Conceptual Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys.

Jonah Goldberg continues to be amazed at the many ways the Left deceives itself and those who fall for their lies. He writes at National Review,

...This is why so many liberals are far, far, far more comfortable calling tea-partiers “terrorists” than they are talking about actual, you know, terrorists. This is why in the wake of the Paris attacks we hear so much about “Christian terrorism” and why so many lefties have raced to arguments about gun control. That is why the supposedly smartest argument among the supposedly smart set these days is to build a time machine and stop Bush from invading Iraq.

Barack Obama is so eager to respond to the Paris attacks with a rhetorical fusillade against Republican bigotry. It is a ploy as brilliant as it is disgustingly cynical. Obama is a co-author of this refugee crisis. As Walter Russell Mead writes, “No one, other than the Butcher Assad and the unspeakable al-Baghdadi, is as responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria as is President Obama.” Somewhere deep inside Obama’s supposedly Niebuhrian conscience even he must suspect there is some truth to this. And even if his denial is total, he must understand that a great many historians will side with Mead in this appraisal.

Rather than face this unthinkable truth, Obama seeks to change the story line so that he is the noble and besieged martyr fighting the forces of reaction at home, rather than the hapless and bumbling nutty professor who let the world go to Hell on his watch. “Sanctimony over refugees is Obama’s way of restoring his own moral superiority over people who’ve been complaining for years, entirely correctly, that his Syria policy is FUBAR and has contributed to the disaster,” as Allahpundit writes.

But it goes further than that. Obama never tires of telling us that he was elected to end wars, not start them (how’s that going?). His real ambition was transformation at home, and that was only possible if foreign policy stayed out of the headlines. His entire foreign policy has been geared towards that goal -- not safety, and certainly not what he considered to be the risible concepts of “American leadership” and “American strength.” That’s why he announced a withdrawal date the same day he announced the Afghan surge. That’s why whenever there’s a terror attack, the White House works assiduously to deny it was a terror attack for as long as possible. That’s why were are drenched in the Orwellian sludge of terrorism euphemisms -- “overseas contingency operations,” “man-caused disasters,” “workplace violence,” etc.

When Obama does talk about terrorism, he’s only comfortable when he frames the issue in a way that puts the blame on America. That’s why we are constantly hearing that ISIS is inspired by Gitmo. I wonder: Is there a jihadist anywhere in the world who will pause in his desire to behead an infidel, never mind drop his scimitar mid-swing, upon the glorious news that a prison in Cuba has been closed? When John Ashcroft warned Americans that conjuring false fears of lost liberties helped the enemy, the entire New York Times editorial board got its dress over its head. But when Obama and his fans routinely say that “Republican rhetoric” is a recruiting tool for ISIS, they all nod like a crate of bobbleheads in an earthquake.

Acknowledging that the threat is still real only empowers those bitter-clingers who don’t want to transform our country. (They don’t want to transform our country, by the way, because they actually like our country the way it is -- or was. And it is now a given among most of the Left that this is a racist and bigoted desire.) Obama subscribes to the mainstream liberal view that there’s nothing wrong with America that making us more like Europe won’t fix. That’s why terror attacks in Europe are so cruelly inconvenient.

I should say that I am perfectly willing to concede that Obama has some good points on his side in the debate over Syrian refugees. Tourism rules, visa waivers, and homegrown radicalism will likely deliver more terror attacks to our shores than the refugees currently in the pipeline. But that doesn’t make the concerns about refugees unserious, illegitimate, or bigoted. Obama has complete confidence in the screening procedures. Well, okay. He also had complete confidence in the IRS, the VA, and the team building Healthcare.gov. When Obama declares complete confidence in a government agency, that’s a good time to buy gold.

But his remarks this week should remove all doubt that he’s not interested in persuading anybody. He’s interested instead in propping up the walls of his comfortable ideological bunker, where he’s a hero beset by irrational, cowardly, and evil men. I for one am sick of seeing this country go down the tubes just to salve the ego of this vain and cynical man.