An eRumor which was confirmed as true in August 2013 by Snopes, but originally started in 2004, then started making the rounds again in May 2014, is now more relevant than ever before.
Henry Louis Mencken, a prominent newspaperman and political commentator during the first half of the 20th century, wrote an article for Baltimore Evening Sun on 26 July 1920 titled "Bayard vs. Lionheart," which stated the following:
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
The new 2014 meme has been altered to show the quote as "As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron."
While the first rounds of this "prophecy" were emailed out during the Bush presidency, looking through the Obama presidency offers a variety of examples that have many believing these prophetic words from Mencken have finally come true in reality..... examples include the multiple instances when scandal has rocked the Obama administration, yet Obama and his talking heads insisted he and/or his administration only "found out about it from the news," or was unaware, or was taken off guard by (insert scandal here).
Examples include:
1.) NSA spying on foriegn leaders: President Obama news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan (5/16/2013): "I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the I.G. report before the I.G. report had been leaked through press -- through the press." 2) VA waiting list scandal where Jay Carney claimed "You mean the specific allegations that I think were reported first by your news network out of Phoenix, I believe. We learned about them through the reports. I will double check if that is not the case. But that is when we learned about them and that is when I understand Secretary Shinseki learned about them, and he immediately took the action that he has taken." 3.) IRS targeting scandal where Obama in a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Cameron (May 13, 2013) said ""Well, let me take the IRS situation first. I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this. I think it was on Friday." 4.) DOJ obtaining AP phone records and during a WH press briefing Jay Carney was asked when Obama found out about it, where Carney claimed "Yesterday. Let me just be clear. We don’t have any independent knowledge of that. He found out about the news reports yesterday on the road. 5.) Fast and Furious scandal where Jay Carney stated during a White House press briefing ""The president did not know about this tactic until he heard about it through the media; the attorney general did not know about it." 6.) Air Force One fly over in Manhattan, when Obama was asked about it, he said " It was a mistake, as was -- as was stated. It was something we found out about along with all of you and it will not happen again. Thank you."
The most recent example of this type of "moronic" behavior was included in a report by All News PipeLine this morning, where Obama claimed he had not been briefed on the rise of ISIS and the threat the terror group posed, contrary to assertions from intelligence services that they had been sending him briefs for over a year, warning of those dangers..... to which Lt. Col. Ralph Peters offered some harsh criticisms and declared that Barack Obama has a "psychological problem."
Then we have Obama's Gaffe-ridden presidency, shown in the video below, which adds depth to the charge that finally, the 94 year old prophecy of H. L. Mencken, has indeed, been proven true.
