In final address, Obama reminds troops they have right to ‘protest,’ ‘criticize president’

In final address, Obama reminds troops they have right to ‘protest,’ ‘criticize president’

Garbage in, garbage out. Barack Obama came into the presidency a small and petty man who grudgingly wore the obligatory title commander-in-chief, which he appears to have held in the same disdain the country he tried in vain to “transform.”

As he prepares to leave office, he is no less petty or vengeful toward a nation that last month reacted to his eight years in power by electing his polar opposite in the hopes of restoring sanity.

He was in Tampa, Fla., this afternoon at MacDill Air Force Base to deliver his parting remarks to the troops (or “corpsemen” as he would call them). So what he tell them?

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

Among other things, he reminded them “that each of us has … the universal right to speak your [sic] minds and to protest against authority; to live in a society that’s open and free; that can criticize our president without retribution.” Take that, President-elect Trump!

The speech wasn’t all bitterness and spite. Part of it was his prescription for fighting terrorism. If his remarks just so happened to be an a priori criticism of the approach his successor has outlined, so be it.  He said:

[R]ather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs or deploying more and more troops or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat. And we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained. In the time remaining, let me just suggest what I think should guide this approach.

His suggestions, all for his successor and not his immediate audience, were doozies. They included being “transparent and accountable” and a whole bunch more he knows nothing about.

He also warned against stigmatizing “good, patriotic Muslims,” adding that “if we act like this is a war between the United States and Islam, we’re not just going to lose more Americans to terrorist attacks, but we’ll also lose sight of the very principles we claim to defend.”

In the same vein, he observed:

The United States of America is not a country that imposes religious tests as a price for freedom. We’re a country that was founded so that people could practice their faiths as they choose.

In short, it was a speech that libs could — and did — love. They better hurry up and enshrine Obama’s words, because they’re not going to hear anything more remotely like this for at least another eight years, if not (God willing!) beyond.

(h/t Susan Jones, CNSNews)

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles is a freelance writer and regular contributor to "Liberty Unyielding."

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