Uncommon Commentary #292

Many analysts of the presidential debate—I wrote this prior to the vice-presidential version, but it took me a few days to post it—say that the incumbent looked as if he were "bored" and as if he "didn't want to be there."  This ought not to surprise anyone who has lived during the agonizing reign of Emperor Nerobama.  It's only natural that someone who thinks of the presidency as his birthright would be weary and even resentful of the need to debate anyone who dares challenge that right.

Uncommon Commentary #291: And You Thought that the IRS Makes Mistakes Only on Your Case

A 1954 amendment to the Internal Revenue Service tax code states that tax-exempt organizations, such as churches, are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” As so often is true, the IRS is in the wrong. Certainly clergy ought to avoid preaching on matters that have nothing to do with religion, but candidates for public office often take ungodly positions on religious or ethical issues, forcing them into the political sphere. It certainly is a prerogative and a duty for pastors to give their charges moral instruction, and that includes instructing them not to elect politicians who, for instance, espouse the legality of induced abortion, which is the greatest evil not only of our time but of all time. (Even if such a politician should hold a commendable position on every other issue, anyone who wants to call himself a Christian must vote against him; Right and Wrong outweigh all other considerations.) When the Western World was much more truly Christian than it is now, the prerogative and duty of ministers of God to get political in some circumstances did not have to be exercised as often as it does currently, but in recent decades it was done by at least one man who has been canonized as a saint: Padre Pio told his parishioners, from the pulpit, to vote against the Communists.
That 1954 amendment therefore ought to be either greatly modified or abolished, but instituting a flat tax, i.e., a system of taxation in which everyone would render the same proportion of his income to the Treasury, would enable us to fulfil every Columbian's dream of abolishing the IRS itself. An economist writing in National Review in the early 1990's recommended setting the universal rate at 17 percent, but I favor 10 percent, if only on a scriptural basis; if that quota satisfies God Almighty, why couldn't it do for Uncle Sam?

Uncommon Commentary #290: Not Having His Cherished Prompter Didn't Help, Either

Leftists generally concede that President Obombast lost his first debate with Romney—interestingly, the Democratic National Committee predicted that he would do so—but some of them have tried to make excuses for his poor performance; my favorite comes from Al Gore, who, demonstrating the same grasp of scientific matters that has made him the bane of real climatologists and meteorologists and a laughing-stock of Conservative analysts, stated that the Denver altitude adversely affected the President.  The real reason for Romney's triumph is simply that he took advantage of the debate's format to put Obama on the defensive about his record; how can anyone defend the Obama record?

Uncommon Commentary #289: A 'Phone from a Phony

An internet video that has lately attracted attention refers evidently to a federal program called Lifeline (which pre-existed our transformation into the Obama Nation, but which has grown far more costly under the current president's mismanagement) that gives cellular telephones to the penurious.  The reason for my mention of the video is that it features some woman saying "Keep Obama as president.  He gave us a phone [sic]."  Now there's a good reason to re-elect a president!

Uncommon Commentary #288: Obombast's Administration Is Definitely Not an "Intelligence Community"

It's question-and-answer time at the Doman Domain, with the answers supplied by me:

Q: Is it true that what happened in Benghazi, and the anti-US riots that have taken place at our embassies elsewhere in the Moslem world, are responses to a film that reportedly disparages Mohammed?

A: Obama's administration and the media have gone by that assumption, but so far it seems unsupported by any evidence.  If that film has played any rôle whatsoever, it's been that of a pretext (almost certainly suggested to the rioters inadvertently by the US Department of State, as I noted in the previous uncommon commentary).

Q: Was the attack upon the US Consulate in Benghazi a deliberate act of terror?
A: Is Joe Biden a windbag?  Who ever heard of a "spontaneous" assault that employed mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and improvised explosive devices (i.e.d.'s)?  Even in Libya, those things aren't just lying around on the ground, waiting to be used by "extremists".

Q: But, isn't there a consensus in the "intelligence community" that it was not planned far ahead of time, and that the fact that it took place on 11 September is just coincidence?

A: That's what we've heard from the Obombast Administration, not from the "intelligence community" itself.  The only source of intelligence to have spoken up so far—one in Libya—has contradicted the administration's position (as has the Libyan government).

Q: Why, then, is the administration lying to us?  Is it just force of habit?

A: In this case, it's because Obama doesn't want to admit that Moslem terrorists have successfully targeted the USA during his presidency; it's the same reason (along with, naturally, Political Correctness) why they're unwilling to refer to, e.g., the Fort Hood massacre as terrorism.

Q: Is history repeating itself?

A: There is a marked similarity, regarding unpreparedness on the part of the US government, between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the bombardment of the Benghazi consulate.  In 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt—a president to whom, interestingly, Obama is often compared by his supporters—knew from deciphered Japanese communications that Japan planned to assail the USA somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, yet he failed to alert our bases to the fact; on 11 September of this year, Obama's administration had similar reason to fear a terrorist incident in eastern Libya, yet there were no Marines on guard at the consulate in Benghazi, or, indeed, additional safety precautions of any sort.

Q: Was there any time in history when as many things were going wrong for the USA as have gone wrong under Obama?

A: I, an historian, can't think of any.  The War of Southern Secession (i.e., "Civil War") and the Great Depression, for example, obviously were great trials for this country, but at least our civilization was not falling apart as it is now.  (Anyway, Obama's policies may well be propelling us toward a true civil war and an even greater depression.)

Q: Is there anything that you can add to what you've already said here?

A: Certainly, but I'll save it for some other uncommon commentary.

Uncommon Commentary #287: The US Statement Department

At first, I was not inclined to agree too strongly with those who criticized the US government's handling of the latest post-"Arab Spring" crisis.  The official statement that "The Embassy of the United States [sic] in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims …." impressed me as a typically politically-correct, overly apologetic proclamation by Obombast administration officials—note the use of the word "continuing", as if Muslims ought to feel persecuted by the West—but I couldn't censure them for trying to snuff out a flame before it could become an inferno; I also knew that the reportedly anti-Islam video The Innocence of Muslims—I have not seen it—that has been blamed for arousing the ire of the Mohammedans was posted on YouTube, and can thus be watched anywhere on Earth that people have access to the W.W.W.  Then, however, I realized the significance of the fact that the embassy's statement was made prior to the beginning of the "violent protest" (i.e., riot) in Cairo, and that the violence broke out in the very city where said statement had been issued.  If The Innocence of Muslims is guilty as charged, the logical hypothesis is that the embassy unwittingly drew attention to that film, and thus helped send the present wave of anti-US expression over the Near, Middle, and Far East and North Africa.

Uncommon Commentary #286: A Kooky Man and a "Snooki" Fan

I would never have believed it, but there apparently is one way in which Obama is preferable to Romney.  A few years ago, the former appeared on that sober forum for vital issues, The View; asked for his opinion of "Snooki", he replied that he had no idea who that is.  Romney, on the other hand, has admitted that he's a "Snooki" fan. (For those of you who have done better than I at ignoring the USA's insipid popular "culture": "Snooki" may sound like a name for a teddy bear rather than for a human being, but it evidently refers to someone on the pointless and objectionable "reality" show Jersey Shore.)  And so, I would finally have a reason to support our president for re-election, if only he weren't a duplicitous, unprincipled, left-wing, egomaniacal, intolerant gangster!