Junius: An Open Letter to President Obama

Sir:

One need not possess extraordinary powers of discernment to observe that a maelstrom of scandal has caught the ship of state in its whorls, and threatens to smash its timbers in a riot of mendacity, power-lust, pusillanimity and Homeric malfeasance. That the captain of our noble vessel is discovered to be the author of the very cataclysm that may well devour it is a phenomenon of unprecedented and tragic moment.

The tally book of your offenses against the honor of a free people and the fabric of their just society fills up apace, and the acceleration of your administration’s infamies prompts the question as to whether there is a sufficiency of ledgers in stock in which to record them all, and an adequate complement of auditors to make the entries. Doubtless we can surely muster the necessary resources to document at least two recent episodes of political sordidness.

The success of arms enjoyed by fanatical Mussulmen against our diplomatic personnel in Libya remains unavenged, and the circumstances that led to this disgrace you have veiled in a cloak of lies for the purpose of disguising your own fecklessness and that of your party’s heir (or rather, heiress) presumptive. And no sooner does Congress begin to breach the wall of deceit that you and your myrmidons have constructed to blind us to the truth of this ugly affair, than we learn of the secret war waged by your revenue officers against duly-organized associations of patriots whose love of country you curiously contrive to view as treason to yourself. That every night brings surcease to your anxious days in the form of slumber untroubled by the most miniscule vestige of remorse or moral qualm is a sign of utter shamelessness. In comparison to you, sir, Narcissus is the model of self-loathing.

We add the aforementioned condemnations to a portrait whose crowded canvas already includes the arming of Mexican brigands, the conversion of public moneys for the benefit of political supporters, criminal profligacy in the accumulation of public debt, and the insidious enervation of the nation’s spirit of individual liberty by means of a creeping paternalism that seeks to transform independent citizens into witless calves suckling at the national udder. There is not a whiff of honor that can be detected in even the remotest corner of your government, Mr. President, above the stench of partisan zealotry and thrusting ambition that pollutes its endless halls.

You see yourself as a modern Prometheus, who comes bearing the enlightenment of state-directed communitarianism to your benighted countrymen, whereas those of us who still possess reason, and the willingness to employ it, descry in you, to the contrary, a jejune Procrustes who would bend and break the citizenry to fit the iron bed of your alien and inhumane philosophy. On the outcome of this conflict of visions may well hinge the future of the Republic, which God, in His infinite mercy, save and prosper.