David Limbaugh

Column: Partisan Obama Culture Spawned a More Abusive IRS

In case you're hiding under a rock, you should know that an audit conducted by the inspector general for the Internal Revenue Service has found that IRS officials targeted for scrutiny certain groups critical of the administration.

Which groups? Well, those with "tea party" or "patriot" in their names and nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution.

It's disgraceful that government bureaucrats, whether on their own initiative or at the direction of superiors, singled out anyone for special scrutiny, but what their selection criteria were makes it even worse. Reportedly, the IRS field office in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status decided to focus on groups making statements that "criticize how the country is being run" and those that are engaged in educating Americans "on the Constitution and Bill of Rights."

Surely, we all understand the awesome and, frankly, horrifying power the IRS has come to have in our system, which originally didn't even contemplate an income tax, much less oversight of it by such a monstrous bureaucratic leviathan. What could be more chilling and destructive to our liberties than a government targeting -- that's its word, not mine -- private citizens and organizations based on their political and ideological views?

If the First Amendment means anything, it is that the full force of the federal government will be used to safeguard, not suppress, the liberties of American citizens to utter political speech, especially speech critical of the government. But instead, this IRS sought for abuse groups that criticized the administration and groups that wanted to teach people that under our Constitution, such government officials have no right to do this type of thing.

]]> And you wonder why people favor a major overhaul of the tax system? What if low-level staffers in an obscure Cincinnati field office were actually solely responsible for this, as the administration is alleging? How could a system become so corrupt -- or how could officials overseeing it become so reckless -- as to make possible such a systematic abuse of power?

But speaking of this effort to pass the buck to "low-level" players: Can we not at least agree that the Obama administration has established a culture conducive to the type of stereotypical thinking that could lead to this? Didn't the Department of Homeland Security under this administration list right-wing groups as extremists and potential terrorists? Hasn't President Obama himself referred to tea partyers as "tea baggers"? Haven't other Democrats deliberately depicted tea party groups as violent extremists who are a hair trigger away from armed revolution?

Liberals have been trying to vilify conservative talk radio for years now, suggesting that its strong political opinions lead to violence. That is preposterous, but if we were to apply the same type of standard to Obama, we could say that he has personally fomented a climate of hate against conservative groups, such that the IRS targeting was completely foreseeable. Surely, it's fair to hold the president to his own standard.

Consider: Obama's "bitter clingers" remark, his statement that conservatives who want a "small America" are dragging America into "a race to the bottom where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards," his calling Republican congressmen "hostage takers" for opposing his tax policies (does that ring a bell, i.e., those who criticize the government?), his despicable statement that Republican leaders are "willing to compromise (their) kids' safety so some corporate jet owner can get a tax break," Vice President Joe Biden's saying Republicans "have acted like terrorists" and are using threats of shutting the government down as a "weapon of mass destruction," Obama's looking on with approval as Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa said of the tea party, "Let's take these sons of b----es out," and his spiritual adviser the Rev. Jim Wallis' saying, "And to be blunt, there wouldn't be a tea party if there wasn't a black man in the White House."

In my book "The Great Destroyer," which was published in 2012, I reported that there were "literally dozens of tea party organizations that (had) received intrusive information demands from the IRS" in response to tea party requests for tax-exempt status. These demands, I reported, "have not been in response to allegations of wrongdoing against the parties, but simply in response to their applications for tax exemptions."

I reported that some were alleging that "the Obama IRS (was) 'using the routine process of seeking and granting tax exemptions to undertake a sweeping, top-down review of the internal workings of the tea party movement in the United States.'" I added, "Recall that Obama's own campaign organization, Organizing for America, once labeled tea party opponents of Obamacare 'right-wing domestic terrorists.' ... If Team Obama views tea partyers as a dangerous threat, would it really be surprising to learn that it treats them as such?"

Ahem ... no, it wouldn't -- and isn't.

Column: There's Way Too Much Administration Smoke on Benghazi

A former National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor, is representative of the arrogance of the Obama administration in mocking the congressional hearings on Benghazi, Libya, which he contemptuously derided as "amateur hour" and conspiratorial.

In a tweet to The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, Vietor mocked Rep. Jason Chaffetz, saying, "What do you think Rep. Chaffetz will disclose today? Moon landing photos? Map of Area 51?"

Very funny, Mr. Vietor, but your snark does nothing to explain many anomalies concerning the administration's mishandling of the Benghazi attacks -- though it reveals how indifferent certain administration loyalists are to its misbehavior. Not as indifferent, perhaps, as the administration itself ("This happened a long time ago" and "What difference does it make?") but indifferent nonetheless.

Let's review a list of just some of the troubling questions that have been raised about this sordid affair and see whether any of them concern people of good will, irrespective of their party affiliation.

Gregory Hicks, the State Department's former deputy chief of mission in Libya, was emphatic in denying that the attacks occurred as a result of demonstrations over an anti-Islam video and was adamant that the administration was well aware of this fact. He said: "The video was not instigative of anything that was going on in Libya. We saw no demonstrations related to the video anywhere in Libya." Hicks said he never told then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that it was a protest about the video.

]]> Indeed, Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact checker, acknowledged that Hicks provided new information in his testimony when he related that he spoke directly to Clinton the night of the first attack and briefed her, "presumably relaying his conclusions" that there was no demonstration at the consulate prior to the attack.

This is why Hicks said -- when he heard the administration, through U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, stating just the opposite on the Sunday morning talk shows -- "I was stunned; my jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed."

Hicks' reaction is justified, given the administration's obviously premeditated strategy to deceive the American people into believing the attacks were the result of outrage over an Islam-bashing video rather than an organized terrorist attack. Obama and Clinton were up to their necks in complicity in this deceit and even spent $70,000 of taxpayer money on a commercial on Pakistani television apologizing for the scapegoated video. From this we can fairly conclude that the administration was more interested in covering its own rear end by protecting its pre-election narrative that it had terrorism under control than it was in the truth or even in preventing possible negative fallout this false report could cause.

Negative fallout is precisely what it produced. Hicks said that the administration's video yarn "insulted" Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf in front of his own people and reduced his credibility by contradicting his earlier claims that the attack was premeditated. Hicks said Magariaf was "still steamed" two weeks later. Because of this, Hicks said, "I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi." The Libyans, said Hicks, wouldn't even secure the scene of the attack.

If Obama and Clinton were truly concerned about Muslims being offended by a video, why would they disseminate that lie and trigger that very effect?

Rep. Chaffetz says that State Department employees were forbidden to talk to him about the incident -- as if the federal government exists of, by and for the administration and not the people.

Was the military team in Tripoli actually denied permission to fly to Benghazi? Hicks asserts that if the U.S. military had flown aircraft over the Benghazi facility after it came under siege, it might have prevented the second attack -- on the CIA annex -- which killed two CIA security officers. Hicks said: "I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them."

Did Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, call Hicks and angrily order him not to talk to members of Congress about the attacks as Hicks claims? Did the State Department retaliate against Hicks after he raised questions about the video ruse? Why else was he "effectively demoted" to a desk job?

Why did the Pentagon deny a request from House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon for access to documents on the attacks?

Did the Defense Department assessment team stop short of interviewing all people who were involved in the key decisions before issuing its report as State Department official Eric Nordstrom alleges?

Who altered Rice's talking points? Will the White House release to House Speaker John Boehner emails from senior State Department officials telling higher-ups Benghazi was a terror attack four days before Rice made the talk show circuit?

Why wasn't security tightened in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack, especially considering that the consulate had requested it?

And why aren't more people outraged that the producer of this video, regardless of its content, is sitting in jail solely because he exercised his freedom of expression?

Column: The Most Incorrigibly Political and America-bashing President

President Barack Obama has to be the most partisan and most ideological president we've seen in a long, long time. He cannot or will not refrain from injecting his partisan politics into almost every occasion.

Did he go to Mexico last week to improve our relationship with our southern neighbor or to use Mexico, as he does anything else he can find, as a political prop to bash Republicans and as a platform to criticize the United States?

What other American president has so often sidled up to foreign countries on the backs of his own countrymen? Obama's defenders deny, hallucinogenically, that he apologizes for the United States, but our lying eyes keep telling us otherwise.

In Mexico on Friday, Obama, under the guise of who-knows-what, took the opportunity to stump for his latest policy obsession -- gun control -- to an audience that had nothing to do with it, unless you imagine that some of the people there will one day be granted amnesty in the United States by Washington's ruling class and become voters who can pressure know-nothing GOP congressmen to confiscate the people's arms.

Obama didn't just offer a few throwaway lines at the issue, taking playful jabs at his Republican opponents. He actually seemed to be blaming Americans for the corrupt and violent Mexican drug culture.

]]> He said, "Much of the root cause of violence that's been happening here in Mexico, for which so many Mexicans have suffered, is the demand for illegal drugs in the United States."

Can you believe that? Who thinks that way, much less a United States president? Whose team is he on? Whom is he fighting for? Wouldn't you think that if the captain of our team were going to complain about problems between our two countries, he would direct his criticisms at those committing the crimes in their own country and those who also come to our country in droves illegally, even if the numbers have decreased recently because of Obama's economy?

But no, it's our fault. It's always our fault, even when he's the president. What an impotent guy he must be not to be able to have a more positive effect on us evil Americans.

But he didn't stop there. Why should he have? He had a perfect platform to kill a couple of eagles with the same stone. He next took aim at America's evil gun manufacturers.

He said: "Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States. I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will. But at the same time, as I've said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. That can save lives here in Mexico and back home in the United States. It's the right thing to do."

It is disgraceful enough that this American president would gratuitously paint America in a negative light before foreign people and their leaders (absent some egregious, deliberate action by the United States). But it is especially reprehensible that he attacked Americans and American gun manufacturers for the purpose of advancing his political and policy agenda in the United States.

If he wanted to apologize to Mexico, perhaps he should have started with Fast and Furious and the illegal guns his administration walked into Mexico without its permission or knowledge, which resulted in the death of some 200 Mexicans. But his apology ought to be on behalf of his administration, including himself and his attorney general, not America generally.

Do you get the impression, listening to Obama's words, that he is highly frustrated with constitutional restraints that keep him from taking unilateral action to restrict firearms? We witnessed similar frustration from him on the constitutional obstacles to his taking action on immigration via the DREAM Act, just two weeks before he took unilateral and illegal executive action on it anyway.

Forget the birth certificate issue; this president has made it increasingly clear he doesn't feel a sufficient bond with Americans or the American system to prevent him from rooting for the other team and lamenting our constitutional system the second he sets foot on foreign soil.

But foreign soil is not the only inappropriate venue Obama uses to wage partisan wars. On Sunday, he told Ohio State University's graduating class that Americans who fear government tyranny are messing everything up and obstructing his enlightened progressive agenda.

Can he ever set aside his agenda for a brief moment? Can he ever pass up an opportunity to politicize?

I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say we've never seen anything like this before -- not to this extent, anyway.

Column: Is the Hard Left at War With the American Idea?

I think the current controversy over immigration reform points to a larger issue in America today, which is that Americans are essentially split on the very idea of what America is and should be.

It used to be that Americans mostly agreed that in order to attain citizenship, immigrants had to not only come to this country legally but also demonstrate, after training and study in the American system, that they believed in the unique United States Constitution and embraced what it means to be an American. Though that still occurs in the naturalization process, we seem to have abandoned it altogether in connection with the immigration debate.

What sense does it make that we seek to instill a love of America in those earnestly seeking to acquire legal citizenship through the proper procedures but ignore it altogether in our rush to legalize 11 million illegals?

One major difficulty is that the hard but extremely influential American left, by and large, doesn't seem to have any special affinity for the American idea, the gloriousness of the U.S. Constitution or even the notion of national identity at all, which they associate with intolerance, cultural chauvinism and anti-globalism.

Indeed, hard-leftists don't just disagree with many of America's founding ideals; they believe that it's somehow backward even to have such ideals, because to them, it reflects a prejudice against other systems, cultures and values.

So, you see, this is not really a debate over whether the American system and the ideas and values undergirding it produced the greatest nation in world history and thus should be preserved. It is a core disagreement about whether it's even proper and desirable to endorse a unique set of founding ideals as being superior to any other.

]]> But I ask you: What nation has ever survived, much less thrived, when it lost its national identity?

But just as the left blocks proposals to reduce federal spending and entitlement reform while claiming to support them, it is doing everything it can to block border enforcement. Barbarians aren't at the gate; they are inside and blocking the erection of the gate.

Why would any American citizen want to encourage immigrants to come to this country and not embrace America? Yet how can we doubt that leftists want that result when they flood our universities with like-minded colleagues who are indoctrinating their students against embracing it and when President Obama identifies with La Raza, the militant Mexican nationalist group?

It's not the right wing that is constantly berating the United States before the United Nations. It is not originalist Supreme Court justices refusing to recommend the U.S. Constitution as a model for Egypt. It is not right-wing university professors (to the extent that this species is not wholly extinct) loading up their curricula with courses denouncing everything imaginable about the United States. It is not a conservative presidential candidate who vowed to fundamentally change America and then proceeded to do so once in office.

But what does being American or supporting American ideals even mean anymore? Let's take one example. Can we all agree that promoting a strong work ethic was something almost all Americans once agreed on? Weren't self-reliance and rugged individualism -- a can-do attitude -- admired traits that were understood not to conflict with Christian charity and compassion?

Yet today our leftist ruling class is making it noble to be on government assistance and ignoble to work and produce. Call that hyperbole if you choose, but I hear a president who is constantly berating capitalism, the free market, business and those who have been successful. He has incentivized states to expand their food stamp rolls, reversed welfare reforms, extended unemployment benefits to the point that it exacerbates unemployment, and fiercely opposed entitlement reform. How can this agenda possibly be good for America, much less in the long-term interests of those targeted for government dependency?

Are reports that the Obama administration doesn't require applicants to declare their immigration status to qualify for food stamps true? Is the Department of Agriculture really actively working with the Mexican government to promote food stamps for illegal aliens? I don't know, but these types of outrages are certainly believable with this administration. What self-respecting nation engages in such insanity?

Call me harsh for suggesting the hard left, which controls much of our government, is at war with the American idea. But today the left paints those who support traditional values as bigoted, those who support traditional marriage as homophobes and bigots, and those who support welfare reform, school choice, voter identification laws and securing the borders, as well as those who oppose punitive taxes on the "wealthy," as racists.

No, we just aspire to colorblindness and promote equal opportunity and equal protection of the laws for all Americans. We have pride in America and its founding ideals and unapologetically assert that they are responsible for the greatest experiment in constitutional governance in history and therefore want to preserve them.

Liberals are always paying lip service to consensus building. How about we start by agreeing to embrace America? Or is national pride truly a dirty term?

Column: PinocchiObama and His Ongoing Sequester Dissembling

PinocchiObama is at it again, using his weekly address to the nation to spin tall tales, demonize and scapegoat Republicans, misidentify the nation's problems, and propose the exact wrong solutions.

He opened up this week's fiction with the umpteenth repetition of his empty claim that the nation's top priority "must be growing the economy, creating good jobs and rebuilding opportunity for the middle class."

How many times has Obama promised to "pivot" toward a "laserlike focus" on jobs? How interesting that he chose to repeat this very same claim just as the Government Accountability Institute released a report concluding that Obama has spent twice as much time on vacation and golf as he has in economic meetings throughout his entire term in office.

What prompted Obama's claim this time was the brouhaha over the sequester cuts, the irresponsible allocation of which has caused problems in the aviation industry. Congress passed a bill to allow the Federal Aviation Administration to reallocate these cuts to alleviate flight delays.

Obama agreed to sign the bill into law, but he did so grudgingly. He used his address to rail against the sequestration and against Republicans and Congress for allowing the cuts to be imposed. In fact, Obama used the word "reckless" in his remarks to describe not the federal government's unconscionably wasteful spending under his direction but the sequester cuts.

]]> Obama also used the term "Band-Aid," but not to describe his phony proposed solutions to our spending and entitlement problems, which would have been a perfectly accurate description; he was describing Congress' "temporary fix" of the FAA problem. He spent three-fourths of his words to tell us how essential it is that we keep government spending at its current irresponsible levels because of the "vital services" government provides to people -- who just cannot get along without Big Brother.

Over and over again, Obama tells us what he thinks of the American free enterprise system. Over and over, he betrays his ideological allegiance to the wrongheaded notion that only government can cause economic growth.

Despite history -- particularly the past four-plus years, which has told us just the opposite -- Obama will not come off his destructive commitment to his continuing to grow the government at all costs.

He has no confidence in the private sector or in Americans to create their own jobs. He never talks about getting the government out of the way so the private sector can breathe real oxygen and begin to grow again. His tardily filed budget was filled with proposals for more punitive taxes on the "rich" and more spending, including on his demonstrably failed, wasteful and corrupt green energy experiments. His budget would add another $5.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, and that is using absurdly conservative projections, especially concerning Obamacare. And he has the audacity to talk to us about Band-Aids?

Once again, Obama misrepresented the sequestration as the Republicans' idea, even after he had been caught red-handed lying about this before. His doomsday predictions about the effects of the sequestration have also been exposed, yet he just keeps repeating them.

The truth is that the sequester "cuts" weren't really cuts at all; they were mostly reductions in rates of spending increase. To the extent there were actual cuts, they were marginal and only significant and dangerous in the area of our national defense.

As has been his practice, Obama has exploited the sequestration for political purposes, with exhibit A being his termination of White House tours. He wants the public to feel his version of pain while he protects his corrupt allocations to more Solyndras and refuses to curb real government waste. Indeed, House Speaker John Boehner said, "The disruption to America's air traffic system over the past week was a consequence of the administration's choice to implement the president's sequestration cuts in the most painful manner possible."

Obama's just panicking because the sequestration isn't causing the chaos he guaranteed, which undermines his credibility in promising otherwise and also undermines his ludicrously disingenuous assertion that every single government program he supports is urgent.

With Obama out there on the stump misleading the American people about the sequestration and the indispensability of government, now is the time for Republicans to step up to the plate and begin talking about economic growth again and the power and wonders of the free market. They need to quit always accepting the debate on Obama's terms and start proactively making the case for entrepreneurship -- for the growth of the private sector and the reduction of government. No one seems to talk about private-sector growth anymore. That must stop.

The Republicans mustn't let this opportunity pass.

Column: Assaulting Innocuous Christians and Coddling Terrorists

America's political and cultural left is, step by step, demonizing and marginalizing Christians and Christian values, to the point that even the congenitally apathetic should be concerned.

Fox News' Todd Starnes reports (http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/military-blocks-access-to-southern-baptist-website.html) that the U.S. military has blocked access to the Southern Baptist Convention's website on an undetermined number of military bases because it supposedly includes "hostile content." Just a few weeks before, as noted in this space, an Army briefing labeled evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics as religious extremists.

The information about the Southern Baptist Convention's website surfaced when an Air Force officer reported that he was unable to log on to SBC.net and that he had received a message that his Internet usage was being monitored and logged because he had tried to visit a blocked website.

The notice, from an organization that guards the Department of Defense's computer network, said, "The site you have requested has been blocked by Team CONUS (C-TNOSC/RCERT-CONUS) due to hostile content."

SBC spokesman Sing Oldham said he found this "deeply disturbing" and was not completely satisfied with the Army's response. "While the deputy chief of operation of the U.S. Army has assured us this is a random event with no malicious intent," said Oldham, "the Army must run this to the ground to assure that this is the case."

]]> Random event? Isn't that the same excuse we heard when complaints were made about the Army briefing that labeled Christians as extremists? "Nothing to see here. Just an isolated incident. Move along."

Well, how do these similar "isolated" incidents keep occurring? What makes these alleged lone wolves think they can get away with such revolting behavior? Is there not a growing tendency in this culture, which has now obviously permeated the Army, to make it fair game to paint Christians as fringe misfits with dangerous ideas?

Even if some anti-Christians in the military believe Christianity is offensive, what in God's name would make them believe they have the right to become thought police and selectively suppress First Amendment freedoms (speech, expression, religion, association) -- freedoms our armed forces are charged to protect?

This is further evidence of the intolerance and totalitarianism of the political left, whose "isolated" miscreants continue to trample the very principles they profess to hold sacred.

Some are speculating that it's the SBC's positions on same-sex marriage and abortion that are causing these "isolated" assaults against Christians and religious liberty. Apart from the outrageousness of these recurring attacks on Christianity under color of federal law and military authority, what, in God's name, is hostile about Christian views? Are those who believe in protecting innocent, unborn life hostile? Are those who support traditional marriage hostile to homosexuals? No and no, but those trying to pervert the English language to redefine disagreement as "hate" and "hostility" are themselves objectively guilty of both, not to mention warped and tyrannical thinking.

Starnes lists a number of other relatively recent assaults on Christian liberty involving the military or Defense Department.

Christian groups were identified as potential threats in a war games scenario at Fort Leavenworth. A 2009 Department of Homeland Security memo listed evangelicals and pro-life groups as possible national security threats. A West Point study of the U.S. Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center linked pro-life advocates to terrorism. Evangelist Franklin Graham's invitation to speak at the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer service was revoked because of his comments on Islam. Houston National Cemetery banned Christian prayers from its funeral services for veterans. Walter Reed National Military Medical Center banned Bibles -- and then later reversed itself. The military removed Christian crosses and a steeple from a chapel in Afghanistan because Christian icons supposedly disrespect other religions. The secretary of the Army forbade Catholic chaplains from reading a letter to parishioners from their archbishop relating to Obamacare mandates and their incursion on religious
liberties, because the letter could be interpreted as calling for civil disobedience.

I filled 400 pages of my book "Persecution" with examples of such assaults on Christians and Christian liberty in the United States, examples that extend to all areas of our society, not just the military. Perhaps it's time for a sequel.

It is truly breathtaking to reflect on the left's contrasting attitude toward innocuous Christians and radical Islamic jihadis. Many view Christians, who threaten no one and defend everyone's liberty, as menaces but go out of their way to coddle actual Islamic terrorists, bending over backward to apologize for their acts of savagery and brutality.

Does this make the slightest bit of sense to you? Many Americans rightly complain that moderate Muslims rarely denounce the violence of Muslim extremists. Well, how about liberals who profess to be Christians? Isn't it time you joined us other Christians in roundly condemning these targeted assaults on Christians and Christian liberty? We're waiting.

Column: President Obama's Symbiotic Relationship With the Abortion Industry

When I read that President Obama refused to comment on the murder trial of abortion butcher Kermit Gosnell "because it's an active trial," I knew immediately he wasn't being truthful.

In fact, the second I heard about Obama's excuse for dodging the question, I tweeted that ongoing investigations or trials did not preclude his publicly weighing in on the Trayvon Martin case or on the case of his friend and Harvard professor Henry Gates, about which he said the Cambridge police had acted "stupidly."

If there ever has been a case of tainting the jury pool, Obama's public identification with Martin was it. So please spare us any pretense toward restraint in such matters.

Obama declined to comment on Gosnell for the same reason the liberal media have consciously blacked out the story.

When Obama was asked, he didn't just beg off because "it's an active trial"; he offered up the obligatory disingenuous liberal talking point: "I think President Clinton said it pretty well when he said abortion should be safe, legal and rare."

]]> This formulation has always bothered me because it is fundamentally dishonest -- and particularly so in Obama's case.

If an unborn baby is not a human life -- an evil sophistry that has been responsible for millions of murders in this nation -- then why in the world would it be important to make it rare? If we are just talking about clusters of cells, an unviable tissue mass, then why worry at all about reducing the practice?

The reason is that Clinton knew, as do all pro-abortion politicians, either that abortion is sinister or that a significant majority of voters believe it, so proponents have to at least pretend to be sensitive to it. They must make it appear as if they are trying to take steps to reduce the practice, even as they do so many things to encourage it.

Make it rare? It bears repeating that Obama strongly opposed the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which would have required doctors to assist babies born as a result of a failed abortion. How about his opposition to a bill that would have prevented partial-birth abortion?

If Obama wanted to make abortion rare, would he be such a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood and its notorious abortion industry? No one could be more in bed with that organization than Obama, who is planning on attending the organization's fundraising gala this coming Thursday.

Obama and the pro-abortion left don't want to call attention to the grisly practices of Gosnell for a number of reasons. You can disguise the practice of abortion with euphemisms, such as "they snipped the baby's spinal cord," but in the end, we are talking about the intentional killing of human life, and it follows that a facility so morally corrupt as to routinely engage in that despicable practice might not dot and cross all its other ethical i's" and t's.

If Obama or the leftist media were to shine a disinfecting light on the Gosnell trial, it might lead to a public discussion on abortion and an inquiry into how widespread such abuses are. The less attention the left permits to be drawn to this the better.

But there are additional sinister reasons Obama and his liberal media cohorts have suppressed the news on this story, knowing as they do just how horrendous Gosnell's clinic was.

The pro-abortion left ridicules and condemns Second Amendment advocates for being paranoid purists in opposing all restrictions on gun rights, but in the purist and paranoia categories, they make gun advocates look like pikers.

Abortion is the left's holy grail; it is liberals' sacred ritual, about which nothing negative may be uttered for fear that it might lead to even the slightest infringement on it. Likewise, the abortion lobby simply will not countenance any restriction on abortion or any negative light to be cast on any abortion practice or clinic for fear that it could lead to a slippery slope whereby abortion might actually become significantly rarer. That would be a big setback for the lucrative abortion industry and for the campaign blood money it generates for supporting politicians.

Obama and the pro-abortion left definitely want abortion to be legal, but they sure don't want it to be safe for the baby or rare. To suggest otherwise is being dishonest or willfully blind.

Column: A Shameful Day for President Obama

I wonder why President Obama feels he has the right to be outraged when legislators don't automatically roll over to his policy demands. I suspect that his moral indignation is more about personally losing than it is about policy issues themselves.

For indeed, President Obama was obviously furious when his gun control bill failed to muster sufficient votes to pass the Senate. Politico reported, "More than anything, it was an emotional blow to Obama, who was as irritated at the four members of his own party as he was at the 90 percent of Republicans who defeated the bill."

Politico revealed that an administration official said Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's refusal to support the bill especially rankled Obama because she "refused to go along with the bill even after White House chief of staff Denis McDonough visited her office to make Obama's case on Tuesday."

Do you see clues to Obama's mindset here? How dare a member of a coequal branch of government, especially one in his own party, defy Obama's wishes and refuse to succumb to his fabled powers of persuasion?

Politico would have us believe that the impetus for Obama's emotional investment in the bill was that he was "shaken to the core by the massacre of 26 innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School." He was allegedly so upset that he "broke his own informal 'Obama Rule' -- of never leaning into an issue without a clear path to victory."

]]> I'm not buying any of it. I don't believe that Obama was any more personally shaken by Sandy Hook than he was by the Gosnell abortion clinic infanticide atrocity. What I do know is that Obama is a leftist gun control zealot who seizes on crises as opportunities to advance unpopular policies.

And what's this about an "Obama Rule"? That, too, is poppycock. Obama has tried to overreach many times, refusing to take the public's and Congress' "no" for an answer, from Obamacare to Stimulus Jr. to cap and trade to high-speed rail to various tax hikes for the "rich" to the financial reform bill to campaign finance reform to education reform to his push to close Gitmo to New START to the DREAM Act to his unanimously failed budget proposals. It took him several tries on many of those initiatives, brutal arm-twisting on others, and on still others, he just issued executive orders or had his administrative agencies unilaterally issue their own rules to do end runs around the recalcitrant Congress.

Obama's defeat on the gun control measure must have been particularly annoying to him after he had exploited and showcased the poor parents of Sandy Hook victims in furtherance of his legislation. Everyone, left to right, agrees that Obama reacted angrily and bitterly and lashed out at his opponents -- a most unpresidential performance, to be sure, but nothing out of the ordinary for Obama, who has demonstrated his petulance on numerous occasions. Just ask Rep. Paul Ryan, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, who sat silently for his regal tongue-lashing during a State of the Union address.

After his bill went down to defeat, Obama said: "Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to petition their elected leaders ... to protect the lives of all of our children. A few minutes ago, a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn't worth it."

Don't let those nasty words slip by you. The president of the United States actually accused certain senators of calculating that it wasn't worth it "to protect the lives of all of our children." This is an exceedingly harsh moral judgment and a vicious personal attack.

Obama then proceeded to accuse "the gun lobby and its allies" of "willfully" lying about the bill. He said: "There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this. It came down to politics." He said those voting no "caved to the pressure." According to Obama, "this was a pretty shameful day for Washington."

Obama clearly depicted those who opposed his dictates as caring less about preventing gun violence. He said, "The point is those who care deeply about preventing more and more gun violence will have to be as passionate and as organized and as vocal as those who blocked these common-sense steps to help keep our kids safe."

But fear not; in keeping with his usual practice, Obama promised to move forward through executive action to get his way: "Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities."

If Obama truly cared about preventing gun violence, he might look at the unspeakable gun violence in his home city, Chicago. He might investigate solutions actually designed to address the problem rather than to deprive citizens of their constitutional rights with measures that will not prevent or reduce mass shootings.

Column: The World (America) Is Upside-Down, Part 2

Recently, I wrote a column arguing that the world is upside-down -- by which I meant "our" world, America. Today I offer more exhibits in support of my case that our culture is unraveling.

I realize that in today's America, the notion that we should seek to preserve and promote the traditions, values and ideals that this country's founding generation mostly shared is considered not just passe but offensively wrongheaded. Yes, why would we want to perpetuate a once underlying consensus (and the Constitution formulated on it) that gave rise to the greatest nation in world history? Well, many don't, as they level further assaults on our Constitution, our liberty tradition and what used to be our shared values.

We haven't just accepted as normal what was heretofore considered abnormal; we are, increasingly, embracing evil while calling it good and demonizing those who are still "clinging" to traditional values. Unless you buy into the self-destructive course much of our society has decided to pursue, unless you consent to the systematic dismantling of our core foundations, you are the problem.

Let me give you a further sampling of the insanity that passes for normal and the wrong that masquerades as right, plucked right out of the news the past few days.

--Liberal Democrats in Congress are pressuring their colleagues to sign a pledge not to cut entitlement spending, even though it is objectively true that without structural reform in our entitlement programs, we are headed, inexorably, toward national bankruptcy.

]]> --Grosse Pointe South High School officials canceled a Rick Santorum speech at the school and only reversed themselves after fierce criticism, though they will require students to obtain their parents' permission to attend the speech. The original cancellation was allegedly because of Santorum's opposition to same-sex marriage, even though Santorum apparently had no intention of addressing that issue in his speech.

--The liberal media have unconscionably suppressed reporting on the "House of Horrors" murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. A Wikipedia editor supposedly suggested that a Wikipedia article on the case be scrubbed completely.

--It could be that Gosnell's heinous practices were not necessarily unique. Reports of horrendous conditions at other abortion clinics are beginning to emerge.

--Julia Twenge, author of "Generation Me," reported that America's high-school "students are getting better grades for less work." Jack Kosakowski, CEO of Junior Achievement USA, said: "The only things our kids rank the highest in are confidence in their abilities. Math, science and everything else has gone down."

--A Florida man alleges that the teacher of his fourth-grade son told students to express, in writing (using crayons), their wish to trade constitutional rights for feeling more secure.

--The Common Core State Standards Initiative, a push to create national curriculum standards for K-12, which has been adopted by all but five states, reportedly abandons core academic classics in favor of reading executive orders from President Obama. According to the Legal Defense Association's Will Estrada, Common Core is teaching that "the United Nations is better than our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence."

--A U.S. Army officer dispatched to dozens of his subordinates an email missive labeling Christian groups such as the American Family Association and the Family Research Council as "domestic hate groups" because of their opposition to same-sex marriage.

--Democratic California state Sen. Ricardo Lara introduced a bill that would disqualify the Boy Scouts of America and other youth groups from some state tax exemptions for refusing to accept gay, transgender and atheist members and leaders.

--A Colorado State Patrol training exercise allegedly warned law enforcement officials to be wary of groups whose members believe -- horrors -- that America was founded on godly principles, Christians who take the Bible literally and Christian "fundamentalists."

--Some of us warned you: A writer for the liberal magazine Slate is outright advocating that we "legalize polygamy," which is, in the writer's words, "the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families."

--A New Jersey judge has ruled that a Christian facility cannot ban same-sex civil union ceremonies on its own premises, because the Constitution allows -- get this -- "some intrusion into religious freedom to balance other important societal goals."

--The Washington attorney general has filed suit against a florist for allegedly refusing to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding because of her religious beliefs.

--Self-congratulating MSNBC host Krystal Ball used her own 5-year-old daughter as a prop on her national television show to ask her, "What if you were in love with a girl? Would you marry a girl?"

--Mark Zandi, who could become Obama's director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, reportedly supports the use of principal reduction (a government-ordered partial extinguishment of debt) by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to assist some of America's 6 million to 7 million "underwater" borrowers in refinancing their mortgages.

I'm sorry; I've run out of space.

Column: Better Never Than Late

The old adage "better late than never" might not apply in the case of President Obama's tardily filed budget.

It's one thing to habitually arrive late for scheduled appearances selfishly to build suspense and annoy those in attendance, but it's another to present this document two months late and after both the House and Senate have passed their own respective budgets.

Why did he wait so long that he would necessarily create chaos in the process? Does he not think budgetary matters are important enough to postpone vacations and golf outings when we are on the brink of national bankruptcy?

But worse than his tardiness are the contents of the budget. Does this man never tire of devising new ways to tax "evil" rich people? It's approaching the point of harassment. This is a government not of servants but of masters who view some of the people, at least, as subjects who exist to enable their addiction to expand government, control more aspects of our everyday lives and spend increasing amounts of money. In Obama's America, the "rich" are one minority that doesn't seem to be entitled to equal protection or fair treatment under the law.

Indeed, the wealthy will not pay enough in Obama's eyes until they're not wealthy anymore. He is proposing a cap on not only deductions for high-income earners but also exemptions, which, according to The Heritage Foundation, "would be a radical departure from long-established tax policy and would have serious negative consequence for retirement savings, employer-provided health insurance, and state and local bonds." In keeping with Obama's ideology that the federal government ought to be the primary charitable institution, his budget would cap -- and reduce by some 30 percent -- the charitable deduction.

]]> Just as Obama once told us that at a certain point, people have made enough money -- as if that's any of the government's business in a free society -- he is now telling us he knows how much is enough to have in our retirement accounts: $3 million.

As another jab at the rich, he is also proposing to put his beloved "Buffett rule" into law. This would impose a 30 percent minimum tax rate on taxpayers whose adjusted gross income is more than $1 million. This is all just choreographed melodrama and phony populism, as the top 1 percent of income earners already pay an effective tax rate of 29 percent and middle-income earners don't pay nearly that much.

But that's not all. In the fiscal cliff deal earlier this year, Congress, at Obama's demand, increased the estate tax to 40 percent, with a $5 million exemption. In this budget, almost before the ink was dry on the previous deal, he's proposing to increase the rate to 45 percent and reduce the exemption to $3.5 million. Aside from gouging the rich yet again, can we ever have any stability in this tax code?

Just to prove he's not entirely discriminatory against the rich, though, Obama has proposed to stick it to those evil smokers again (are any of them also rich?) in order to pay for his Big Brother-ish "early childhood investments." And the other dirty little secret is that his Buffett rule, along with Obama's other tax hikes on the rich, would result in hurting middle-income and low-income earners because they would apply to small-business owners and investors who fund businesses. They would also further burden the economy and job creation and make it more difficult for the unemployed to get back into the workforce.

According to the Treasury Department's Green Book -- hardly a manual for Bible-thumping bitter clingers -- Obama's budget would increase taxes some $1.1 trillion over the next decade.

Adding insult to injury, this is almost twice the amount Obama claims it to be ($580 billion), according to Heritage. Statically calculated, his budget would add about $1 trillion in revenues, after subtracting the small cuts he has proposed.

There's more. Despite all the fanfare about Obama's proposed cuts in entitlement spending, he would do nothing to restructure Medicare and Medicaid to make them any more sustainable. So honestly, why play games?

He also proposes a raft of new spending increases and subsidies on infrastructure, green energy projects, welfare, a new $76 billion preschool plan (Big Brother referred to above) and, yes, Obamacare while predictably shortchanging national defense.

Worst of all, Obama's budget doesn't come close to balancing; it would add $5.3 trillion to the debt over the next decade. Nothing short of farcical.

The president's approach to fiscal and budgetary matters has been staggeringly reckless, and this budget is more of the same. We're running out of time.

Column: The World Is Upside-Down

What right-minded person can deny the current uncanny applicability of the admonition by the Prophet Isaiah, uttered some 2,700 years ago, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness"?

Increasingly today, what is undeniably evil is depicted as good and what most traditionalists, at least, used to agree is good passes often for evil.

What's striking to me is that many aren't merely rationalizing evil in an attempt to excuse their indefensible actions. They have systematically turned our entire moral code upside down. They have attacked the very basis for that code and declared that belief in its divine author itself is evil -- and dangerous.

Many deny that there is an affirmative war against Christianity and Judeo-Christian values, but they apparently haven't heard or read the words of some of the New Atheists -- or anti-theists, as some call themselves -- who conflate all religions and blame them all for most of the evil and war in the world.

Others scoff at the notion that Christianity and Christian values are being assaulted, arguing that it's absurd to believe a majority belief system could be under attack.

Let me share just three disturbing stories that caught my attention the past few days.

]]> During an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training briefing on extremism, evangelical Christianity, Catholicism and Islamophobia were listed along with al-Qaida, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan and other groups as examples of religious extremism.

An Army spokesman confirmed that this occurred but told Fox News that this was an "isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army."

Well, that's good to know, but it doesn't change the fact that we see this kind of wrongheaded insanity with ever-greater frequency in our culture. The idea that evangelical Christianity and Catholicism can be listed as extremist organizations by anyone is troubling enough -- but even more so in a publication paid for by taxpayer dollars. This episode may be isolated as far as the Army is concerned, but the thought process giving rise to this twisted perspective is anything but unique, as those paying attention can attest.

Next, we turn to the Florida Statehouse, where legislators were considering a bill to require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion -- the same type of bill President Obama opposed as an Illinois state senator.

Townhall reports that Alisa LaPolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified that her organization believes the decision to kill an infant who survives a failed abortion is the prerogative of the mother and her abortion doctor. It must not escape your attention that Snow repeatedly affirmed that she was speaking not on her own behalf but on behalf of her organization.

If this doesn't repulse you, you might need a stimulant to jump-start your moral blood pressure. If you think this is isolated thinking, then you might need to do a little more research into Planned Parenthood and the overall culture of death we are witnessing in this nation.

When Snow was pressed on her position, she reportedly betrayed no moral reservations about her organization's position. Rep. Jim Boyd asked her, "If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that's struggling for life?"

She replied, "We believe that any decision that's made should be left up to the woman, her family and the physician."

Stop right there. Pro-abortionists will still argue, disingenuously, I believe, that abortion does not involve the killing of a live human being, but no one can argue the procedure in question is anything short of premeditated murder. Let me repeat: premeditated murder. Yet we have a woman, representing a major organization that is cherished by the political left and receives government funding, arguing for the right to commit murder. There are no synonyms for "shocking" and "depraved" that can adequately describe this evil.

Finally, The Washington Times has reported that Melissa Harris-Perry, a professor at Tulane, has endorsed the concept of human ownership by the state.

I don't have the space to delve into this one, but it suffices to say that it fits nicely with the first two examples as another assault on our society's foundational institutions and values.

These incidents used to be rare, fringe occurrences but have now elbowed their way into mainstream culture.

Please don't accuse me of whining, pessimism or fatalism for calling these matters to your attention. I'm not saying the culture war is over, but I am saying the forces of evil have the upper hand and will ultimately prevail if the prevailing attitude of apathy and moral indifference continues to imprison our will to fight for what is right. It's up to us.

Column: A Government Of the Crisis By the Crisis and For the Crisis

When President Obama's former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste," many didn't realize he was inaugurating a new credo for governance.

Rahm's statement was originally understood as the administration's intention to capitalize on actual crises while they were hot, to promote legislation liberals had craved for decades but didn't have public support to pass. But some suspected he was talking about manufactured crises, as well.

I usually avoid conspiracy-type theories, especially where Obama is concerned because his policies and tactics are so egregious on their own that I see no reason to risk undermining the credibility of our criticisms by indulging those too much. But I do think it's interesting that an infamous radical professor duo, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, and Obama mentor Saul Alinsky advocated the strategic use of manufactured crises to advance the leftist political agenda.

I don't know whether Obama is deliberately, religiously following a Cloward-Piven/Alinsky strategy as many have argued, but I think it speaks volumes to show that he is employing the despicable tactics those radicals recommended.

So please set aside the conspiracy theory distraction for a moment and focus on what Obama is doing, irrespective of where he got the idea. Whether or not Obama retires to his residential suite every night and prays to these radicals and reads their hymnals, he is singing their tunes.

]]> Keep in mind that I'm not even talking about the big Cloward-Piven goal of "overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of 'a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty,'" as Wikipedia describes it, although it would be fascinating to examine Obama's record in light of that goal, as well, as some have. I'm only addressing their manufactured-crisis strategy to achieve a policy agenda.

So here is a non-exhaustive sampling.

Obama used the actual financial crisis we were experiencing (largely as a result of liberal policies that he himself endorsed -- and continues to endorse) to press for his stimulus package. Over and over, he told us that we had to act "now" to overcome this crisis. As it turned out, he wasn't nearly so quick in spending the money and implementing the stimulus program as he was in using the crisis to get it through Congress. The delays in implementing it and the non-stimulative effect of most of the expenditures are now legendary. How are those jump-started jobs working out?

He created a crisis atmosphere to justify his takeover of GM and Chrysler. He has repeatedly attempted to suggest we have an infrastructure crisis (claiming stable bridges are about to crumble) in order to push further stimulus packages. Obama described the state of our health care as a national crisis in order to force through Obamacare. He even treated existing nuclear arsenals as a crisis and said that ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia was a matter of utmost urgency.

He said we had to act immediately by passing the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill in order to avert another potential banking collapse. "We cannot delay action any longer," he said. "Every day we don't act, the same system that led to bailouts remains in place. ... And if we don't change what led to the crisis, we'll doom ourselves to repeat it."

When it served his purposes, Obama even suggested we have a debt crisis, which he now adamantly denies. His Twitter feed said, "Tweet at your Republican legislators and urge them to support a bipartisan compromise on the debt crisis."

Obama depicted the Gulf oil spill as a national crisis in order to justify re-imposing his coveted ban on offshore drilling. He consistently used alarmist rhetoric and fear-mongering over highly disputed nightmare environmental predictions to promote cap and trade, his war on all kinds of domestic energy production, his newly imposed fuel efficiency standards and his disgraceful green energy projects.

Unable to learn his lesson from the housing crisis, Obama was determined to repeat the mistake with a $75 billion program to prevent nationwide mortgage foreclosures, which he described as a "crisis unlike we've ever known." He said, "If we act boldly and swiftly to arrest this downward spiral, then every American will benefit." Just this week, by the way, he's resurrecting the same insane idea -- urging banks to make more uncreditworthy loans.

And can anyone deny Obama predicted a crisis for the sequestration?

Circling back to what prompted this column, on Wednesday, Obama characterized gun deaths as a national crisis. He said, "Every day that we wait to do something about (gun deaths), even more of our fellow citizens are stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun."

How many times can this man cry wolf?

Column: Who Are Obama's Real Enablers?

I was reading the Old Testament book of Amos a few days ago and was reminded that liberation theologians get much comfort from that prophet's decrying the mistreatment of the poor.

At about the same time, I read a piece by a brilliant conservative analyst with whom I sometimes disagree who was arguing that some conservatives don't take the formidable Barack Obama seriously enough and, in effect, give him cover with their over-the-top depictions of Obama as a Marxist and worse. He erroneously assumes that these supposedly hyperbolic characterizations are motivated by greed (stirring up audiences yields more revenues) and, in any event, only serve to enable Obama.

Please stick with me; I will tie these first two paragraphs together before I'm finished.

I agree with the analyst to some extent. In fact, I have long argued that President Obama is not "The Amateur" some paint him as. He is quite competent on big-picture items and is advancing his agenda even if he doesn't have a clue about the details, most of which he doesn't want to be bothered with, anyway.

Obama never did produce a health care reform bill, but the name "Obamacare" will forever credit him with that bill's coming into law, as well it should. But do you remember Obama's rambling, incoherent, embarrassingly nonsensical 2,600-word response to a woman named Doris at a health care forum about cutting medical costs?

Obama also seems to be a virtual economics illiterate. But that doesn't keep him from getting away with expanding the government, spending trillions of borrowed dollars and taxing major producers into oblivion. The disastrous results of his policies didn't prevent him from being reelected.

Obama's style of governance can best be understood by his frustrated command regarding the hole responsible for the Gulf Oil Spill: "Just plug the damn hole." But that doesn't mean he should be taken lightly.

]]> While I agree with many of the unnamed analyst's points about Obama, I disagree with some of the lessons he draws.

I agree that some of the claims about Obama have enhanced his credibility by making the accusers seem unserious. But I don't think calling attention to his extremism and labeling it as such falls into that category.

It seems that this particular conservative analyst and a number of others are saying we need to recognize that Obama is not so much a radical, but more of a European-type socialist who is also weak on defense.

Well, I'm not sure how much substantive difference there is between a European socialist and a dictatorial Marxist. But putting that question aside, I think there is more danger in sanitizing Obama's radicalism than there is in potentially overstating it.

Part of the reason Obama has been able to succeed, including in his reelection effort, is that the overly cautious types on our side insist on pulling their punches in criticizing him. If Mitt Romney's campaign proved anything, it proved that.

Just when Romney had Obama on the ropes, he not only let him back into the center of the ring, but he quit throwing punches altogether and just offered up his chin. Similarly, congressional Republicans can't successfully navigate their budget battles with Obama if they're constantly giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming (and asserting), against the evidence, that he is dealing in good faith.

If our side had been as relentless in pointing out Obama's substantive radicalism as Obama and the left have been in falsely demonizing Republicans, I dare say we could have defeated him in 2012.

Obama is not just a garden-variety liberal who wants to nudge America's political pendulum left of center. He has told us from the beginning and has now proved that he intends to fundamentally transform America.

Nor is he motivated by ideological liberalism alone. He holds grudges, from race to capitalism to who knows what else.

This is where we tie the first two paragraphs together. Obama was demonstrably lying when he said he didn't hear and approve of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racist black liberation theology sermons for 20 years. He has not only established that with his books and his past four years in office, but also in the church he frequents most often today.

Check out the sermon Obama chose to hear on Easter Sunday from Rev. Luis Leon, who decried that "the captains of the religious right are always calling us back, back, back. For blacks to be in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet, and for ... immigrants to be on their side of the border."

It is not those pointing out Obama's radicalism who are his primary enablers, but those who are naively downplaying it.

Column: It's Not Cool To Cherry Pick Scripture

With Easter approaching and the Astroturf groundswell for same-sex marriage at its apex, I thought I'd put in a plug for the Bible, whose integrity and timeless principles are under increasing assault in our culture.

In fact, what sparked this column was a warning by a nationally prominent Republican to his party that it ought not go "Old Testament" and oppose same-sex marriage.

I don't want to turn this column into a rant about same-sex marriage, but I cite this example to illustrate a common tendency to bifurcate the Old Testament and the New Testament and to paint Jesus Christ as a figure of unqualified, open-armed tolerance and non-judgmentalism.

The more one studies the Bible with an open heart and a receptive mind the more he realizes it is a fully integrated and divinely inspired work.

First, let's dispense with the myth that one's belief in or rejection of the Bible is a matter of intelligence, as opposed to his worldview, heart and attitude. There are millions of brilliant believers throughout the world.

]]> Let's also recognize that Christian "faith" does not require us to suspend our rational faculties or ignore evidence. To the contrary, our faith is based on an abundance of credible, compelling evidence. Yes, faith is absolutely indispensible to Christianity, but it is wholly compatible with our God-given critical capacities.

People decry and ridicule the Bible as full of superstition, bigotry and incredible supernaturalism, yet eagerly embrace their own superstitions that often require more faith to believe than biblical truths. Their God-void entices them to spiritualize and idolize environmentalism, full-blown Darwinism, astrology, pagan mysticism and any number of other politically correct beliefs, while scoffing at biblical Christianity.

The same type of person who will sit enraptured by stories of Nostradamus allegedly prophesying about (Adolf) "Hister" seems unaware of or unreceptive to far more impressive detailed prophesy in the Old Testament that has been fulfilled in history.

Others don't reject the Bible in toto, but cherry pick scripture out of innocence or for purposes of political expedience. Especially prevalent are efforts to ridicule the Old Testament, as with the above-cited example, and to recast Jesus as one who was open to all ideas and who rejected the supposed harshness of the Old Testament.

Unlike certain cultural icons today, Jesus didn't preach what people's itching ears wanted to hear. He didn't cater his sermons to curry favor with the popular culture. He articulated a higher standard of morality than even the Old Testament did.

More importantly, He did not reject but wholeheartedly endorsed the Old Testament generally and specifically. He didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. He said that "until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished," "the scriptures cannot be broken," and, "I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

Jesus also affirmed the historicity of many important events recorded in the Old Testament, which many today dismiss as mere allegory or pure fiction, such as the creation of Adam and Eve, the flood, Jonah and the whale, the miracles of Elijah, and the miracles of Moses in the wilderness.

His sinless life and His teachings, crucifixion and resurrection didn't render the Old Testament irrelevant but affirmed it as pointing to Him.

New Testament writers also affirmed the authority of the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul said, "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Both Old Testament and New Testament writers asserted they were speaking on God's behalf and that what they were recording was factually and historically true.

Moses said his writings were from God, and the Old Testament prophets claimed to be speaking the words of the Lord.

Luke said, "Since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."

Peter said, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty."

Paul said, "I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ."

It's bad enough that some people are caving to cultural pressure to dismantle traditional values, but could we please not throw the Bible overboard in this frantic stampede to be loved by the culture?

Column: The Left's Thought Tyranny and the Right's Cowardice

A couple of recent news items illustrate the close-mindedness, aggressiveness and oppressiveness of modern liberalism's thought police.

MSNBC's Toure issued a scathing commentary against the GOP for considering outreach efforts toward African-Americans. Toure said: "Such is the dysfunctional, abusive relationship the GOP insists on with black folks. They say they want a new relationship while continuing to try to screw us over."

Toure went on to lambaste Dr. Ben Carson, a black person, for daring to stray from leftist ideas and endorsing conservative ones, such as a flat tax. Carson has "intellectual tumors in his mind, like a flat tax, which is regressive and ignorant in the face of American wealth inequality." Toure continued: "I doubt the GOP would entertain a white non-politician with unserious ideas." But blacks such as Carson "get raced to the front of the line because then people get to put a bumper sticker on their cars saying, 'How can I be racist? I would have voted for Carson."

Another story involves Ryan Rotela, a student at Florida Atlantic University who alleges that he was suspended from his class on "intercultural communications" because he refused to comply with a directive (or request) by the course's instructor, Deandre Poole.

Poole allegedly told his students to write "Jesus" on a sheet of paper, put the paper on the floor and then stomp on it. Rotela, a devout Mormon, said he refused and "picked up the paper from the floor and put it right back on the table." He said he told the professor he didn't believe this was appropriate, that it was unprofessional for the professor to have initiated this exercise and that he was "deeply offended" by what he had told him to do.

]]> Todd Starnes of Fox News said that according to documents, Rotela "has been brought up on academic charges by the school and may no longer attend class." But this "notice of charges," according to Starnes, is contrary to a statement the university released Friday night, which said no one had been disciplined as a result of the classroom activity.

Regardless, the assignment itself was outrageous and is illustrative of a hostile attitude toward Christianity (and conservatism) on many campuses and elsewhere in our culture today.

The left can vehemently deny it, but does anyone really believe that a professor would still have his job if instead of using the word "Jesus," he had used "Muhammad" or "Barack Obama" or the name or symbol of any other iconic figure of the left?

In so many universities, what passes for open academic inquiry is often more like indoctrination. In the name of diversity, multiculturalism and tolerance, academics trash Western civilization and traditional moral values on the perverse rationale that those values are intolerant and thus undeserving of tolerance and favorable treatment.

We see this same phenomenon occurring throughout our society, not just in universities but also in the media and in corporate America, where the tyranny of political correctness has taken firm root. How often have we read about corporate employees being forced to attend "sensitivity training" when they've expressed views about same-sex marriage or other issues about which leftist culture commanders are passionate?

As Paul Kengor of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College explains, "these are the new secular disciples of 'diversity' and 'tolerance' -- empty buzzwords that make liberals and progressives feel good while they often refuse to tolerate and sometimes even assault traditional Christian and conservative beliefs."

Liberals hold themselves out as open-minded, tolerant and supportive of academic inquiry, but many of them are contemptuous of views they reject. If you do not subscribe to the left's views on politics, social science, religion, affirmative action, sexuality, etc., your views are not only not worthy of protection but deserving of scorn, ridicule and sometimes even punishment and recalibration.

But guess what. These tactics tend to work. No matter how many courageous conservatives fight back against the left's intolerance and no matter how many black conservatives refuse to toe the liberal line that requires them to think like liberals -- lest they cease being authentic blacks -- more and more on the right are throwing in the towel instead of standing up for what they believe and facing ridicule and abuse from the left.

Many, for example, are jumping on the bandwagon to support same-sex marriage to receive their pat on the head from our progressive culture. Some have been persuaded, no doubt, but many are just afraid to be branded as bigots or homophobes for taking a principled stand in support of traditional marriage.

Long ago, leftists learned that bullying and persistence work, and they are being rewarded for their efforts by those whose social and political opinions are determined more by a craving for popular approval than by deeply held convictions.