President Obama: “The work you’re doing is God’s work.”

James Freeman reports for the WSJ:

Last night in Washington President Obama addressed the national meeting of Organizing for Action, the outfit formerly known as his re-election campaign. Young OFA volunteers have been redeployed to the task of persuading Americans to sign up for new health insurance plans created by the President’s Affordable Care Act. Mr. Obama urged his young fans to sign up as many people as possible before this year’s March 31 enrollment deadline. “The work you’re doing is God’s work,” he said.

The fuller quote, as seen in the video on Politico (with, was:

We’re going to make a big push these last few weeks. I can talk, my team can talk here in Washington, but it’s not going to make as much of a difference as if you are out there making the case. The work you’re doing is God’s work. It is hard work.

That remark was followed by applause. Apparently belief in God is not dead in Washington, DC. However, for whatever reason, that section of the POTUS’s speech is not found included in the version posted on the White House website.

As Freeman notes, the remark is more than a bit irony-challenged:

The irony is particularly rich given that under a mandate issued under the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Obama is still trying to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their religious beliefs. The Little Sisters are nuns who run a nonprofit nursing home and hospice and are resisting the government’s order to pay for birth control, which they oppose.

So, is it “God’s work” simply because the intentions behind the Affordable Care Acts are supposedly pure and sincere, even if the affordability and quality of care involved are quite debatable? Or because Obama believes that whatever he does is divinely decreed and ordained? Or—and I’m only being partially facetious—because he is confusing The State with God? In all likelihood, it is probably just more loaded, even manipulative, rhetoric from a man (like most politicians, of course) who has proven willing to use language as needed to further his agendas.

It’s not the first time that Obama has informed left-wing activists of the divine nature of their political labors. Last April, in an address to Planned Parenthood, Obama described the pro-life legislation in states including North Dakota and Mississippi as “wrong” and “an assault on women’s rights”; he also played the chronological snobbery card, which is a favorite among those who assume their moral superiority to anyone born before them (never thinking, apparently, how that same card might eventually haunt them in their later years):

So the fact is, after decades of progress, there’s still those who want to turn back the clock to policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century.  And they’ve been involved in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women’s health.

And then he concluded the speech by saying, “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.” Some of my thoughts on that statement can be found here.