Patterico's Pontifications

2/11/2015

Obama Lies to BuzzFeed About His Lies on Same-Sex Marriage

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:11 pm



Obama has given an interview to BuzzFeed in which, among other things, he tries to square the circle concerning the accusations by David Axelrod that he deliberately lied to the American people regarding his views on same-sex marriage.

All the interview does is add to the evidence that he has deliberately lied about this issue all along — and used his alleged Christian faith as a way to sell that political lie to the public.

First, let’s just be very clear about what Axelrod said, and how Obama responded. First, Axelrod’s claim, as reported by TIME:

Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons, his former political strategist David Axelrod writes in a new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.

“I’m just not very good at bullshitting,” Obama told Axelrod, after an event where he stated his opposition to same-sex marriage, according to the book.

Axelrod writes that he knew Obama was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even as Obama publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages. Axelrod also admits to counseling Obama to conceal that position for political reasons. “Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’ ” Axelrod writes.

And now, Obama’s response to BuzzFeed:

[Obama] disputed, however, the contention of his former top political adviser, David Axelrod, that he had misled voters in 2008 when he opposed marriage equality. Axelrod wrote in his new memoir that Obama “modified” his position because his aides worried about alienating black Christian leaders, and then complained that he didn’t like “bullshitting” voters about it.

“I think David is mixing up my personal feelings with my position on the issue,” Obama said. “I always felt that same-sex couples should be able to enjoy the same rights, legally, as anybody else, and so it was frustrating to me not to, I think, be able to square that with what were a whole bunch of religious sensitivities out there.”

In a nutshell, he is saying that his personal belief always favored same-sex marriage. (I am putting that in bold so that you can refer to it again in a second.) But, he says, he took a public position that favored only civil unions, to take account of religious sensitivities (read: “to get elected”):

Obama said he believed at the time that civil unions were “a sufficient way of squaring the circle,” but that “the pain and the sense of stigma that was being placed on same-sex couples who are friends of [his]” changed his mind.

I think the notion that somehow I was always in favor of marriage per se isn’t quite accurate,” Obama said. “The old questionnaire … is an example of struggling with what was a real issue at the time, which is, how do you make sure that people’s rights are enjoyed and these religious sensitivities were taken into account?”

(A note about the questionnaires can be found here.)

Now, I would like to remind you of what he said on September 25, 2004:

I’m a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.

Similarly, Obama said in 2008:

“I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”

In other words, he was saying in 2004 and 2008 that his personal religious beliefs told him that marriage was between a man and a woman. But remember the thing that I put in bold above? Today he said to BuzzFeed that his personal belief always favored same-sex marriage.

So: he lied before — and today, by denying that he lied before, he lied about his previous lies.

Axelrod isn’t confused. Obama is trying to confuse citizens.

When I first blogged about this, at least one person (Beldar) said in the comments that he doesn’t know whether Obama is a Christian, and it’s between him and God whether his religious belief is sincere.

OK. So: let’s not speculate about the sincerity of Obama’s religious beliefs. Let’s just stick with what we know.

And we know that in 2004 and 2008, Obama lied to the public, and used a phony story about his religious beliefs to try to sell that lie to the public. In other words, he cloaked his political lie in religious garb to make it sound sincere.

I think that’s all we need to know, frankly.

P.S. I can’t find a word about any of this in the Los Angeles Times. I knew those soulless partisan scumsuckers would bury this story, and I was right.

34 Responses to “Obama Lies to BuzzFeed About His Lies on Same-Sex Marriage”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. I wonder what the people at Saddleback Church think now about letting this person speak publically from their sanctuary.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  3. Let’s not get on our high horse on this when everybody knows that Richard the Lionhearted was carrying on a homosexual love affair with King Phillip II of France before he went on the Crusades.

    nk (dbc370)

  4. nk, was that on Richard’s Facebook page or Phillip’s twitter feed?

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  5. Heh! I’m not sure. Oppo research by Prince John dug it up.

    nk (dbc370)

  6. Actually, it was depicted that way in The Lion in Winter with Peter O’Toole as Henry II and Katherine Hepburn as Elinor of Aquitaine.

    nk (dbc370)

  7. Maybe his working memory has degraded to the point that he doesn’t know that we know that he knows he’s been lying.

    htom (4ca1fa)

  8. In a nutshell, he is saying that his personal belief always favored same-sex marriage.

    Oh, hell, the dude has has sex with males. That along with his leftism means it’s a given he’s always had a very, very soft spot in his heart for SSM.

    Mark (c160ec)

  9. Why the hangup and distress over homosexual marriages? While I sortof read and hear about bestiality opposition, I hardly see anything – even from people who describe themselves as Religious Christians – in opposition to Adultery. Why is Adultery considered separate from the other two?

    (this is why i have no patience for athletes who claim religious opposition to homosexual behavior)

    seeRpea (aa8044)

  10. that ship sailed thirty years, all sexual sin in equally objectionable, however same sex relationshis are an inversion of nature’s practices,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  11. It’s all complete bullshyte. Obama lies ALL of the time. He is a Marxist fool, an emotionally unstable prix. Nothing Obama says can be believed. The ONLY evidence that Ofukwad is a Christian, is the LAUGHABLE NONSENSICAL 20 years he spent attending Jeremiah Wrights’ GARBAGE. WTF is wrong with US AMERICA??? We would never have overlooked such lying horseschit before. Why now?

    Gus (7cc192)

  12. all the time he lies

    happyfeet (831175)

  13. Patterico: You give Beldar too much credit/leeway. You highlight in the sentences before you mention Beldar this: Barky speaking:” my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.” Unless of course, Muz taqqiya is the religious belief in question.

    jb (7514ba)

  14. it’s high time this Beldar person was reigned in

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  15. *reined* in i mean

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  16. Wait until obama finally admits he’s a muslim and wants to use the official records to determine who should be stoned.

    Jim (84e66d)

  17. It could have predicted that Obama would try this way out, and it works maybe with what Axelrod wrote but it doesn’t work with some of his public statements in 2004 and 2008, but Ben Smith of Buzzfeed didn’t have that in front of him when the interview was conducted (if the whole interview wasn’t deliberately arranged to give Obama a chance to cover his tracks)

    Sammy Finkelman (e806a6)

  18. Obama is kind of worse than Brian Williams isn’t he?

    Sammy Finkelman (e806a6)

  19. Obama’s Anthem: “Are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes?”

    M. Scott Eiland (725705)

  20. I agree with our host. Obama is the apex liar at the top of a pyramid of liars who lie reflexively, as unthinkingly and regularly as they inhale and exhale.

    Many of my left-leaning friends who voted for him have conceded to me, in friendly discussions, that if Obama had been truthful about his position on same-sex marriage, it might have cost him either the Democratic nomination or the general election in 2008. “So he lied to get his margin of victory from voters whom he’d successfully, deliberately deceived, with every intention of dropping his lie and betraying those voters once his pollsters said he could,” I will ask. “Yes,” they agree. “You’re okay with that?” They uniformly answer: “Yes!”

    That’s the default value of the national Democratic Party now, and ends justify any and all means as far as they’re concerned.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  21. Barak Obama and Bill Clinton – both liars of the sort that lie even when they have no need to lie.

    seeRpea (aa8044)

  22. and both popular double term presidents.

    seeRpea (aa8044)

  23. Many of my left-leaning friends who voted for him have conceded to me, in friendly discussions, that if Obama had been truthful about his position on same-sex marriage, it might have cost him…

    I’m not sure about that, since the culture has grown so dumbed down through the decades.

    However, if he had revealed back in 2008 his sexual escapades with other males, that might have made even various liberals gulp and feel squeamish. But even in that case, we’re getting nearer and nearer to a point where the guy in the White House could be seen walking hand-in-hand with his boyfriend and far too many Americans will think, “oh, isn’t that nice. I hope they get married!”

    That hypothetical would have been pure sarcasm in the past, but not in 2015, not as things are evolving or devolving.

    Mark (c160ec)

  24. Mr. Feet, I’ve already been rained out! 😉

    Beldar (fa637a)

  25. ok good good

    we’ll just check you off and move down the list

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  26. Mark is infatuated with the idea of Obama with another guy.

    JD (ab61fe)

  27. having escapades!

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  28. There is a certain predictability to Mark’s comments, JD.

    elissa (656059)

  29. Obama justifies so many of his actions on the basis of his “Christian faith.” Yet those actions are at odds with any possible understanding of a Christian faith.

    John 8:31-32

    So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

    John 14:6

    Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

    I’m not making any argument an atheist couldn’t make, if they were so inclined. When you look at Obama and his political positions they are at odds with the scripture he says he believes in. But moreover the methods he pursues them are at odds with any reasonable understanding of the Christian faith. Even an atheist could see that he professes to believe in Christ. And according to the scripture Obama claims to believe in Christ is the truth. Yet he lies.

    I’m not suggesting he’s a “secret Muslim.” I am suggesting (as did the atheist Christopher Hitchens) that if one demonstrates one doesn’t believe in and/or abide by certain basic rules as spelled out in the New Testament you are no way justified calling yourself a Christian.

    I was reminded of this by his recent remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. In which he said things he blamed on some faith he called Christian, but no believing Christian could possibly say with a straight face. He belonged to a Black Liberation Theology church. Which isn’t Christian. It’s a Christian heresy. It reduces Christ the redeemer who died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins so that we may receive everlasting life to Christ the community organizer from Nazareth who demands landlords to remove asbestos from the Altgeld Gardens apartments and demands a higher minimum wage and rent control.

    He doesn’t have faith in any identifiable Biblical Christ. He has faith in a Christ he invented that serves Barack Obama’s agenda.

    Steve57 (560f3e)

  30. What Obama was doing wa snot merely stating that he had a certain policy position – he wanted to reinforce another lie – that whatever he fasvored came from internal conviction – there’s almost an agreed lie among politicians that what they favor or not also reflects their personal position about public policy (not necesssarily about the underlying issue, you bcould beleive something is good or bad without wanting to enact that into law – but what they were comitting themselves to do or not do reflected what they personally would want to see happen)

    This is kind of an “assurance” that they won’t change their position.

    Now when Obama picked a reason, he didn’t want people on the other side – those who favored same sex marriage – to think very much less of him, and some would. So he attributed that tio his religious beliefs, but in a mild way.

    Sammy Finkelman (e806a6)

  31. Obama is a closet gay, muslim fundamentalist who rode into power on the back of lies and a backsliden American electorate. My prayer is that his plans to “change” America fails. In Jesus name, amen.

    The Emperor (c941bd)

  32. Teh Chimperor…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)


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