I don’t expect much from the Religious Right … and I expect even less from the likes of the AFA’s Bryan Fischer. But sometimes I still have to marvel at the conspiracies that he is able to dream up, like his new claim that President Obama has been subtly “flipping off” his enemies:
The president developed a habit during the campaign of subtly flipping people off by scratching his face with his middle finger … Mr. Obama has been repeatedly videotaped using this form of vulgarity when talking to or about Hillary Clinton or other political enemies. He used the technique to flip off Hillary Clinton, a Hillary Clinton supporter (Mayor John Callahan of Bethelehm, PA), John McCain, and the entire Republican party.
He can, of course, maintain plausible deniability, by saying he was just scratching an itch, but think about it: who naturally scratches his face with his middle finger? Try it yourself, and you’ll see what I mean.
It has happened too often and too strategically to be passed off as simple coincidence. It only seems to happen when he is speaking to or about someone for whom he has particular contempt …
If this indeed is what is happening, it reveals something dark and thuggish about the president’s character, something far beneath the dignity of the office. The president is beginning to remind me of a juvenile delinquent as much as anything else: immaturity, an absence of moral values, and a perverse delight in destroying things (like the American economy) just for the pleasure of it.
If you are a rational person, you see the President scratching his face at the 2:19 mark – but if you are the the director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy for the American Family Association, you see him giving Jake Tapper “the finger”:
