Four people died in the Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt. Four people died in the Benghazi terrorist attack. We had wall-to-wall coverage of the first, virtually nothing on the second, although that may be changing. Hearings this week will highlight whistleblowers who have tales to tell about this administration’s attempt to cover up its incompetence and failure to act. That failure seems to be the result of lack of desire to call out Islamic terrorism for what it is and to ensure reelection by shoving the event under the rug. As the pressure mounts for the truth to be known, how does our president spend his time? What does he consider worthy of attention?

The NBA player is being hailed as a “hero” for coming forward with a declaration of his homosexuality. It’s kind of an upside-down world when that is celebrated and a solid Christian faith is not:

Here’s another example of how backward we have become morally:

Meanwhile, the jury is still out on Kermit Gosnell. One has to wonder if justice will be served there, given the moral state of the country. Who are the jurors? Will they realize the immensity of the depravity on display? Four died in Boston. Four died in Benghazi. Thousands died at the hands of Gosnell. He is the face of the entire abortion industry, which has rightly been termed the New Holocaust. As with Auschwitz, perhaps we should make Gosnell’s facility into a somber reminder of our departure from the laws of God:

When Nidal Malik Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” and killed thirteen and wounded twenty-nine at Ft. Hood in 2009, the Obama administration refused to call it what it was: Islamic terrorism. The Department of Defense classified the attack as simply “workplace violence.”

Remember the comical attempt by Janet Napolitano, our chief of Homeland Security, to rename Islamic terrorism as “man-caused disasters”?

The September 11, 2012 Benghazi terror attack, which killed our ambassador and three others, was blamed on an obscure anti-Mohammed video, not on the real perpetrators, and the administration has stonewalled on that incident ever since, blocking access to the truth about Hillary Clinton’s role in the fiasco.

Now, with the Boston bombers, we are seeing the same approach—refusal to call it what it really was. Aided by their compatriots in the media, the administration tried to deflect attention away from the Islamic roots of this latest act. They hinted it might be “right-wing extremists” since the bombings took place on tax day. They were disappointed.

One almost expected another Benghazi explanation:

President Obama tells Americans not to rush to judgment. Fine. We haven’t. We can see clearly what’s happening. It’s the federal government that is blind:

Why the obfuscation? A longtime reporter who has excellent sources, Bill Gertz, has come up with the answer. Here’s what he has written recently:

U.S. officials familiar with the FBI’s counterterrorism training program and its controversial public outreach program to Muslim groups said FBI policy toward Islam—that it should not be used to describe those who seek to wage jihad or holy war against the United States and others they regard as infidels—has prevented both effective counterterrorism investigations and training.

The officials said the problem is that most field agents understand the nature of the threat but have been hamstrung by policies imposed by senior FBI leaders who are acting under orders of political appointees in the Obama administration, including Islamic advisers to the White House. The policies have prevented the FBI from conducting aggressive counterterrorism investigations of Islamic radicals or those who are in the process of being radicalized.

In other words, this is the official policy of the Obama administration: never blame the Islamists for what the Islamists do. The FBI is hampered by the political appointees, some of whom are Muslims, who actively prevent honest investigations.

There are some who will immediately jump on this to say that Obama is a Muslim. Well, if he is, he’s the most non-observant Muslim in the world. No, he is, and always has been, a convinced Marxist/anti-colonialist who sees Muslims as a group oppressed by the West. Every once in a while that attitude sneaks out for all to see, but he usually keeps it mostly under wraps, schooled as he is in the Saul Alinsky tactic of working from the inside to revolutionize the nation.

The Boston Marathon bombings are just another example to showcase the Obama worldview. This insidious, destructive worldview needs to be more fully exposed. Americans need to wake up and realize whom they have placed in the highest office in the land.

President Obama suffered a stunning defeat the other day when gun control legislation failed to pass Congress. His statement afterwards was vintage Obama: arrogant, whining, blaming. This has become a wearisome pattern these past four-plus years. The fact is, none of the proposed legislation would have done anything to prevent gun violence.

The Boston bombers had unregistered guns. Boston has strict gun control laws. That worked well, didn’t it? How many times do we have to be shown that criminals and terrorists don’t pay any attention to those laws? They only work against law-abiding citizens who wish to be able to defend themselves should the need arise.

The terrorists who set off the bombs at the marathon used pressure cookers, not guns. If we wish to follow the gun-control advocates’ logic, this is where we will need to go:

And of course we’ll be assured it’s not a threat to take away all cookware:

Did you notice that the president continues to have a hard time connecting dots? When the Ft. Hood shooter shouted “Allah akbar” when he went on his murderous rampage, we were told not to jump to conclusions as to his motives. The two Boston Marathon bombers were devout Muslims who took jihad seriously. YouTube videos and linked Internet sites from the the older brother make this abundantly clear. Yet, once again, we are cautioned not to assume their religion motivated them. We’re always, it seems, investigating “why” these terrorists do what they do. And this administration is loathe to ever admit the obvious truth:

This political correctness is going to be the death of us—literally—as Joe Biden would say.

Iran continues its persecution of Christians. The latest victim is Saeed Abedini, who is now an American citizen. Last week, he was sentenced to eight years in prison by a judge known for his particularly harsh sentences. What did Abedini do to run afoul of the regime? In the early years of this new century, when he was still an Iranian citizen, he converted to Christianity and became a leader in setting up a network of house churches. This, in Iran, is unlawful because those churches might help turn young people away from Islam and lead them to the Christian faith.

Since then, Abedini moved to the United States, became an American citizen, and currently lives in Idaho. He was back in Iran to help establish an orphanage. According to a news report, Iranian authorities pulled him off a bus last August and threw him into the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran. He has an Iranian lawyer, but he was given only one day to prepare his client’s defense. Stalin himself would have been impressed by this new version of the “show trial.”

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) represents his family in the U.S. The ACLJ has released this statement:

This is a real travesty—a mockery of justice. From the very beginning, Iranian authorities have lied about all aspects of this case, even releasing rumors of his expected release. Iran has not only abused its own laws, it has trampled on the fundamentals of human rights. We call on the citizens of the world to rise up in protest. We call on governments around the world to stand and defend Pastor Saeed.

I know the ACLJ needs to make such statements to publicize the case, but I’m not all that hopeful that either “citizens of the world” or “governments around the world” will care all that much. The U.S. State Department has called for Abedini’s release and is supposedly in contact with him, but given who is running the State Department these days, no one should expect any effective action there.

What we see in Iran is a microcosm of what is happening throughout the Islamic world. Christians are not allowed to worship freely. If they share their faith, they are persecuted. If anyone converts to the faith, that person is subject to the death penalty. The United States under its Constitution has never had such a policy toward religious minorities. What those minorities need to consider is that it was the Christian foundations of the country that led to religious liberty. Most understood, over time, that religious beliefs must be voluntary, not coerced by the government. No one becomes a Christian by government fiat. The only genuine Christianity stems from a personal encounter with the Living God.

It’s not politically correct to call Islam a threat. We’re only supposed to place the threat in a form of radical Islam that promotes jihad. However, I’m convinced the problem is deeper: all Islam is a deviation from Biblical truth and carries the seeds of violence within it. Some just take it more seriously than others.

Meanwhile, Christians need to pray for Saeed Abedini’s life. Those eight years of imprisonment may be only the beginning for him. A tyrannical regime based on Islamist ideology, such as the one running Iran, is not going to be reasonable. It will take an act of God for Abedini to be released.

The third, and final, presidential debate is tonight, and the topic is foreign policy. Most Americans, apparently, find the topic of lesser interest than domestic policy, yet is has a direct impact not only on pocketbook issues but our very survival as a nation. I guess what I’m saying is that we ought to be intensely interested in what transpires overseas.

America has always been affected by the ideologies and actions of foreign nations. In our first decade, with George Washington as president, our political scene was poisonously divided over the matter of the French Revolution. Founding Fathers who fought side by side in our war for independence accused each other of either wanting to reestablish British control over us or of seeking to set up guillotines on the street corners. It was only Washington’s steady hand and the general esteem in which he was held that got us through the crisis. It does matter who is in charge.

Closer to our day, in 1979, when Iranian radicals invaded the American embassy and took hostages, we didn’t have a strong leader. The Carter presidency shriveled under the stress and the crisis dragged out until 1981. The hostages were released on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Perhaps the Iranians had second thoughts about tangling with someone who exuded greater confidence.

One of Reagan’s signal achievements was the part he played in the demise of the Soviet Union. The pressure he put on that country via aid to Afghans who sought to remove Soviet troops from their homeland, and the announcement of his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to counter Soviet missiles aimed at the U.S. pushed the Soviets to the brink of economic extinction. When he then sat down with Gorbachev, he did so from a position of strength. The Cold War, which loomed over us for four long decades, ended not with a bang but with a whimper. Today, there are monuments to Ronald Reagan throughout the old Soviet-dominated Eastern European countries.

Yes, foreign policy matters, and it also matters who is in charge of it.

The Obama campaign had hoped to capitalize on the death of Osama bin Laden and their predetermined theme that Al Qaeda was diminished and on the run. The Libya debacle capsized that strategy. If they were to admit it was terrorism, and terrorism associated with Al Qaeda, it would seriously damage their credibility in the handling of a war on terror they never liked from the beginning. Remember how they changed the wording to “overseas contingency operations”? They’ve been adept at wordsmithing all along the way. When the gunman at the Ft. Hood massacre made it evident he carried out his act because of his radical Islamic ideology, the Obama administration swept that under the rug by calling it “workplace violence,” as if Islamic terrorism had nothing to do with it. I’m surprised they haven’t yet employed that terminology to the Libyan situation.

I wonder if that’s what we will hear tonight? At the very least, Obama is going to have to explain why he and his people took so long to call the attack on the consulate and the murder of our ambassador simply a demonstration against a movie trailer hardly anyone has seen. If he tries to deny that was the case, he has history against him:

The key to this debate will be whether Romney is up to the challenge of clearly exposing this hypocrisy. There are other issues as well—our relationship with Israel, the misnamed Arab Spring, violence in the Middle East in general, the failure of the “reset” button with Russia—that also should come up.

Foreign policy is vitally important, and it’s just as important who is leading America on the world stage. We are suffering through another Jimmy Carter Moment. Will another Ronald Reagan Moment follow?

Tonight is debate night. The topic is domestic policy. I almost wish the first debate would be on foreign policy because that has forced its way into the forefront lately. A number of things have occurred nearly simultaneously. The biggest event, of course, was the attack on our consulate in Libya that led to the murder of six Americans, one of whom was our ambassador to that country. We now know the consulate had been begging the administration for greater security for some time, but all requests were denied. We also now know it was a terrorist attack, not some spontaneous protest over some silly film. Yet Obama and his people continue to push that discredited story. The radicals don’t need an excuse to hate America and try to kill our citizens, but the administration keeps blaming our insensitivity to Islam instead. It’s flimsy, but it fits the Obama narrative and his worldview:

Then when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu sought a face-to-face with the president, he was rebuffed. Netanyahu performed a valuable service to the world with his speech at the UN, seeking to draw a line in the sand, so to speak, with reference to the Iranian nuclear program and that country’s publicly expressed desire to annihilate the Jewish state. Netanyahu challenged the world community—such as it is—to draw a “red line” and take a stand. What was our president doing in the meantime? His calendar was very full:

Even more recently, just in the past couple of days, the Spanish-speaking network Univision did some investigative reporting that revealed how the foolish Fast and Furious operation killed even more Mexicans than we originally thought. It’s a scandal that should be shouted from the housetops, along with the Libyan fiasco. Why does the mainstream media bury these stories and concentrate instead on manufactured Romney gaffes? It’s almost as if the president has some sort of mesmeric control over them:

None of this should be surprising anymore. There’s a history of denying reality with this administration. One cartoonist offers this little history lesson:

Another four years of this could signal the death of the republic.

I noted yesterday that I don’t really believe those polls showing the president to be far ahead of Romney. I believe they are bogus, constructed with skewed samples. However, it cannot be denied that this race is either tied or Obama is slightly ahead. Considering the damage he has done to the country during his tenure, the fact that he could even be in the running is disturbing. It’s a warning signal for us as a people. What have we become?

I’ve spent countless hours over the past three-plus years attempting to show how he has led us to cliffs both moral and financial. Lately, his foreign policy has come to the forefront: his disdain for Israel, sympathy for Islam, and utter cluelessness with respect to the true nature of our enemies. I question whether he can even identify our enemies.

We now know that within twenty-four hours of the attack on our consulate in Libya and the murder of our ambassador there that the administration had all the intel it needed to conclude this was a terrorist attack associated with Al Qaeda. Yet Obama sent out his UN ambassador, Susan Rice, to all the Sunday talk shows to declare unequivocally there was no terrorism involved. This was all born of a horrible video about the prophet Muhammed, we were told. It took many days for anyone in the administration to say otherwise; Obama himself still hasn’t been able to articulate the “new” perspective. In his speech to the UN earlier this week, his focus was once again on the video and how it was the real cause of the inflamed passions in the Muslim world.

In Obamaworld, one cannot criticize Islam. He will feign commitment to the First Amendment right to free speech while simultaneously seek to punish those who exercise it in areas where he disagrees.

If anyone wonders why he is doing this, all you have to consider is that it’s campaign season. He doesn’t want anything to rock his world as he goes “forward.” Surely his outreach to the Muslim world has worked, right? He has reset our bad relations with other countries, correct? He is the anti-Bush, so everyone now loves us. The reality upsets his paradigm. And when it comes to dealing with the reality, he is still voting “present,” which was his favorite vote as a state senator. He really is the empty chair Clint Eastwood mocked:

Yet the only way most of the electorate will know about these failures and lies is to watch Fox News or other alternative internet sources. The mainstream media, both on television and in print, ignore his failures. They are on his side and are working actively for his reelection.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney can be slandered mercilessly without the media objecting, although I have to give credit to one media person who did ask the president if any of his campaign ads might cross a line. His response?

I’m sure he’ll now correct those misperceptions and deal honestly with Romney’s real record. Keep watching.

If this president is reelected, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. It will reveal once and for all the spiritual poverty that dominates in our nation. At root, this is a spiritual crisis. Our problems, whether economic, moral, or in foreign relations, all stem from our rejection of the Biblical worldview. Electing Mitt Romney doesn’t solve our deeper problem, but it at least will give us a chance to regroup; it will be a second chance. We have to pray for God to be merciful to a people who don’t deserve His mercy. Fortunately for us, His nature is to show mercy whenever He can. May He do so again. May we have that second chance.