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“It Hit a Nerve”

by Phyllis Schlafly

February 25, 2015

“It hit a nerve,” Rudy Giuliani observed about his widely reported insight that President Obama does not love America. Amid the uproar from the liberal media that anyone would dare question a liberal’s patriotism, the former mayor of New York City is not backing away from his candid comment, telling the New York Times that “I said exactly what I wanted to say. I conveyed exactly the message that I wanted to convey.”

Giuliani’s on-target comments hit the same nerve that has produced an uproar over the new Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) Framework, which is teaching 500,000 of our brightest college-bound high school seniors to be ashamed instead of proud of our country. A half dozen states have introduced legislation demanding changes in the APUSH Framework, which minimizes the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers and the exceptional greatness of our country, in order to give disproportionate emphasis to the grievances of minorities.

The former mayor observed that Obama criticizes our country “much more often than other American presidents,” both Republican and Democrat. He added that Obama “was educated by people who were critics of the U.S. And he has not been able to overcome those influences.”

“From the time he was 9 years old, he was influenced by Frank Marshall Davis, who was a communist,” Giuliani pointed out. As a young “community organizer,” Obama was influenced by the radical socialist Saul Alinsky, who was also the subject of Hillary Rodham’s 92-page senior thesis at Wellesley College.

Giuliani continued: “He spent 17 years in the church of Jeremiah Wright, and this is the guy who said ‘God damn America, not God bless America.'”

Giuliani has, in fact, been making many comments like these, without much media attention. But this time the comment was made in the presence of a leading presidential candidate, Scott Walker, who refused to criticize Giuliani’s remark despite pressure to do so.

“The mayor can speak for himself,” Walker told a reporter who demanded to know if Walker agrees with the mayor that Obama does not love America. “You should ask the president what he thinks about America.”

Another prospective presidential candidate, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, reportedly telephoned Giuliani to congratulate him for his comments. Publicly, Jindal said, “The gist of what Mayor Giuliani said . . . is true,” adding, “If you are looking for someone to condemn the mayor, look elsewhere.”

Jindal also stood by his own remarks that criticized “non-assimilation” by immigrants to our country. He described as “dangerous” the “people who want to come to our country but not adopt our values,” including our English language, adding that “it is absolutely correct to insist on assimilation” by immigrants to America.

Responses by other Republican presidential candidates to Giuliani’s insight have been less impressive. Jeb Bush and Rand Paul were quick to run from Giuliani’s remarks by insisting they would not question Obama’s “motives,” while Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham both said they have “no doubt” that President Obama loves America. And 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s chief foreign policy adviser, Dan Senor, told CNBC that it is “insane” to question “whether or not Barack Obama loves America.”

While running for president in 2008, Obama criticized Americans in rural Pennsylvania and in small towns in the Midwest by saying that “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” That offensive comment was not long after Michelle Obama declared, “Let me tell you something. For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m proud of my country.”

Obama refers to our Nation as “this” country, as though it is some other country and not “our” country, as when he said, “There’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped disproportionately by the police, and that’s a fact.” Obama once told a European audience that “there have been times where America has shown arrogance.”

When Obama has expressed admiration for our country, it is often in a backhanded manner. “I realize that America’s critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within its own borders. This is true,” Obama declared to the United Nations General Assembly last year.

By contrast, Mayor Giuliani said, “with all our flaws we’re the most exceptional country in the world. I’m looking for a presidential candidate who can express that, do that and carry it out.” “I want a president who is not embarrassed to say America is the strongest power on earth,” the mayor continued. “And I want our enemies to be afraid of our president.”