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Glenn's Show Prep

Screwed On a Technicality: John Kasich's Underhanded Strategy

March 18, 2016
Jon Boldt

Writer

Steven Crowder, comedian and founder of LouderWithCrowder.com, brought a little levity to The Glenn Beck Program on Thursday. While Glenn apologized for his choice words about John Kasich the previous day, Steven enlightened the guys with just how underhanded the presidential candidate actually is.

"What really bothered me is the phoniness. He says, 'I'm not going to take the low road to the highest office in the land,'" Crowder said. "What? Your only possible path to victory is to screw somebody on a technicality. There couldn't be a more greasy, underhanded low road, and he plays the nice guy card."

Now that he told us how he really feels, does Crowder think Kasich stands much of a chance the rest of the way?

"No, nobody wants John Kasich. You know, you get past the ad hominem. We've talked about this, with the haircut and the kind of hunch. He looks like a baby seal caught in a BP oil spill. He's just very off-putting, but he's dishonest," Crowder said.

Guess not.

Check out the rest of the interview below to get your daily dose of laughter. After all, in this sickening election, laughter might not just be the best medicine --- it could be the only medicine.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Steven Crowder from LouderwithCrowder.com is on with us now.  

Steven, how are you, sir?

STEVEN:  Thanks for having me.  You know, you've seen this week.  We're all doing the same.

(chuckling)

GLENN:  I can't -- I can't figure out if John Kasich is -- has done a deal with someone, if he's just delusional.  I watched him win, and I think he really actually thought he won something big on Tuesday.

STEVEN:  John Kasich, he's like party guest who just never leaves, only he wasn't invited.  Nobody invited John Kasich.  You're cleaning up.  You're trying to wrap it up.  And he's like, all right (inaudible) with you guys.  Of course, John Kasich would.  No one wants him around.

What really bothers me about him Glenn is the phoniness.  So it was one thing to say, well, maybe he's a good guy, and he's delusional.  His winning Ohio with the confetti and the fireworks and the rockettes came up.  I mean, it was like winning the cup in Mario Kart.  I couldn't believe how big of a celebration this guy had.  What really bothered me is the phoniness.  He says, "I'm not going to take the low road to the highest office in the land."

What?  Your only possible path to victory is to screw somebody on a technicality.  There couldn't be a more greasy, underhanded low road, and he plays the nice guy card.

(laughter)

GLENN:  I haven't looked at it that way, but you're exactly right.  There is no way for him to take the upper hand and the high road and win.  He's got to knife somebody in the back.

STEVEN:  Exactly.  There's no way -- I know we push the common format.  That's the obvious joke.  But it's mathematically impossible for him to win.  The only way is if he gets to some kind of a brokered convention, and people screw the voters.  

No, nobody wants John Kasich.  You know, you get past the ad hominem.  We've talked about this, with the haircut and the kind of hunch.  He looks like a baby seal caught in a BP oil spill.  He's just very offputting, but he's dishonest.

(chuckling)

GLENN:  Do you think he cut a deal with Donald Trump or anybody?  Because I've heard -- have you guys heard those conspiracies that he's only in it -- he's got a deal with Donald Trump?

PAT:  Yeah.

GLENN:  You think he cut a deal like Ben Carson did?

STEVEN:  I don't even think Ben Carson cut a deal.  I really don't.  And I know I sound naive.  And I really like Ben Carson as a good guy.  And I still want to believe he's a good guy.  I think he's somebody who is very bright.  But he's not necessarily politically savvy.  And I think if you read his book, and I've read his book, he wants to believe the best in people and he's very forgiving.  And I think he just bought it.  I think he probably sat Donald Trump down and said, "You know, just not be so decisive.  And I need to know that you won't, for example, call another candidate a pedophile."

And Donald Trump just said, "I won't do it."  And he said, "Good enough for me."  And he just endorsed him.

(laughter)

STU:  Where was that treatment with Cruz though?  He thinks Cruz is Satan, and Cruz didn't even do anything.

STEVEN:  Did he say that about Cruz?  I didn't read that.  I know John Boehner did.

STU:  He didn't actually call him Satan.  But, you know, he came out and was calling him a liar.  He said that he was doing all these dirty tricks.  Then Cruz apologized to him.  He -- he then -- Cruz offered to meet with him.

GLENN:  Yeah, he apologized twice.

STU:  He would not --

GLENN:  Wouldn't forgive him.  Wouldn't forgive him.

STEVEN:  Well, okay.  Then that obviously changes the game.

I mean, if you're Ben Carson, it's kind of like when you have a guy who you know who is just in this marriage and his kids don't respect him.  Everybody has that dad in the flock.  And he's just miserable when he sinks back into his chair.  

You kind of get that sense with Ben Carson.  He openly said, "If there were another scenario, I would endorse someone else.  But there wasn't, so I'm picking Donald Trump."  It doesn't really make sense as far as the leap.  I didn't know that about -- I know obviously John Boehner literally called Ted Cruz Lucifer.  So I wanted to make sure that Ben Carson didn't hop on that train.  He might.

I think the guy is just a nice kind of go-along guy.  And he might have been in the room, and John Boehner says, "Hey, Ted Cruz is Lucifer."  And Ben Carson could just say, "Okay.  I'll go with that."

GLENN:  Let me ask you this:  I was watching a speech with Bernie Sanders.  And I get the fact that Bernie Sanders is talking about, you know, socialism and it's a totally new track and, you know, it's exciting and everything else.

But I'm watching the crowd that's standing behind him.  And I'm thinking to myself, the whole time I'm watching, the guy could drop dead of a heart attack in the middle of his speech, and I don't know if anyone thinks that he could live long enough for the four years that he would be in office.  And I don't know what people see in him as a person, other than he's got this socialist thing going for him.

Who are the people that are voting for Bernie Sanders?  Really?

STEVEN:  It's funny that you bring that up, though.  Because remember Matt Damon talking about the actuary tables, as it related to John McCain.  And here you have Bernie Sanders -- true story, you know, I did that video at the rally.  We actually have like a Christmas roll that we just figure we'll roll out sometime.  It's about two and a half minutes of Bernie Sanders mid-speech going -- just coughing and making bizarre noises.  Like you think he'll just want to keel over.  Kind of like with Hillary Clinton, they whittled down the line to 13 minutes.  We just couldn't whittle it down.  Every couple of minutes, Bernie was (coughing).  All the time.  I mean, I swear to you.  I have the footage.  And we couldn't fit it in, it was too much.

You know, we wrote about this on the site.  And I have a writer, Courtney, who is my main editor.  So I've written about this from a male perspective.  And as a woman, she wrote a great piece on it.  I would highly recommend people read it.  She's getting a lot of flak about how, if you are a Bernie Sanders voter, if you believe it's the government's job to provide for you, if you don't believe you can do it on your own, you're not a man.  You're not a man I can respect.

And that's something I've always felt.  It really is hard in 2016 to be a male.  And when I say be a man, I don't mean drinking beer and burping.  There are people who do that, and they abuse their wives.  There are people who are macho, and they're horrible men.  I'm talking about a man who can lead his family, a man who believes that he can provide for his kids.  

That's what makes someone a man:  Their families, their communities, people under their tutelage are flourishing.  People voting for Bernie Sanders don't believe they can do it.  They'll tell you it's out of their control.  The system is rigged against them.  And it's someone else's job to pay for it.  

So we wrote about that on the site.  Got a big reaction.  It really is -- you know, men have been shamed because of just who they are.  Right?  Your male privilege.  Well, Bernie Sanders exemplifies the antithesis of that.  It is radically anti-rugged individualism to believe that you have no control over your destiny, but the 72-year-old Jewish socialist is going to fix it to you.  That's not happening.

GLENN:  So you're saying you cannot be a man if you're standing on the stage or if you're voting for him; even if you have the correct genitalia, you're not really a man?

STEVEN:  I don't know now.  The new rules and Caitlin Jenner still carrying around the equipment but is a woman, so your guess is as good as mine.  But the spirit is that.  Yeah.

GLENN:  Tell me about the Buzzfeed thing.  Because you did -- you went around -- you wrote about a black guy dressed as a preppie for a week to prove microaggressions.  Tell me about this.

STEVEN:  Buzzfeed.  I can hear Stu.  Did Stu or Pat make a reference article?  It seems that not many conservatives saw it.

STU:  Maybe I didn't.  

STEVEN:  It's huge.  It's all over Buzzfeed.  It's this black guy.  And he writes microaggression.  Black lives matter.  He talks about dressing nicely and sort of dressing down.  You know, in sweatpants and a hoodie.  And talking about how people treat him differently.  So the big examples of discrimination are when he was dressed in a suit and tie, you know, the bus drivers were nicer to him.  The people at the cleaners were nice to him.  People lent him some change; whereas, when he was dressed in sweatpants and a baggy hoodie, they didn't treat him very well.  

Now, he writes this, and his conclusion is racism.  And so I read, and I just said, "This proves the opposite."  Listen, if someone hates black people, you're not tricking them out with a skinny tie.  Okay?  Like, isn't this wonderful?  You're a black guy, you put on a blazer, and nobody cares.

But apparently he thought this was proof that if you treat someone who dresses nicely, well, you're a racist.  And I don't go into Banana Republic in sweatpants.  They look at me funny.  So I just don't go into Banana Republic anymore because I only wear sweatpants.

STU:  But you're right, it actually proves the exact opposite.

GLENN:  The exact opposite.

STU:  If you are a person who walks around -- if you're intimidated by a black person in a suit, for example, and you are not intimidated by a white person in a gang attire, then you're racist.

STEVEN:  Right.

STU:  But that's different.  That's a totally different story.

STEVEN:  Right.

STU:  It's based on the dress.  It's based on -- if you're going down and you have a bunch of people coming at you, looking like Eminem in their prime, you might very well be intimidated.  That doesn't make you racist against whites.

STEVEN:  Eminem.  At least Eminem had a prime.  What about my prime?  

Listen.  You could take Glenn, right?  Take off the cardigan.  Okay.  Get rid of the scruff there that he has going.  And if you put him in no-belted prison pants and, you know, a giant red hoodie that looks like he's not staying neutral.  He's in the Bloods.  And you walk him down the streets of Inglewood, I'm going to walk on the other side of the street.  So that gives you some context.  And that's exactly what this guy proved.

GLENN:  I think there's a slam in there someplace.  I'm just not sure exactly where it is.

STU:  Yeah.  He's using you as the least threatening --

GLENN:  I know.  Steven Crowder.  LouderwithCrowder.com.  LouderwithCrowder.com.  Thanks, Steven.  We'll talk to you again.

Featured Image: Screenshot from YouTube

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.