Bush stood on a pile of rubble and proclaimed “I hear you, America hears you and soon the whole world will hear you.”
He gave a steely-eyed glare into the camera as if to bore a whole right through the heart of al-Qaeda — we’re coming, and hell’s coming with us.
He never apologized for who we were. He didn’t assign partial blame to America for what had happened — there would be no beer summit with Osama Bin Laden.
Here at home, there was no backlash. There was no rash of mosque burnings, no Quran burnings. We knew the culprit was al-Qaeda and not the larger Muslim community.
The reason that economic and social unrest is growing today and will continue to grow is because Americans feel leaderless. We don’t know whose side our president is on with a whole range of issues.
He correctly supports the Muslim’s right to build a mosque on private property, even in an offensive place, because it “represents American values of freedom of religion,” but he wrongly appears to condemn a pastor’s right to protest this because “it offends America’s values of freedom of religion.” Which is it Mr. President?
Obama leaves many questions in people’s minds about religion, freedom, justice and economics. He almost seems to relish the confusion that his contradictory positions create. Is he a Muslim? A Christian? A socialist? A Marxist? He says one thing and does another.
When asked point blank whether he believes in American Exceptionalism, he gave a one word answer — no. For Obama, America is just another nation among many.
All of these questions awaken within us something inevitable, buried deep within the American psyche.
Unlike any other nation, we have an undeniable independence of mind and a sense of equality with our elected leadership. When we see our leaders as incompetent, uncaring, or worse yet, disloyal, we tend to resist their leadership.
This is the starkest contrast between Obama and past presidents. You may not have agreed with others on their policies, but when it came down to it, you never questioned their patriotism or their love for our culture and our country.
With President Obama, ambiguity shrouds his past, his policies, and most importantly, his principles. Because of his contradictory statements and actions, we no longer trust him, his instincts or his intentions. In some cases, it seems as if he doesn’t even like us and disdains our national culture.
The current unrest will continue, and it will grow louder for as long as such a dysfunctional relationship between the American people and their leader persists. It is time for President Obama to stop playing both sides of the fence with his words and deeds.
Leland Conway is the executive editor and co-founder of http://www.conservativeedge.com and the host of the Pulse of Lexington on News Radio 630 WLAP.
