Accolades poured in for former President Barack Obama after he appeared to criticize left-wing activists who are quick to condemn fellow Americans who failed to satisfy strict ideological purity tests. But the folks on the latest edition of Fox Nation's "UNPC" were not buying it.
"I happen to have no regard for what Obama said," said "UNPC" co-host Tom Shillue. "I think it's being misportrayed. I give him absolutely no credit."
During a discussion at the Obama Foundation Summit held Tuesday at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the 44th president appeared to argue that the world is more complicated than people realize and urged politically active Americans to be practical if they want to be effective.
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“This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically 'woke,' and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama said.
Ben Domenech, the co-founder of The Federalist, agreed with Shillue.
'I'm happy to say that President Obama is a civil man who's been very polite and enduring...in his personal relations with lots of different politicians on both sides of the aisle.
"But we're also talking about a guy who literally sued the Little Sisters of the Poor to make them pay for abortions," said Domenech in reference to the controversial Obama Administration decision to file a lawsuit against the devout Catholic charity, which refused to abide by an Obamacare mandate to provide contraception coverage for their employees.
"Underneath it all, his policies were very consistent with what we see now as the animated factor for the 'woke' progressive left," continued Domenech.
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Shillue noted: "That's the thing is he knows that this culture war is a war. He wants to fight the bad guys, which he sees as the right, traditionalists, everything else and he's telling other leftists to stop attacking each other. We have to marshall our forces and sue the Little Sisters of the Poor."
In the course of his remarks, Obama also directly addressed the climate on college campuses.
"Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or use the wrong verb," Obama said, "then I can feel pretty good about myself, ‘Cause man did you see how 'woke' I was? I called you out...' That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”
Domenech argued that his comments ring hollow because the former president helped create the problem that he is now being credited with confronting.
"Everything that he did that had an impact helped raise the stakes of tribalism in the country. It helped make things more toxic," Domenech said. "We are living now in that post-apocalyptic reality for a lot of Americans who have traditional beliefs or who have deeply held faith that puts them in the same position as everyone else who gets canceled by the left every day online."
In conclusion, Domenech sought to remind people that Obama is well-known for a very divisive remark during the 2008 Democratic primary race against Hillary Clinton.
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"It's easy to forget that Barack Obama comment back in 2008 --when he was running for president about people clinging to their guns and their religion -- wasn't in the general election," Domenech said. "It was in the primary. It was when he was fighting Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania. He was talking about Democratic voters. And that's how you can know that what he's saying today on this stuff is not something that he actually lived as president. It's not consistent with the idea of him having a more expansive view of the way that we ought to treat each other in America because of the policies that he actually put into place as president."
To see the full discussion and more, join Fox Nation and watch the latest episode of "UNPC" today.
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Fox News' Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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