Obama Evolves, Politics Devolves

Townhall.com ^ | May 9, 2012 | Ben Shapiro

[Kaslin]

This week, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan essentially endorsed same-sex marriage. The Obama campaign, however, wary of minority and blue-collar voters, promptly announced that President Obama was against same-sex marriage -- sort of -- but that his position was "evolving." Like a flower waiting to bloom, eventually Obama?s support for same-sex marriage would spring full-fledged into existence.

I tried this rhetorical trick on my wife the other day. She asked me to take out the garbage; I told her that my thinking was "evolving" on the subject, and I needed a few more days to complete that process. She told me that if I didn't stop evolving and take out the trash, there would be a mass extinction event.

In politics, it's unclear what it means for a position to "evolve." Typically, evolution naturally aspires toward a higher form of life; the same should hold true of positions. The problem is that if you recognize that a position you don't hold is more correct than a position you do hold, there shouldn't be evolution -- there should be choice. If supporting same-sex marriage is on a higher moral plane than opposing it, then a politician's statements about "evolving" have no meaning -- the politician should switch positions immediately.

But, of course, President Obama supports same-sex marriage already. He's just lying about it. This is what he truly means by "evolution." As gay activist thug extraordinaire Dan Savage put it,"Where things stand: the president pretends to oppose gay marriage, the gays pretend we believe him."

In short, everyone already knows where Obama stands on gay marriage. In fact, Savage himself said that Obama would endorse gay marriage in February 2013, shortly after his second inauguration.

This is the heart of Obama's campaign: Tell the American people that he's open to different opinions and ideas, while quietly embracing the hardest-left positions imaginable. If Americans buy into it, they are in for a rude awakening come January 2013.

We'd be fools to accept Obama's new pose as an open-minded gent, eager to hear from everybody at the table. It's the same pose he adopted in 2008, just before he proceeded to ram his agenda down Americans' throats while decrying the existence of political opposition. When Americans disagreed with him on Obamacare, he simply told them that they weren't highly evolved enough -- the Tea Party, he suggested, was a movement of bigoted Neanderthals -- and slammed through his legislative monstrosity. When Americans questioned his position on the Arab Spring, Obama shook his head at the benighted fools and handed over half the Middle East to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Obama isn't evolved in his view of the political order -- he's purely primeval. All that matters is his opinion. That's because, as a higher specimen of humanity, he need not lend credence to the cretins. It's an attitude that reeked from him in his younger days -- a profile of him from his post-college days shows a young man eager to preach to everyone on subjects ranging from poetry to foreign policy. Nothing has changed. He is the font of all knowledge, the source of all good. He just pretends to be a being capable of evolution for the benefit of those he has to drag along with him on the road to progress.

Obama's "evolution" is paternalistic, nasty and condescending. It suggests that those who disagree with him haven't evolved, their brains besotted with prehistoric ooze. It's intellectual arrogance of the highest order. Most of all, it's pure Obama.

[Sacajaweau]

I wrote it last week and the week before.

MICHELLE, AKA THE PANTS IN THE FAMILY, DOES NOT WANT A SECOND TERM.

SHE HATES PLAYING NICE NICE WITH WHITEY.

[CharacterCounts]

There is only one reason that Obama now supports gay marriage.

Distraction!

He is desperate to change the topic of this election from the economy and his dismal performance to something else.

The GOP-E, never known for their political smarts, will probably get played once again and jump right in to the gay marriage debate.

[Pearls Before Swine]

MICHELLE, AKA THE PANTS IN THE FAMILY, DOES NOT WANT A SECOND TERM. SHE HATES PLAYING NICE NICE WITH WHITEY.

With no re-election concerns, she wouldn't have to pretend to play nice. I think she wants the second term.

[Texas resident]

So when is baraq going to conduct the first historic muslim same sex marriage?

Will both the women wear burkhas?
Will one of the gay men wear a burhka?

inquiring minds want to know.

[Verginius Rufus]

Of course he was paternalistic, nasty, and condescending on this issue. That's who he is.

He has repeatedly shown that he is weak and will give in to pressure. He probably would have preferred to do this after November, fearing losing some votes over it, but the gay activists demanded it now and because they are a major source of funding he had to give in. Just like with the Keystone Pipeline and giving into the environmental activists, or giving in to Putin over missile defenses in Eastern Europe.

[wayoverontheright]

Let’s do the math.

Does anyone seriously believe that those who favor gay marriage weren’t already planning on pulling the lever for Obama? A modest gain here, if any at all.

Among the young, definitely the targeted audience of this announcement, I’m pretty sure the pivotal issue for then will be economic. I look for this particular cohort to (statistically, in comparison to 2008) stay home in 2012. And this announcement by Obama doesn’t change my prediction much at all.

Blacks and Hispanics are nearly monolithic in their opposition to gay marriage, although there may be a slight gain to be had with minorities, if only the secular groupings among them.

Then there are evangelicals, devout Catholics, and the moderately religious, for whom Obama’s gay marriage flop may be a trigger to action, so there should be a loss of votes here.

In sum, I see this announcement as detrimental to Obama’s reelection.