Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 12/05/2009 10:51:09 AM PST by Coleus
Slandering the President
John F. Kavanaugh S.J. | NOVEMBER 23, 2009
America Magazine
On Oct. 29 Glenn Beck ended his program on Fox TV with the words of Thomas Jefferson: “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Beck himself certainly has not been silent. In lectures, best-selling books, a radio program and his television show, he has warned America of the coming tyranny under a conspiratorial president. Armed with videos and quotations ranging from the mindless and amoral behavior of some members of Acorn to reckless statements made by associates and appointees of President Obama, Beck connects dots to draw a web of radicals who are out to destroy America as the founders intended it.
The exposing of unethical practices or foolish statements as well as reasoned critique of health, economic and international policies are essential to our civil discourse. I, for one, am troubled by the administration’s policy in Afghanistan, its reliance on many of the financial wizards who led us into our present mess and its disorganized, sometimes tepid approach to health care reform.
But defamation by innuendo is something else. Glenn Beck and his radio twin, Rush Limbaugh, have since the president’s inauguration imputed tyrannical intentions to the man. Whether inflating episodes such as children singing a song about Mr. Obama, claiming that the president is a racist with a “deep-seated hatred of white people and white culture” or characterizing “Obama’s America” as an offspring of Maoism or Nazism, Beck and Limbaugh are stoking a fire of fear and anger against the president of the United States. If you search the Internet for the phrase “Obama is…,” the top six possibilities offered are, “antichrist,” “idiot,” “racist,” “liar,” “Hitler,” “socialist.” A search for “Obama” and “destroying America” yields 719,000 sites.
Obama the destroyer has been a recent theme of Limbaugh. On June 4, Newsmax.com (a news partner of The Washington Times) reported that Rush Limbaugh, on the previous night’s news, told Sean Hannity that “like Osama Bin Laden, the president is trying to destroy America.” What Limbaugh really said was, “If Al Qaeda wants to demolish the America we know and love, they’d better hurry because Obama is beating them to it.” In an “On the Record” interview with Fox’s Greta Van Susteren on July 23 and 24, Limbaugh claimed that the president, who is “purposely destroying the economy,” wants “as little liberty and freedom as possible” for the American people. He wants to determine who is born and when we die. Bent on remaking the country, the president is allegedly causing joblessness on purpose. After saying that the “greatness of this country’s people is under assault,” Limbaugh concludes that the president “has contempt for the American people.”
As if that were not enough, on Nov. 1 “Fox News Sunday” gave Limbaugh 30 minutes to lob unchallenged assertions that Mr. Obama is an immature narcissist, an extreme radical intent on destroying the economy. We have here the suggested embodiment of Glenn Beck’s tyrant, a president who wants to destroy America and its economy and to seize total control over our lives. These accusations should not be passed off as the musings of crackpots or satirical entertainers. No matter what the motives behind this demonizing, the act amounts to the highest of slanders. Limbaugh professes how much he loves this country, a Christian country, he insists. But does he realize that the Christian tradition holds calumny to be a serious sin?
Slander has emerged as a new genre for the Internet. I’m sure I am not the only one receiving “forward it on” e-mails from people alarmed at the coming downfall of our country, often with allusions to Hitler as a precursor to our present president.
Whatever our political leanings or fears for the future may be, let us hope that there is not someone out there who, having been seduced by slanderous innuendo, really thinks Barack Obama is as bad as Bin Laden and as tyrannical as Hitler. It is painful to consider what could happen in the face of such imagined tyranny. And let us pray that such actions are not inspired by John Wilkes Booth or Timothy McVeigh, with their shared motto, “sic semper tyrannis.” If a terrible assault on the president should occur, will Christians who advanced the slander of him be contrite? And will those of us who were silent be shamed?
Harlem Gospel Choir nixes Glenn Beck film role over finances, not politics, it says
This clown should be fired by the Church. Neither have ever slandered Dear Reader. A Priest who willingly lies to push a political agenda is unfit for his office.
This feeling liberal is content to condemn the condemnation of his President. He is content in the continuation of murder of untold millions of tiny souls and the addition of older souls who’ve outlived their usefulness to the ideological ideal fantasy liberal society. He is content in the possible subjugation of millions of unwilling Americans. He can go to Hell straightaway for all I care. He is no man of God.
H00boy! Fr. John F. Kavanaugh, S.J. is a true believer.
Take a look around Johnboy. The idiots at the hem have no idea how to pilot a ship.
Captain Obama is having a party on the stern and has a few neophyte chicago goons at the wheel.
It’s from AMERICA magazine. That should be all you need to know.
You can tell how far this country has fallen into the sewer when a priest feels that it is his job to join the Marxist/Commie attack on conservative talk radio.
Whats just eating Kavenaghs lunch is the idea that Obama is doing this on PURPOSE.
I’m more than disappointed in this Priest.
Why are you surprised? He is a Jesuit. Throughout the history of this order, which for more than a few years was supressed by the Vatican, many of their priests have been out in left field and have been very anti-Vatican. No surprise here.
Thank God for Bishop Tobin.
I’m not surprised, just very disappointed.
“…fears for the future may be…” welllll ahhhh, YES, since Congress is in one the game or has decided to sit out their responsibilities as bystanders to an accident they have created; the citizenry will eliminate each Constitutional dichotomy.
Other than that, Fr. John F. Kavanaugh, S.J. is just another useful idiot and most likely a butt-boy for the left.
“If Al Qaeda wants to demolish the America we know and love, they’d better hurry because Obama is beating them to it.”
On this, the putz is correct.
He was quoting Rush, I believe.
Just another worthless Liberal Jesuit. The priest should be isolated from young boys.
“Have you ever met a Jesuit priest that was not part of the radical left?”
Yes. He is in the New York Province, and usually explains himself as “Yes, I’m the conservative Jesuit in New York.”
I have a funny story about him. When our son was invited for an admissions interview at an all-scholarship Jesuit high school in NYC, I asked him if he was ready to discuss a favorite book with the interviewer.
He said, “Yeah,Dad, it’s called ‘Marine Sniper’ it’s the story of GySgt Carlos Hathcock.”
I said, “Whoa! The Jesuits are a bunch of lefties - can’t you discuss some other book?” (He chose something else.)
Recounting this story to the Jesuit in question, he started laughing and said, “’Marine Sniper’? That’s one of my favorite books!” He then grabbed it off his bookshelf to show me.
However, I’m afraid he is the exception that proves the rule:
Q. Why are the Jesuits periodically suppressed by the Pope?
A. Because they need it.
There is an interesting dialogue starting there, many of you know one of the posters well!
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