"I (State Your Name) Do Solemnly Swear That I Will Support and Defend the Constitution..."

“I, (state your name) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” - the United States Uniformed Services Oath of Office

Twenty-six years ago today, The Flying Curmudgeon raised his right hand and swore to defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic. Sadly, what is becoming increasingly evident, and to an even greater extent than with William Jefferson Clinton, President Barack Hussein Obama appears to be a domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States.

On a daily basis and in frighteningly rapid fashion, he is systematically dismantling everything that has made this country great, and the world's last best hope for Freedom, since its founding nearly 234 years ago. With each bow to a foreign leader, and with each apology, it seems clear that this man does not love this country - the country that has afforded him the opportunity to become the leader of the Free World.

As TFC stops to reflect on what has changed since that Spring day in 1984, he is also reminded of the many friends over the years - often, prior to reaching their thirtieth birthdays - who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of this wonderful country, as well as the countless other young Americans throughout this nation's history, who have suffered and died to secure and defend Liberty. The thought of their sacrifice, and the legacy of Freedom that they have bequeathed us makes all that Barack Obama is doing to dishonor that sacrifice all the more tragic.

But how could it have been otherwise?

The product of the peculiar coupling of an angry, East African, post-colonial, Marxist black father, and a socially awkward, 60's Radical, white American mother, (whose own tone-deaf, insensitive father went so far as to name "Stanley"), after being abandoned by these two self-centered "parents," the then pre-teen "Barry Soetoro" was sloughed off to live in Hawaii with his "typically white," pre-Jack Kerouac, beatnik grandparents. A few years before, these two native mid-westerners had moved to Hawaii to "drop out" of main-stream society, long before it would become fashionable to do so.

Once there, while his grandmother worked long hours in a bank, his dead-beat grandfather would introduce young Barry to the person who would ultimately become his mentor: Frank Marshall Davis. Davis, a black nationalist and member of the Communist Party U.S.A., would later become known, not only for his tutelage of the future president, but also for his radical writings, which included works of poetry filled with pedophilic and homo-erotic imagery.

For the racially confused and insecure young man, this culturally and politically-charged "mentoring" would begin a lifelong pattern of associations with an increasingly bizarre cast of radical characters, a pattern which would follow him, ultimately, all the way to the White House.

In his own words, from his first days at Columbia University, he would seek out the Marxist professors and gravitate to the Marxist student groups. Years later, after moving to Chicago, in order to shore up his "street creds" he would eventually make his way to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's radical Trinity United Church of Christ.

For the next twenty years, he would sit through one hate-filled, America-bashing "sermon" after another. The "Good Reverend's" liturgy was so extreme that another, one-time congregant by the name of Oprah Winfrey would eventually find it necessary to leave, lest she offend her primarily white, middle-aged, middle-of-the-road female audience.

It strains credulity to believe that Obama could have sat there, week in and week out for years, while the man who would eventually marry he and his wife Michelle, and baptize their two daughters spewed his venomous and hate-filled, racist diatribes, and not have heard/been present for any of those particular "messages."

How stupid does he think Americans really are? Can anyone imagine the uproar if it had become known that John McCain had sat in a white supremacist church for twenty years?

In spite of all this, during the 2008 Presidential campaign, only Sean Hannity and Fox News, along with Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz, Michael Savage, and a handful of other radio talk show hosts bothered to report on the then-Illinois senator's long association with the radical reverend, as well as his ties to former 60's terrorist Bill Ayers, black separatist Louis Farrakhan, and Palestinian mouth-piece Rashid Khalidi, among others.

It was only after the Rev. Wright story finally had reached a "critical mass" that the "mainstream media," or what used to be known - in a more quaint era - as the "Fourth Estate," finally picked up the story. And then, only to dismiss it all as much ado about nothing.

As Sean Hannity so succinctly puts it, 2008 was the year that mainstream journalism died in this country.

President George Washington once said, "Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your reputation; for its better to be alone than in bad company."

As Barack Obama seems to feel an affinity for our beloved Sixteenth President, or at least seems to want to be identified with the Savior of the Union - what with the slow train ride from Illinois to Washington D.C. prior to his Inaugural, his use of the former president's Bible for his swearing in ceremony, as well as his recent speech at New York's historic Cooper Union - it's too bad our current president doesn't seem to have his fellow Illinoisan's character, humility - or love of country.

Would that he also viewed his role as president, and his concomitant responsibilities thusly:

"I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service -- the United States Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them." - Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to James Conkling, August 26, 1863

If one is known by the company he keeps, what do Barack Obama's many unsavory, radical, America-hating associates say about the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Domestic enemy?

What would George and Abe think?