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness.  Pray they will discover the joy of knowing God.  But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.

RUSH:  That was Ronald Reagan.  That's March 8th, 1983, talking about the Soviet Union.  They are the focus of evil.  And with that line, the media, Sam Donaldson went literally insane. "Okay, the Russians are gonna launch now. We've really made 'em mad." Just like we shouldn't make the independents of today mad.  So there you have it, and just to show you how similar things are from 1983 to today.

(break)

RUSH:  Now, Reagan did not mention Satan in his 1983 speech, but you heard that he did mention Screwtape.  Screwtape is not quite Satan, but nevertheless a demon holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy of hell. 

See video of Reagan Speech Here