To understand the fundamental fraudulence of Barack Obama, consider just one issue: his relationship with lobbyists.
In arguably the most important speech of the campaign, the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa in 2007, Obama said, “[Lobbyists] have not funded my campaign, they will not work in my White House. ” Upon taking office, Obama made quite a show of announcing new ethics rules barring lobbyists from working in the administration on issues that fell under their lobbying bailiwick. Yet Obama immediately allowed waivers for lobbyists working on issues that fell under their lobbying bailiwick.
But that’s not all. During the 2008 campaign, Obama said this:
I intend to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over, that they had not funded my campaigns, and from my first day as president, I will launch the most sweeping ethics reform in U.S. history. We will make government more open, more accountable and more responsive to the problems of the American people.
When speaking about the destructive power of lobbyists in a town hall meeting in Bristol, Virginia, Obama was emphatic: “We are going to change how Washington works. They will not run our party. They will not run our White House. They will not drown out the views of the American people.” And in August, 2008, Obama said this: “I suffer from the same original sin of all politicians, which is we’ve got to raise money. But my argument has been and will continue to be that the disproportionate influence of lobbyists and special interest is a problem in Washington and in state capitals.”
Now let’s judge Obama’s words against his actions, with the help of a Washington Post story.
Here’s how the story begins:
Before 9 a.m., a group of lobbyists began showing up at the White House security gates with the chief executives of their companies, all of whom serve on President Obama’s jobs council, to be checked in for a roundtable with the president. At 1 p.m., a dozen representatives from the meat industry arrived for a briefing in the New Executive Office Building. At 3 p.m., a handful of lobbyists were lining up for a ceremony honoring the 2011 World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals. And at 4 p.m., a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs arrived in the Old Executive Office Building for a meeting with Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
It was an unremarkable January day, with a steady stream of lobbyists among the thousands of daily visitors to the White House and the surrounding executive office buildings, according to a Washington Post analysis of visitor logs released by the administration… The visitor logs for Jan. 17 – one of the most recent days available – show that the lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access.
Now hypocrisy is not an unknown quality in a politician. But what sets Obama apart from almost everyone else is the lengths Obama goes to in order to portray himself as morally superior to the rest of the political class even as he acts in ways that completely shatter his claims. He reminds me of the minister who cannot help from condemning the very sin to which he is beholden. And so as recently as last month Obama was saying, “A lot of folks see the amounts of money that are being spent and the special interests that dominate and the lobbyists that always have access, and they say to themselves, maybe I don’t count.”
What’s impossible to know is the degree to which Obama is alarmingly cynical or the degree to which he is alarmingly self-deluded. Whatever the case, he is a man whose words mean nothing. Nothing at all.
100% agree with this article
Of course his words mean nothing, he believes he is so intellectually superior that he can claim both sides of an argument and be right both times. Worse he looks us in they eye and lies, usually preceded with "let me be clear". It also appears that he is not the man he said he was, given his invented past. So everything he tells us he is, is a contrivance to fit his narcissistic view that he is actually brilliant and posses common sense based on his wealth of experience.
New code of ETHICS for the RIGHT. The left is exempt by LAW!
For anybody who's been paying attention the last 4 years this is not a surprise. However, to watch the MSM continually stick their heads in the sand regarding this stuff has been shocking and extremely frustrating.
It's even worse than depicted here. Obama had many lobbying functions removed from the WH and moved to the Old Executive Office Building, so their records would be off-limits. They know exactly what they are doing. Welcome to Chicago on the Potomac.
The left will turn a blind eye until the economic cancer eliminates all producers. The entitlement crowd really loves this bully that strangles others to give them free money.
A few years back, Congressman Joe Wilson exclaimed "you lie" to Obama during the SOTU speech, the uproar was fast and furious, as history continues to show however that truer words have never been spoken.
Paul B. is right. A lot of the lobbying is done "off-site". BHO reminds me a lot of my ex-husband: narcissist, arrogant, self-righteous. He would be highly critical of his best male friend who was always cheating on his wife. Then I found out he was doing the same thing!! BHO thinks Americans are stupid. I blame MSM for not telling the whole story about this jerk.
J. Carter Obama is simply another apostle in the control freak church of secular socialist utopianism… n nthey all do the same thing…they use platitudes, promises, distractions, lies and smears told boldly… to get power… nthen after ignoring the basic laws of economics starts its painful constriction of their nation… nthey move to demon-hunting and blame-shifting… n nall the while expanding dependency using the productive citizens… ndebt soars, tax pleas begin "to save the nation"…yada yada. nThe personal pain (housing/fuel/food costs/jobless etc) eventually hurts so many the voter rage is to send home that crop of utopians… nthe goal of the arrogant admin is to buy enough votes fast enough to stay in power… n nall the while finding new demons to blame for the results of their toxic policies. nIt varies some by nation but America is now infected with another arrogant apostle of utopianism… n nnotice they exempt themselves and voter core from the major pain (like socialized medicine). nSince they have no ethical or moral boundaries its easy for them to lie with confident boldness and baloney phrases. n nIn a few years this current apostle will be the sad sick joke of the generation. nThe media is the 3rd party arm of the socialist utopians in this nation…so fact check everything…the liars rule…we the people flush in November.
What would you do if you were an apostle of utopian socialism? nWould you use distractions, lies and smears as the toxic results of Cuban Model policies inflicts personal pain on tens of millions? Of course. n nWould you avoid adults and reporters and pontificate before school teens and the college clueless? Of course. n nThis is the way it MUST be…OzBama has embraced a fantasy/deception-based set of principles that have hurt other nations for decades…this is what the apostles MUST do… n nthey are selling fire to a scarecrow so they can never be honest about the nature/results of fire.
It used to be that Commentary was a significant magazine with a diversity of opinion and a bent towards intellectual discourse. n nNow it's just another neo-con rag.
When any utopian socialist apostle (aka democrat) is hit hard with facts or logic… none of 3 things happen 99% of the time: nyou are told your facts are wrong…. nyou are personally attacked nor they shift topics (ignore you) nthis MUST occur because socialism is fantasy-based and deception-based… n(they have no choice but to reply in these ways because they are selling fire to a scarecrow and cannot ever be honest about the nature of fire) n
This from a guy who wrote a fictional autobiography. No way !!!
To understand The Chosen One, you have to watch what he does and ignore what he says. Often what he does is the opposite of what he says. Like his first budget:, appropriately titled "A New Era of Responsibility".
If this were an honest article, it would admit that information it's complaining about is only available because the President is the first in history to be transparent about visitor logs so we can see who is lobbying. Oops. n nPeople have a right to petition their government, the problem is when big corporations buy all the chairs for their lobbyists. Obama always argued that those big corporations will always have a seat at the table, but they can't buy all the chairs – virtually a direct quote from both his primary and general campaign. Until there is some policy reason to suggest influence after a meeting was wielded, and a direct tie to both lobbying and significant campaign contributions is made to that policy influence, it's not the Washington lobbyist problem that irritates voters, much in the same way that "negative campaigning ads" that irritate voters involve lies and out-of-bounds personal attacks, not those that critique record and policy. I hate these idiotic MSM conflations and the most RW members of the media like here at Commentary are typically the worst offenders, as demonstrated by this vapid column and its comments. n n-ShadowSD and Claudia
One has to understand the leftist mindset and the worshipers of the outlier,the Black Jesus. No eco, cultural, soc. mili facts will dis-saude any liberal from not supporting this naif in the WH and the liberal Senators But,perhaps this time Indies, Libertarians, Reagan Dems will remember the promises, the agendas and the horrid policies from Obamacare to no energy policy so that they will stop the social experiment and vote for solid conserv Senators and a guy like Mitt who actually understands tax, spending and regs policy.
It's like Bush never lied the country into war. How those tax cuts work out for the country.
Actually, those tax cuts worked well enough that Obama extended them, and congress is currently debating extending them even further. nAs for the war, that was a truly bipartisan decision, with both sides agreeing to it. The action in Lybia….eh, not so much. At least you are steeped in the same hypocrisy as your hero Obama!
Thank you for displaying a true ignorance to what happened. I suggest you read another Commentary article "Why Iraq was Inevitable".
Lying. 5000 American troops killed. Over 100,000 Iraqi's killed. 1 trillion dollars gone. n nHey. Has anyone seen that check from the Iraqi Oil that was supposed to pay for the Iraq war.
With Obama, you must always look at what he does. More than that, the bigger the public hoopla, the more deeply driven the real story,usually dumped on Friday night, will be. God knows how many stories the media totally missed because the administration dumped the information after hours. The pattern of behavior makes his recent actions that much more suspect. I honestly believe that someone in the White House selected the sad case in Florida and sent Jackson and Sharpton (I refuse to call them reverend because there's nothing holy about them) to stir the pot by deliberately misleading members of the community to consolidate the black vote and massage white guilt. The statements made were outright lies designed to provoke reactions. And someone set that up as they did so many of this administration's actions.
From the Washington Post article: "The lack of a list from previous administrations makes it impossible to know whether paid advocates have more or less access than in the past." n nFrom the above post, quoting Obama: "We will make government more open, more accountable…" n nThat is exactly what he did. In prior administrations, you would have had NO idea of who was visiting the White House.
It's called Cognitive Dissonance, the dissociation of words and deeds. The average person stays confused with no resolution that the speaker is deliberately deceptive. Obama is a psychopathic/sociopathic personality. He is a pathological liar. He is evil and malevolent.
Such glaring blindness and disingenuity, just another coded racist excuse to hate on Obama. Like Obama could change something so entrenched in American politics by himself, especially being the first Black president and an obstruction congess, right. BWAHAHA._He already has the highest number of death threats of any president, Obama'd be dead within the week if he tried harder to shake their lobbyits apple cart with all the big money involved. Not falling for this biased piece of out of touch lies. As for people's words meaning nothing, anybody thinking Myth RMoney is a viable candidate is a joke. Keep your coded 'anti-Obama' talk, everybody knows what this is really about, whatever. Just like you pretend Obama's grown gov't at ridiculous levels when tyhe truth is he's grown gov't the least of any president but 'code language talkers' won't acknowledge that positive truth.
Ahh yes, don't want to debate the issue, cry racism and use such a broad brush as to render any dissent or difference of opinion as racist too. Essentially, trying to shut everyone up without actually debating anything. Your post is intellectually dishonest and lazy, and contains over the top hyperbole. n nObama rails against lobbyist and slanders those on the right who associate with lobbyists. Then he jumps on the lobbyist boat and grabs a paddle. It makes his words ring hollow. His actions (unions, Solyndra, etc..) show he swims in cronyism, giving greater weight to his lobbyist hypocrisy.
Uh, you left this little comment out from the same link that you provide: n n"The logs are released on a monthly basis and on a three-month delay, so visits from January will be released in April, for example. The Obama administration began releasing visitor logs in September 2009 under the terms of a court settlement. Some visits that took place between January and September 2009 have been released selectively in response to requests from the public. n nThe administration initially refused to provide records to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and others who requested them, saying the logs were not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. In July 2009, CREW filed a lawsuit seeking access to the logs, ending in the settlement creating the database of visitor logs. The group Judicial Watch has brought an additional lawsuit seeking access to all entries in the logs, without exceptions, dating to the beginning of the administration." n nHow'd that happen? You're a pathetic POS.
Uh, you left this little comment out from the same link that you provide: n n"The logs are released on a monthly basis and on a three-month delay, so visits from January will be released in April, for example. The Obama administration began releasing visitor logs in September 2009 under the terms of a court settlement. Some visits that took place between January and September 2009 have been released selectively in response to requests from the public. n nThe administration initially refused to provide records to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and others who requested them, saying the logs were not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. In July 2009, CREW filed a lawsuit seeking access to the logs, ending in the settlement creating the database of visitor logs. The group Judicial Watch has brought an additional lawsuit seeking access to all entries in the logs, without exceptions, dating to the beginning of the administration." n nHow'd that happen? You really ARE a pathetic POS. n
The court settlement went beyond what was being requested. CREW says it chose to settle because "the administration agreed to go much farther than we had asked in court: rather than just providing documents about specific visits upon request, the administration is posting the records of nearly all White House visitors." It's a "huge step toward a more transparent government," said Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, writing on the group's Web site. n nIt is amazing how the right wing moves goalposts when they are caught in a lie. Paul B. stated an outright lie that Executive Office Building visits are not included in the visitors log. When the lie is exposed, the new whine is "but there had to be a court settlement to get it done!" My posts calling out the lie only appeared after I emailed Peter Wehner and called him a coward for withholding replies that revealed factual inaccuracies. Paul B. still is up there with 46 thumbs up from dittoheads who approve of lying.
If you think that HAVING TO BE TAKEN TO COURT before you do what you had implicitly promised to do during the campaign, repeatedly and strenuously vowed to do, although like a true hypocrite who makes a great and public show of his piety, your commitment to an immaculate "transparency" flaunted as a sort of touchstone of your virtue, while privately, it now does seem, as the Good Book says, the stench of "a whited sepulcher, full of dead and dying things," pervades your every word; further, after fighting the request for eight months on the grounds that the logs were NOT subject to "transparency," and still further, up to this day not releasing all information in the logs prior to the settlement date save "selectively," if, I say, you believe that this constellation of facts makes Wehner a liar, then you have no notion of the meaning in words. None whatsoever. Hasn't it occurred to you that if Obama was in fact the paragon of openness he pretends to be, he would have at a minimum managed to stay out of court in that regard? n nInstead, you are willing to twist any set of facts, no matter how damning, into grotesque logic-chopping conclusions in order to avert your gaze from the plain mendacity of the jug-eared clown in the White House, that magnificently empty suit who absolutely depends on the efforts of an on-call army of simpletons to overlook, obfuscate, and deny his contempt for the truth. n nThe facts are plain. No goal posts have been moved, except by the Administration, which concealed the contents of those logs until they were FORCED to do otherwise. Then, faut de mieux, they offered more than what was asked for, for who knows what reason apart from embarrassment that they were about to be convicted of hypocritical insincerity. n nSumming up, a thief is caught red-handed, gives back the money, throws in an extra sawbuck, and . . . and . . . . And suddenly a thief's not a thief???? Apparently, upon that ridiculous proposition you intend not only to stand your ground but to double down on hysterical, self-serving rhetoric of lying and cowardice. It's preposterous. n nAs to Paul B., I suspect that Paul had not read the material in your link. Perhaps he should have, but his post does not constitute "a lie," a knowing falsehood, unless, like yourself, one is utterly indifferent to the meaning in words. But let's see now. You HAD read the link (you provided it, after all). YOU almost certainly knew of the role the court action had played in the Administration's "transparency" with respect to the White House logs, or lack of it, which is the subject of Wehner's post. But you chose not to mention it. And you still haven't said why you left all that out. That makes you something altogether more repellant than a mere liar.
Settlements are made in court all the time between parties that agree on ends but not means. The Obama administration went beyond what Crew was requesting. The only reason Wehner knows the number of lobbyists making visits is that the the visits are now made public. Ask Wehner to reveal how many times Enron lobbyists made visits to the Bush White House. n nPaul B. posted an false statement. He was simply corrected. There are now 49 right wing ditto heads giving Paul B. a thumbs up on a false statement. Those 49 ditto heads know it is a false statement. That turns the statement into a lie.
Perfect! Now playing: The Ex Post Facto Lie! We are deep into Orwell country. n nDid it ever occlude your megalomania that, just possibly, after giving Paul the thumbs up, those 49 people never visited the thread again? Were not, in fact, eagerly anticipating every bizarre response YOU might still have at the ready to confuse matters? Moreover, those thumbs up and down cannot be changed. n nBut more importantly, you are so far out into the weeds, so unable to distinguish tree from forest, that at length you have had to resort to a fabulous redefinition of what a "lie" is so that you might have something, anything, no matter how pathetically tangential, to say. n nYou scream to heaven about the mote in the eyes of others while the beam in yours would support the George Washington Bridge. The whole point of Wehner's article is that Obama pretends to something — openness, transparency, nauseating sanctimony — that he is not remotely entitled to save on the narrow, legalistic, logic-chopping grounds, about the size of a postage stamp, that you have been driven to for entirely tendentious reasons. n nTry to understand what the real point of contention is and read again: n n". . . what sets Obama apart from almost everyone else is the lengths Obama goes to in order to portray himself as morally superior to the rest of the political class even as he acts in ways that completely shatter his claims. He reminds me of the minister who cannot help from condemning the very sin to which he is beholden." n nAbout that, you have nothing to say that is not either self-serving or deceptive. You cynically — and really rather casually — serve up a Mafia lawyer's brief as to the substance of the post, yet you work yourself into an alarming frenzy of accusation — Coward! Liar! Cowardly liars! — about a REPLY to the post!!! It beggars belief. n nNo one forced this truly awful person, Barack Obama, to posture so mightily and so often about transparency and openness. But he did, didn't he? And as for lobbyists? Well they were going to get the back of HIS hand, weren't they? All of which was designed, it now seems, for the consumption of the feeble-minded. Before he was even inaugurated he was issuing waivers and exemptions like papal indulgences to the foulest lobbyists so that they could join his administration. As to the subject of lobbying and transparency you could not fit a cigarette paper between this administration and the most corrupt that history has to offer. Walter Kaiser and Solyndra or Eric Whitman and HHS or at least a dozen other scandals-in-the-wings might be mentioned. But all of that is to be set at naught because a Federal judge forced this scoundrel to reveal the contents of White House visitors logs.
No Federal judge forced anyone to do anything. A settlement was reached that went beyond what was being requested in court. You are really quite irrational. If Obama adamantly opposed listing lobbyist visits why would he settle beyond what CREW was asking? What makes you think that particular Federal judge or the Supreme Court would have ruled against executive privilege? If only a scoundrel would not reveal the contents of visitor logs, I am sure you will provide a link to each and every visit an Enron lobbyist made to the Bush White House. n nThere are now 50 ditto heads giving a thumbs up in support of Paul B's lie.
.. perhaps even "self-deception." n n25th Amendment, anyone? This man is either the biggest liar on the history of the nation – or so self-deluded that he is incapable of honest governing… If he actually believes the bilge he has spewed nonstop since we first heard of him, I'd recommend the 25th. Yes, I know Biden is the dumbest employed man in America, but I'll take stupid over a deluded enemy any day…
Hypocrisy is in fact a specific sort of deception. In Greek, the language from which "hypocrisy" is derived, a "hypocrasia" means something very akin to "a secret judgment," namely, saying one thing but secretly exempting oneself from the implication of one's words. The example nonpareil of "hypocrisy" is Bill Clinton on Easter Sunday, 1997, exiting a church in Washington, one arm around his wife, his daughter at his side, and in the hand with which he waves to the crowd is a big, black bible! At that very moment, mind you, he's on his way to AN APPOINTMENT WITH MONICA LEWINSKY in the Oval Office! n nEcce homo! (Pilate's words: "Behold the man!") n nTHAT is the sort of duplicity for the description of which the word "hypocrisy" is absolutely necessary. That photo should be in the dictionary alongside the definition of the word as a helpful illustration: The wife, the child, the bible, the church, on display simultaneously with a loathsome secret intention — a "hidden judgment" — that cannot be seen. n nThe Democrats have long trashed the true meaning of "hypocrisy" in order to deflect critcism of the real thing. They have tried to apply the word "hypocrite" to anyone who criticizes someone else for something the critic himself may have done, which is nonsense. Parents are not hypocrites for disciplining their children for infractions they themselves committed. Poor Henry Hyde was not a hypocrite or anything like one for condemning Clinton even IF he (Hyde) had ever had an extramarital affair, which he had — 30 years earlier! Yet that bit of vulgar misdirection is exactly what the Democrats set about accomplishing, amplified by the media of course, and no one called them on it, possibly because they and the rest of this scandalously illiterate country have lost any sensitivity to the language and the plain meaning of words. n nWhether Obama is a hypocrite is difficult to say. One would have to read his mind; or, as in Clinton's case, facts will have to come to light making it clear that he is in fact carving out for himself — in his own mind — an exemption from words and deeds that he is condemning in others. Obama is a true narcissist, after all, and such people have but slight capacity or inclination for accurate judgments, hidden or otherwise, when the subject is themselves.