By Selwyn Duke

Being a cerebral sort, when I
ponder President Obama’s seduction of America, I think of the story of the
snake and the duck.  To be brief, the
snake wants the duck to take him to the other side of a creek, but the duck is
reluctant.  He says, “But when we get
there, you’ll bite me.”  The snake is
very persuasive, however, and convinces the duck he wouldn’t do such a
thing.  He just wants help and would have
the utmost appreciation.  Well, I think
you know what happened upon concluding their little crossing.  Bam! 
The snake bit the foolish bird, who then started stammering,
“Bu-bu-bu-but you said . . . .”  The
snake just replied, “Hey, you knew what I was when you picked me up.”  I suppose the duck just wanted to give the
serpent a chance.

That certainly is what many
want us to give Barack Obama.  Criticize
the president and you’re admonished for being unfair and partisan.  “Give the man a chance!” hiss the
critics.  Or is it that they quack?  Whatever.

I could be snide and just say
that I’ll give the president every bit the chance the left gave George
Bush.  With him they certainly did hiss,
and spew venom, attacking him viciously and relentlessly for eight years
starting with the oath of office.  The
man could do nothing right in their eyes, even when spending like any liberal
Democrat, even when supporting amnesty for illegals, even when lavishing tax
money on Africa, even when signing the prescription drug benefit.  He was a “fundamentalist,” a “right-wing
zealot” and wholly incapable of even one good intention.  That is the irrationality of the prejudiced,
of people who see a red-state politician and only see red.

But I won’t take that leaf out
of the left’s book.  I’m not a child and
don’t play tit-for-tat.  If Obama is
right about something, I’ll acknowledge it and just chalk it up to the
inevitable twice-per-diem correctness of a broken clock.  What I also won’t do, however, is “give Obama
a chance.”  I’ll explain why with a
couple of analogies.

Imagine there is a businessman
who manages a small fast-food restaurant in Illinois.  His record is one of virtually always
embracing the wrong policies and making bad decisions.  Nevertheless, he is offered a position
overseeing operations on a statewide level, wherein he once again pursues the
same bad policies and makes the same bad decisions.  Will you now propose making him the CEO of
the company? 

Or, let’s say there is a lawyer
with a small practice, oh, as it happens, also in Illinois.  He continually commits misfeasance but
nevertheless is appointed state attorney general.  He then continues to commit misfeasance.  Will you next consider making him Attorney
General of the United States?  If not,
why not?  Sure, he never demonstrated
competence in law before, but, come on, U.S. Attorney General is a different
position.  Give ‘im a chance.

Maybe even ducks get the point.

There is an old saying, “Fool
me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”  Contrary to the Republican campaign mantra about
Obama having no experience, quite the opposite was true.  He had tremendous experience doing the wrong
thing, more than enough to paint a picture of what kind of animal he might
be.  The picture may seem like a
resplendent deity to followers or a repugnant demon to foes, but it
existed.  And if you didn’t see it, it
wasn’t because Obama hadn’t done enough but because you didn’t know enough.

In reality, Obama has had
chance after chance after chance after chance, in the Illinois and U.S. senates
and as a community agita . . . uh, I mean, organizer.  If you don’t believe me, simply peruse the section
dedicated to him
at OntheIssues.org.  It provides 37 pages
and more than 14,000 words on his votes, positions and pronouncements, all compiled prior to the election.  And, largely drawing from that site, here is
a synopsis of Obama the Chanceless’ words and deeds (every quotation except the
one indicated by the asterisk is from OntheIssues.org):

•   He voted
  for illegal-alien amnesty, “YES on allowing illegal aliens to participate in
  Social Security” and “YES on continuing federal funds for declared ‘sanctuary
  cities.’”

• He said
  that his policies would bankrupt the coal industry.

•  He said, “*You need to make
  sure your child can speak Spanish” and that it’s “OK to provide government
  services in Spanish.”  He also “voted NO
  on declaring English as the official language of the US government.”

• He
  opposes so-called “racial profiling,” which is actually just an element of
  proper, comprehensive profiling.

• He
  received an 89 percent rating from the NAACP, “indicating that he supports
  affirmative action.” 

•  In the
  Illinois and national senates, Obama was Planned Parenthood’s poster boy,
  supporting the murder of not just the unborn but also the born, through his
  opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. 

• He
  voted against prohibiting minors from crossing state lines for abortion and
  notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. 

•  He has
  the worst possible rating – 0 percent – by the National Right to Life
  Committee.

• He
  opposed school vouchers. 

• He
  voted YES on factoring mythical anthropogenic global warming into federal
  project planning. 

• He has
  supported “age-appropriate” sex education for kindergartners, as if there is
  such a thing.   

• While
  Obama has said he doesn’t believe in faux marriage, he opposed California’s
  Proposition 8, the one-man-one-woman marriage amendment, and voted against the
  constitutional ban on faux marriage. 

• He
  called homosexuality “no more immoral than heterosexuality” and said it’s “Ok
  to expose 6-year-olds to gay couples.”

• He
  “cast 130 ‘present’ votes in Il. Senate,” indicating an unwillingness to step
  up to the plate. 

• He “sponsored
  resolution rejecting photo ID for voting.” 
  

•  He
  endorsed an Illinois handgun ban, advocated banning semi-automatics (weapons
  firing one shot every time the
  trigger is pulled), and voted against prohibiting the frivolous lawsuits
  designed to destroy gun manufacturers. 

• He
  supports nationalized medicine, and said that he wanted to insure the 47
  million people without health insurance, a figure that includes
  illegal aliens. 

All this, not to mention his associations
with raving racist Reverend Wright, avowed “small-c communist” and
ex-Weathermen bomber Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko and the socialist New
Party of Chicago.      

For you leftists who would go
off half-cocked and defend the above, save your breath.  My goal isn’t to convince you to change your
ideology.  That is impossible.  You can agree with Obama, you can disagree
with him, but the point is that when viewing his record in its totality, no
rational person will conclude that the few missing pieces in the change-unity-hope
jigsaw puzzle prevent us from perceiving the big picture.  An editor may not know my feelings on
blueberry cupcakes or Allen wrenches, but, if he scours my work, he will find
enough relevant information to know whether or not I’m suited to his
publication.  Likewise, those of us with
ears to hear and eyes to see know what Obama is.  We’re not ducks.

Of course, to some, the give-‘im-a-chance
plea is a ploy, a political artifice used by snakes to silence critics.  But these folks really aren’t all that
interesting.  The ducks are more so, as
what often drives them is man’s lamentable propensity for rationalization. 

Generally speaking, people have
trouble facing hard truths; they live with many fears and want to believe the
sun will come out tomorrow.  They want to
hope that Obama will really be that moderate, really be that liberal Utopian of
their dreams, really be a pragmatist when push comes to shove, really make
things better after all.  Thus, what many
are actually saying is, “Give my hope
a chance!  How dare you crush my dreams
well before dawn!  Do not deny me my a
few months of delusion.”  The problem is
that this doesn’t work for those of us who prefer to stare reality straight in
the face.  We know that, as a book title
says, “Hope is not a strategy.” 
Moreover, what you call giving Obama his (umpteenth) chance, we call
driving the last nail into America’s coffin.

Whatever the ducks’ motivation,
what they essentially suggest is comical. 
To wit: “A doctor who committed malpractice when operating on your toe,
hand, leg and stomach should be allowed to operate on your brain because, by
gum, he hasn’t had a chance to work above the neck yet.”  Well, what can I say?  If you would make such a decision, it
probably couldn’t do any harm, anyway. 
But the problem is that these owners of misfiring neurons have given
Obama the chance to take the scalpel to the whole nation.  And while I accept that people get the
government they deserve, the problem is that I’m going to get the government
they deserve.

The issue is not that Obama
isn’t being given a chance; it’s that he has been given too many.  But this is a persistent problem in our nation;
in fact, we live in a second-chance society. 
Children are given too many chances to misbehave.  Miscreants are given too many chances to
commit crime.  And, worst of all, the ducks
are given too many chances to vote.

And the end result is that America
just may have run out of chances.

                © 2008 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved