June 12, 2013
americanthinker.com
By By Geoffrey P. Hunt
President Obama and his people deserve at least one accolade: they have perfected lying into an art form.
Is anyone in Obama's closest orbit a truth-teller?
Jay Carney, press secretary, lied about the Benghazi talking points, the effects of the federal budget sequestration, and Eric Holder;
Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, a "congenital liar" according to the late William Safire in a 1996 NY Times column, lied to Congress about her role in the Benghazi security breach, and subsequent cover-up;
Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN, lied to the American people on five successive TV news-interview shows about a video provoking the Benghazi attacks; Eric Holder, Attorney General, lied to Congress and to federal judges about his role and intentions in obtaining the surveillance and wiretapping authorization for journalist James Rosen;
Douglas Schulman, IRS Commissioner, lied to Congress about the IRS not targeting opponents and political enemies of the Obama administration;
James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, lied to Congress about NSA not eavesdropping and collecting phone records and emails from millions of Americans;
Lisa Jackson , EPA Administrator, used at least one alias to avoid scrutiny by Congress;
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Heath and Human Services lied about her secret government email accounts, and lied about her soliciting health insurance companies for illegal fund-raising, (and has lied about nearly every major provision in ObamaCare);
Arnie Duncan Secretary of Education, lied about the federal budget sequestration causing mass layoffs of teachers;
Janet Napolitano Director of Homeland Security and Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation both lied about sequestration causing massive air travel delays;
Nancy Pelosi, previous Speaker of the House, lied about provisions in ObamaCare and about whether she was briefed about water boarding;
Harry Reid, US Senate Majority Leader, lied about deficit reduction provisions embedded in non-existent budget resolutions and about Mitt Romney's tax returns.
Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior and his Energy Czar Carol Browner lied about and used fraudulent claims to impose an offshore drilling ban in the wake of the BP oil spill, then were rebuked by a federal judge.
If others in Obama's cabinet or inner circle haven't been caught lying, it may be only because they've kept their mouths shut.
Yet none of Obama's apprentices can match the master. Obama is an incontinent bladder of lies, deceptions, and red herrings gushing virtually non-stop whether in press conferences, campaign speeches, the State of the Union addresses, or remarks to foreign dignitaries.
Stig Severinsen, who holds the world record for holding his breath under water for 22 minutes, couldn't endure long enough for the time needed to recite all of Obama's lies. Obama's catalog of lies is truly astonishing:
Obama's lying about the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United , about Al Qaeda "on the run," about "deficits shrinking," about Republicans initiating sequestration, about the Benghazi attacks incited by a video, about "you can keep your health plan and your doctor," about private sales of hand guns, and the latest about "we believe in the free market; we believe in a light touch when it comes to regulations," is more than political rhetoric or partisan posturing. Lying is a way of life; truth seems untouchable, toxic, red hot radioactive to Obama and his minions.
Do you remember in 2009 when South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" as Obama declared in a major address to Congress that illegal aliens wouldn't get government paid health care? When in modern history has a president's lying provoked such a spontaneous outburst in real time? And barely months into his first term?
Lying has many shades; Obama has perfected the bald-faced type, the most jarring, with a repetition that files down the senses, grinds away at outrage.
Obama isn't the only occupant of the White House to have incorporated brazen lying into his daily habits. Bill Clinton was an accomplished liar, notably in denial of his own personal transgressions. For Clinton lying to a grand jury was just like any other conversation. LBJ lied about Vietnam; yet Johnson the ultimate political manipulator knew he had misled the American people thus stood down from re-election.
Harry Truman wasn't shy about describing Richard Nixon's body of lies, of which Watergate was the watershed: "Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in."
No one likes to be called a liar; it is such a crude Saxon label, and so dispositive; dissembler only a slightly more graceful epithet. Instead, being called an artful dodger would be far more becoming; even better to acquire a more sophisticated Latinate derivative, prevaricator.
More elusive variations on the straight-up unadorned and unvarnished lie have now become the norm, from subtle inflections to translucent mutations. Untruths, partial truths, prevarications, sleights-of-hand, obfuscations, fabrications, distortions, misrepresentations, mistaken attributions, convenient amnesia, and contingent truths, all forms of dishonesty that seem to be accepted political discourse. They all define Obama's culture of deceit and betrayal of the American people.
I suppose serial lying, the pathological sort, is a form of sustained self-deception and insecurity sometimes accompanied by identity theft and fabrication of one's resume. When lying becomes commonplace, truth telling is hard to recognize, and then so exceptional as impossible to be authentic. And when lying is the norm, greeted not only with impunity, but affection, why tell the truth?
When Obama or any of his minions speak, do you expect impartial information, an honest appraisal, or objective analysis? No, when Obama speaks, fact-checkers are forced into overdrive.
As lying becomes the default font, the most egregious practitioners collect the highest rewards. To wit: Susan Rice, a spectacular fivefold liar as US Ambassador to the UN, has now been rewarded by the president to be National Security Advisor, for her laying down the scent to divert the beagles and hounds in hot pursuit of the truth about Benghazi.
One explanation for Obama's compulsive lying comes from the accounts of military deception in WWII written in 1975 by Anthony Cave Brown about Winston Churchill, who remarked to Stalin at Yalta: "In wartime, truth is so precious, she should be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Obama, the reparations crusader, sees himself at war. At war with a litany of oppressors in his own nation who have seized his imagination since he was a small boy. Yet what core of truth is he protecting? Well, it is the truth about himself and his agenda that dare not be exposed, much less admitted.
Enablers and apologists have enthusiastically embraced Obama's culture of deceit. Yet when they realize that they too are the enemy, will they discover a bodyguard of lies protects no one?
