"I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth," President Barack Obama told an Ohio audience this week, implicitly contrasting his up-by-affirmative-action life to that of his Republican rival Governor Mitt Romney, son of a prosperous automobile company executive and Michigan Governor.
Trouble is, President Obama as a young man had a silver spoon not in his mouth but up his nose.
In his precocious 1995 autobiography "Dreams From My Father," Mr. Obama told of how he did "a little blow, when [I] could afford it" (page 93 of the 2004 paperback edition).
"Blow" is street slang for cocaine, which in fashionable left-liberal circles has traditionally been inhaled directly into the nostrils from a tiny spoon, often silver, often worn as part of a necklace.
It would be wise for Obama to drop any future references to silver spoons.
This could be the second time in a week that his autobiography has come back to bite President Obama.
For months Obama has had his attack dogs nipping at Mr. Romney's heels over a trip long ago in which the Massachusetts governor transported the family dog in a carrier on the roof of his car.
Days ago the Daily Caller, followed quickly by ABC's best reporter Jake Tapper, told of a passage in "Dreams From My Father" in which President Obama describes his experience eating dog meat as a child in Indonesia.
Obama describes the flesh of "man's best friend" as "tough."
Imagine that you are a dog. Would you prefer to vote for someone who drove your kind around the roof of a car in a safe carrier, an experience the Romney family says the dog enjoyed?
Or would you vote instead for someone who enjoyed feasting on the body of a fellow dog killed for its meat?
It gives the idea of Obama chowing down a hot dog a whole new meaning.
And it could mark the end of Obama operatives making any further dog statements between now and the November elections.
In fairness to President Obama, some scholars doubt that he wrote his autobiography. It is written with a literary skill far beyond anything else from his pen. Some researchers find striking similarities between its language and style and that found in books by Obama associate Bill Ayers, a founder of the radical left Weather Underground.
Elsewhere in looney liberal land this week, MSNBC program host Martin Bashir on Thursday told his audience that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is going to hell.
The reason, said Bashir, is that the teachings of Romney's own faith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a.k.a. the Mormons, hold that lying is a damnable sin. Romney, according to Bashir, has told lies.
In writing of this at the website RealClearPolitics.com, Ian Schwartz concluded: "One wonders why Bashir dragged Mormonism into his condemnation of Romney when all religions, such as Islam, forbid the practice of lying."
As this column explained and documented on Sept. 22, 2006, Shia Islam does not universally condemn lying.
Certain kinds of lying are readily permitted, even encouraged, under the Shiite doctrines their theologians call al-Taqiyya and Tu-Quoque. A Shia Muslim may lie to escape from harm because of his faith, as well as to advance the cause of Islam.
We need to remember this whenever politicians here say we should negotiate in good faith with the Shiite theocratic and apocalyptic rulers of Iran who are now rushing to complete their first nuclear weapon.
Their religion's "license to lie" may, indeed, lead the world into a hell of nuclear terrorism.
On another front, this column agrees with President Obama that it is unfair for billionaire Warren Buffett to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Where we disagree is that Obama wants to equalize things by increasing taxes on millionaires. This column instead would achieve equality by letting Mr. Buffett's secretary — and all the rest of us — pay the same low tax rate Warren Buffett does.
Lowell Ponte is co-author, with Craig R. Smith, of "Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse"; "The Inflation Deception: Six Ways Government Tricks Us . . . And Seven Ways to Stop It"; and "Re-Making Money: Ways to Restore America's Optimistic Golden Age." For a limited time, you can get a free copy of "The Inflation Deception" by calling 800-630-1494. Read more reports from Lowell Ponte — Click Here Now.
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