Monday, April 29, 2013

A True Hero – Obama or Bush?



 Ellen Ratner the perilously liberal news analyst typically offering the left-wing views on Fox News Watch; on Thursday published an article titled "George W. Bush Has Saved More Lives Than Any American President" that is guaranteed to shock the heck out of you as it angers folks on her side of the aisle.


"George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, is the real American hero in Africa," she amazingly began. "Take it from me, a liberal Democrat who voted for Obama twice."

After discussing her knowledge of the problems on that continent, Ratner continued her praise of our 43rd president:

Back in early 2008, when I started my work in South Sudan--I have been working closely with Christian Solidarity International--everyone was excited about the possibility of Barack Obama becoming president. [...]


Indeed, after Obama won the U.S. election in November of 2008, many Africans, in South Sudan, and everywhere else, were proud to wear T-shirts with photos of President Obama on them. Yet now that Obama’s first term has drawn to a close, the positive buzz about Obama has dramatically shifted; the Obama excitement, and the T-shirts; have disappeared for the most part.

In fact, South Sudanese today are thinking more about another U.S. president: that would be Obama’s predecessor, Bush 43. As a liberal Democrat and Obama supporter, I was particularly struck by this. Yes, Bush is a hero in Africa, and Americans, too, should know why.

No American president, before or since, has had Bush’s vision and determination to save so many millions of lives.

As you likely surmised, Ratner was referring to Bush's African AIDS program (PEPFAR- President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief).

"Five million children, women and men have received antiretroviral treatment under PEPFAR," Ratner wrote. "In 2010 alone, 600,000 pregnant mothers received treatment so their newborn children would not be infected. Yes, millions of people live productive, healthy lives due to Bush 43."

After discussing a new program the Bush's are working on to fight cervical cancer, Ratner concluded, "This liberal commentator thanks president and Mrs. Bush every single day for their amazing and tireless work for humanity. They are wonderful role models for future leaders around the world. I wish more leaders would follow the shining example of George W. and Laura Bush."

What about Barack Obama? Has he set an example we should follow in caring for the poor and the ill?

If President Obama really cares for poor – why has he never lifted a finger to help the poor in his own family?

Here is a telling personal peculiarity about Obama: some of his closest relatives are living in desperate poverty, yet he refuses to help them in any way. His father’s sister is Hawa Auma - this is how she describes herself: “I am the daughter of Hussein Onyango Obama and the sister of Barack Obama senior and the aunt of the President.”

Hawa Auma is a widow in her seventies, and you can find her on the streets of a small town in Kenya called Oyugis. There she sells charcoal by the side of the road, making barely enough to live on. She says she would like to get her teeth fixed, but she doesn’t have the money. 1

Then there is George Obama, the president’s half-brother. George is the eighth and youngest child of Barack Obama Sr., a son he conceived with his fourth wife, Jael Otieno. Author and speaker Dinesh D'Souza first encountered George during the 2008 presidential campaign when he came across an article in a London newspaper saying that “George Obama, Barack Obama’s long-lost brother, was tracked down living in a hut on the outskirts of Nairobi.” In the article, George was quoted saying that he lived on a few dollars a day. He was reluctant to use the name Obama. “If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed.” A subsequent report on CNN showed George’s six-by-ten-foot hut in the Huruma slums of Nairobi. One of George’s neighbors, Emelda Negei, told CNN, “I would like Obama to visit his brother to see how he is living, to improve his way of life.” But Obama never has, nor has he provided a penny to help George. 2

Finally, there is the case of the Barack Obama Schools in the Kenyan village of Kogelo, where Obama’s father grew up. Obama visited Kogelo as a U.S. senator in 2006, and he was given a hero’s welcome. There are two schools in Kogelo, and both were renamed after him: Senator Obama Primary School and Senator Obama Secondary School. One third of the students there are orphans. Obama toured the secondary school and saw its dilapidated classrooms that lacked electricity, sanitation, and running water. He told the people gathered there, including the Kenyan president, local politicians, and the press, “Hopefully I can provide some assistance in the future to this school.” Later he assured Principal Yuanita Obiero, “I have said I will assist the school and I will do so.”

Two years later, in July 2008, Obiero told the London Evening Standard, “Obama has not honored the promises he gave me. He has not given us even one shilling. But we still have hope.” 3

Dinesh D'Souza visited the school in mid-2012 and was told that Obama has yet to contribute anything to help. One local resident told him, “We have completely given up hoping that he is going to do anything for us.”

Most of the American press simply refuses to report this kind of information about President Obama. This is bizarre in itself, because the stories are both interesting and relevant. Obama’s own conduct in these situations is odd, not only because Obama is a multimillionaire and the most powerful man in the world—it would take so little for him to help—but also because his entire political agenda seems to be based on asking people who are well off to pay more to assist those who are not so well off. Obama wants to force the rich to pay more taxes in order to benefit the poor and the middle class (or so he says). Yet in situations where Obama is in a direct position to contribute and one would think has every reason and the motivation to contribute, because many of these are his own family; where even a little assistance would go a long way. Yet - he doesn’t provide any assistance whatsoever.

QUESTION – Is it plausible that George W. Bush is not the evil villain that the liberal media has claimed he is?

With regard to Barack Obama and his speeches that are packed with continual moral rhetoric – is it possible that he is using Projection?

 
Links & Resources





1. Peter Firstbrook, The Obamas (Crown Publishers, 2010), p. 169; Sally Jacobs, The Other Barack (Public Affairs, 2011), p. 25.

2 Nick Pisa, “Barack Obama’s ‘lost’ brother found in Kenya,” London Telegraph, August 20, 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/2590614/Barack-Obamas-lost-brother-found-in-Kenya.html;
David McKenzie, “Behind the Scenes: Meet George Obama,” CNN, August 22, 2008, http://articles.cnn.com/2008-08-22/politics/bts.obama.brother_1_half-brother-kenyan-father-barackobama?_s=PM:POLITICS.

3   David Cohen, “Barack Obama’s Broken Promise to African Village,” London Evening Standard, July 25, 2008.

Excerpt from - Obama's America: Unmaking the American Dream by D'Souza, Dinesh (2012-08-13). Perseus Books Group.

Psychological projection - was first conceptualized by Sigmund Freud as a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously rejects his or her own unacceptable attributes by ascribing them to objects or persons in the outside world instead. … Theoretically, projection and the related projective identification reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires through displacement.

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