Obama's mask

When I was about 25 and living in Cambridge, Mass., I had just taken a job in a bookstore in Central Square when, during my very first day on the job, I was held up at gunpoint.

I remember vividly how I felt the instant I saw the man standing in front of the checkout counter, ski mask pulled over his face, pointing his handgun at me.

My reaction was very common: For a fleeting second or two, my mind raced as I somehow thought what was happening was something other than what it was – like a joke or a prank.

Why did my mind momentarily deny the reality staring me in the face? Because this particular reality was foreign to me, something I had never before encountered or even thought much about: Out of nowhere, a man in the grip of dark forces had stepped into my personal space and was threatening my life. It simply wasn't within my experience or psyche to instantly connect this odd, slightly clownish figure standing in front of me with profound evil.

As I said, this is common. How often, when reading about a school mass-shooting or other horrendous crime, have you heard eyewitnesses say, "At first, we thought it was a joke," or, "I thought someone was setting off firecrackers," or even, "I thought maybe it was a rehearsal for a drama scene"? Our minds, at least for a moment, reach instinctively for a familiar, safe and sane explanation when utter insanity invades our personal world.

Hold on to that thought.

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Right now, a year and a half after Barack Obama's election as president, many Americans are experiencing what I experienced a second and a half after being confronted by an armed robber. Maybe in the broad sweep of history, years are like seconds. Or, perhaps we've all just been so indoctrinated and confused by leftist education, media and culture that it takes a while to recognize a smiling revolutionary for what he really is. In any event, for millions of us, the two seconds of denial and wishful thinking are ending as we approach the November midterms, while finally coming to grips with the outrageous reality staring us in the face:

We're being robbed. Though we've tried in vain to view what's happening as something other than what it is, the truth is, our wealth, our liberty, our lives, our happiness – and our country itself – are being stolen. If you think that's even a slight exaggeration, you really haven't been paying attention.

Obama and the far-left leaders of Congress are standing before us, not with ski masks, but with the masks of arrogant deceivers. They smile, they reassure, they act as though they care about us – but it's all one big cynical pretense. Virtually everything they do, and want to do, is irrational and destructive, violating the laws of the land, of economics and of common sense. They want to dramatically raise taxes during a deep recession. They want to make your electricity bill "skyrocket" (to use Obama's word). They want to leave our children with a level of debt that is, quite literally, impossible to repay. They want to leave America's southern border unprotected, even though there's a full-scale invasion of our nation from the South, not to mention a full-scale drug-war raging just across the border, with tens of thousands dying – yes, you read it right, tens of thousands.

Each new Obama appointment brings further outrage: Obama's "safe schools" czar, Kevin Jennings, founder of the gay activist group Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, is notorious for promoting homosexuality in schools! Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the head of our taxing system, is a tax cheat! Labor Secretary Hilda Solis goes on national TV to tell illegal aliens, if they're not getting paid fairly by their American employer, to contact her and she'll help them! John Morton, the Department of Homeland Security's top man for immigration enforcement, says he doesn't want to prosecute illegal aliens referred to his agency by Arizona authorities!

No wonder Pulitzer-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer decries "the arrogance and near-lawlessness of this administration," and former congressman and GOP presidential candidate Tom Tancredo calls Obama – seemingly intent on deconstructing America in every way – "a dedicated Marxist."

In this generation, we simply haven't had to face this kind of treachery in the highest levels of government – nothing even close. Hence the delayed recognition of reality. But it's time we realized the man with the mask standing in front of us is not a normal customer. He means to take our hard-earned money by hook or by crook and "redistribute" it – to his friends and supporters.

So, what do we do about the masked man and his congressional gang of thieves?

Well, after my holdup, I dashed out the door of the bookstore and ran down Massachusetts Ave. chasing after the robber, flagging down a cop I saw across the street – but the perpetrator got away. And I couldn't identify him from the books of mug shots at the Cambridge Police Department, either (no surprise there, since my guy was wearing a ski mask!). In the end, the police never identified or caught him.

However, you and I do know the people who are holding us up right now in Washington. We just need to remove as many of them from Congress as possible this November – if not to jail, at least to a nice, long retirement.