Obama’s ‘Empty Chair’

Originally posted at American Thinker.

At the 2012 Republican Convention, Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood addressed Barack Obama by speaking to an empty chair. The left was peeved, and the Obama campaign was greatly offended.

Four years later, for the 2016 State of the Union address, Obama, the Teleprompter Thespian, plans to emulate Eastwood’s stunt.  The difference is that instead of the sort of exploitation of the living the president typically indulges in, this time, as a prop, Obama will exploit the dead by leaving an empty chair in the First Lady’s skybox to represent those killed by gun violence.

Based on what he had to say to 20,000 participants during a recent Organizing for Action conference call, the empty chair is necessary because the president feels, although deceased, victims of gun violence need to be “seen and understood.”

Americans already know that, as part of his 8-year repertoire, this president never hesitates to employ manipulation to further policy initiatives. That’s why, in his last State of the Union address, Obama will stress that if one loses a life because of a gun it “means something to this country.”

So, although the vacant seat next to FLOTUS could be a safe spot to place one of her $5,000 designer handbags — it’s not.  Instead, the empty chair will “tell [victim’s] stories and honor their memory… [and] remind every single one of our representatives that it’s their responsibility to do something.”

Speaking of representatives, during this joint session, Obama probably won’t be taking any opportunities to thank the armed security for protecting and preserving the lives of every politician occupying a filled seat in the House chamber.

And while Obama’s fake show will undoubtedly be about as heartrending as his recent display of crocodile tears, one thing’s for certain, the people the president won’t refer to in his memorial are those who have died as a result of progressive ideals and goals being advanced.

Take, for instance, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry — it’s unlikely that Obama will venerate Brian’s death at the State of the Union. Brian was shot and killed in 2010 with a gun provided to Mexican drug cartels by the Obama administration’s failed Fast and Furious ATF gun-walking effort.

Is it important to Barack Obama that the death of Brian Terry be “seen and understood?”  According to the president, does Brian’s premature death “mean something to this country?”

Barack Obama will be clear about how he feels about empty chairs, but where’s his memorial to the empty boots that belonged to Navy SEAL “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and Chris’s friend Chad Littlefield, both of whom were shot in cold blood by a former Marine at a shooting range?

Despite Chris Kyle’s service to this nation, Obama never acknowledged his death, nor did he find the time to put his golf clubs down long enough to attend Kyle’s funeral.

So does the death of military heroes like Chris Kyle, SEAL Team 6, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who died in Benghazi, and every soldier whose blood has been poured out in vain, thanks to Obama’s failed policies, ‘mean something’ to this Commander-in-Chief or not?

How about Obama including in his memorial empty chair show every victim of an illegal alien who currently is not sitting in a chair, but because of open borders and lax immigration policy, lies in a grave?

Why not mention victims like Kate Steinle, the 32-year-old woman who, while strolling on Pier 14 in San Francisco with her father Jim, was shot in the back with a stolen .40 caliber handgun, by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal felon who had been deported five times and was still wandering around loose in a sanctuary city?

Then again, based on his immigration stance, and his constant excuse-making for radical Islam, during the SOTU, it might be in the president’s best interest to avoid mentioning the violent extremists skulking around in the U.S. killing cops in the name of Allah, mowing down unarmed military, and blowing away defenseless citizens.

Moreover, in advance, it might be best for Obama not to concede to the empty chairs that will be needed to accommodate the deaths resulting from his dogged effort to impose an influx of ISIS-infiltrated refugees upon the Americans people.

In the meantime, when honoring and lamenting the losses caused by guns in Charleston, Sandy Hook, Oak Creek, Tucson, and Aurora, to avoid looking like a complete fraud, Obama best disremember the gun violence perpetrated on the victims of Nidal Hasan in the Fort Hood massacre, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez in Chattanooga, and the fatalities visited upon the 14 people in San Bernardino by the K-1 Visa, and “Jihadi Bride,” Tashfeen Malik.

And amid the man’s constant speechifying, why hasn’t Barack Obama ever pointed to all the empty cribs?

Because this president doesn’t want the 4,000 victims a day killed in abortion clinics, with his approval, to be “seen and understood.” Nor does Planned Parenthood’s biggest defender want any of us to understand the tremendous impact the absence of 60 million human beings “means… to this country.”

That’s why, when a tearful Obama dramatically points to the empty chair in the Special People Sky Box at the State of the Union address, it’s important for Americans to remember that the uninhabited seat represents a small, select minority consisting of dead Americans whose demise has value only because their death advances the president’s agenda.

Either way, a stadium full of empty chairs is not big enough to accommodate all of Barack Obama’s empty rhetoric.

That’s why, at this year’s SOTU, murdered border patrol agents and victims killed in the name of Islam will not be esteemed. Neither will the cops shot in the head by a black man named Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, nor the innocent citizens slain by illegals currently walking the streets of America with Barack Obama’s approval.