RUSH: The Power Line guys, John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson and Paul Mirengoff have an interesting post from yesterday. "The idea that President Obama's supporters trust him precisely because they believe that he frequently misrepresents his own beliefs is becoming more widespread. My friend Bob Cunningham was one of the first to explicate this phenomenon," and yesterday he sent his thoughts to Power Line. Now, this is key 'cause there's a companion story following this, so listen up.
"It has long been noticed that Obama's slipperiness had been accepted by the left during the Hope-and-Change campaign when He took positions, for example and notably, NAFTA and foreign trade generally, on both sides of an issue. They were willing to cut Him slack in most cases precisely because they just assumed that, of course!...He was lying....to someone...about the issue. Since each side could reasonably assume this --- the unions that when He made free-trade noises when He assured Canada (and then lied about THAT!) that He wasn't protectionist, and the rational liberals when He pandered to the unions on NAFTA in Ohio, for example --- they could all support Him thinking He was lying....but to the other side!....'Don't worry....we can trust Him because He's lying' was, in effect, left-wing Hope." So whenever Obama would say something the left didn't like, "Don't worry, he's just lying, he's just lying. It's okay, he's just lying to get elected," which they support.
"This has been particularly noticeable with the gay marriage issue....Carrie Prejean being exactly right when noting that her position is identical to that of His Oneness. But Obama gets a pass, of course, from the homosexual activists because they just assume He is lying!!!...to the conservative blacks, for example, 70% against gay marriage in California." Then yesterday in the New York Times Frank Rich came as close as anyone's ever seen to acknowledging openly the "we trust him because he's lying view." Here's what Frank Rich wrote: "...Obama's opposition to same-sex marriage is now giving cover to every hard-core opponent of gay rights, from the Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean to the former Washington mayor Marion Barry, each of whom can claim with nominal justification to share the president's views. In reality, they don't. Obama has long been, as he says, a fierce advocate for gay equality. The Windy City Times has reported that he initially endorsed legalizing same-sex marriage when running for the Illinois State Senate in 1996."
"In reality, Obama is always, always lying....to somebody....and often it IS the left...Sistah Souljah-ing them on renditions, Guantanamo, wiretapping, etc.....but where are they to go?" They just accept he's lying. And if he's lying to the right, they support him. "'Trust me: I'm lying!' I don't know, somehow it doesn't sound like a tactic that will work over the long run," say the Power Line guys, but nevertheless it is a modus operandi of President Obama. Yeah, he's an exceptionally, well, no, it was Bob Kerrey who said that Bill Clinton was an exceptionally good liar. I don't know that that's what's being said about Obama. They know he's lying. With Clinton you didn't know it, that's why he was exceptionally good at it. Obama is openly lying but his supporters love him for lying, whatever it takes to screw the right. If he has to mislead them and lie to them to get elected then the left is all for it, and this is a burgeoning theory.
The Wall Street Journal has a story that I think is a little bit of a companion to this. It is by Bret Stephens, who works at the Wall Street Journal. "Sometimes it takes 'South Park' to explain life's deeper mysteries. Like the logic of the Obama administration's policy proposals. Consider the 1998 'Gnomes' episode ... in which the children of South Park, Colo., get a lesson in how not to run an enterprise from mysterious little men who go about stealing undergarments from the unsuspecting and collecting them in a huge underground storehouse. What's the big idea? The gnomes explain: "Phase One: Collect underpants. Phase Two: ? Phase Three: Profit. Lest you think there's a step missing here, that's the whole point. ('What about Phase Two?' asks one of the kids. 'Well,' answers a gnome, 'Phase Three is profits!')
"This more or less sums up Mr. Obama's speech last week on Guantanamo, in which the president explained how he intended to dispose of the remaining detainees after both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly against bringing them to the US. The president's plan can briefly be described as follows. Phase One: Order Guantanamo closed. Phase Two: ? Phase Three: Close Gitmo! Granted, this is an abbreviated exegesis of his speech, which did explain how some two-thirds of the detainees will be tried by military commissions or civilian courts, or repatriated to other countries. But on the central question of the 100-odd detainees who can neither be tried in court nor released one searches in vain for an explanation of exactly what the president intends to do." He announces he's going to close Gitmo, Phase Three is close it, but there's no Phase Two. Well, okay, what happens when you close it? "Oh, no, no, no, don't worry about that, we're just going to close it."
"Now take the administration's approach to the Middle East. Phase One: Talk to Iran, Syria, whoever. Phase Two: ? Phase Three: Peace! In this case, the administration seems to think that diplomacy, like aspirin, is something you take two of in the morning to take away the pain. But as Boston University's Angelo Codevilla notes in his book, 'Advice to War Presidents,' diplomacy 'can neither create nor change basic intentions, interests, or convictions. ... To say, "We've got a problem. Let's try diplomacy, let's sit down and talk" abstracts from the important questions: What will you say? And why should anything you say lead anyone to accommodate you?'" And that's perhaps the best example of this three phase philosophy. Okay Iran, North Korea, well, we're going to sit down and talk; we're going to have engagement and then we're going to have to peace. Well, you left something out. What are you going to say to them? And how are they going to react to what you say to them? "Details, details, don't bother us with details, I'm The Messiah. I'm saying we're going to have to engagement with the North Korea, we're going to have to engagement with Iran and we're going to have peace."
Yeah? Well, how? "No, no, no, no, details, you're getting bogged down in unimportant things," the Obama people say. "We're doing something never before done we're going to engage North Korea," even though Bush did it left and right and then stopped because it was worthless. Clinton engaged North Korea, sent Madeleine Albright over there to give that little pot-bellied dictator a sexual thrill, imagine that, but it apparently worked. But he's still nuking up, so we engaged and we're going to have peace. Well, how? They just tested a bunch of nukes. So that's how it works. You just say what people want to hear. You don't tell 'em how it's going to happen. It's like health care. Bring in a bunch of experts in a task force to the White House, give 'em a speech, send 'em out into study groups, two hours later have them back, ask what they said, next day say, "Problem solved." Wait a minute, what did they do? Nothing. We talked about it. So we're going to fix health care, Phase One. Phase Two, question mark. Phase Three, it's solved. We're moving on to environmental policy. That's how it works. And plus in the middle of all that when Obama lies, his own supporters love it 'cause they know he's lying and they know that he knows he's lying, and his lying is to allow him to get away with his ultra-liberalism. So it all fits and it's all okay.