No, for now I want to mention just two of his most recent assaults on the truth. I’m afraid they will set the tone for what may be the dirtiest political campaign in our country’s history. And considering some of the mudslinging we’ve witnessed in the past (remember the commercial for Lyndon B. Johnson in which a little girl picking petals off a daisy morphed into a mushroom cloud?), that’s saying something.
My latest “did he really say that?” moment came when Obama was interviewed by Steve Croft on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago. My stomach isn’t strong enough for me to watch the show; I knew I’d read plenty about it afterward. But even I was surprised by the unbounded arrogance of the man occupying the Oval Office. Here is his preposterous claim:
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I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history.
How do you like them apples? Gee, guess it’s time to make room for a new face on Mount Rushmore. Clearly, Obama thinks he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread — “with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln.”
I knew the guy was an egomaniac, but I was surprised by how cavalier he has become about it. Given his colossal failures as President, you would think he would at least try to fake some humility.
Oh, right, he did admit that, “when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do.” Please, Mr. President, for the sake of all of us, don’t do any more “work” on the economy. You’ve done enough damage as it is.
Obama’s performance on 60 Minutes was just embarrassingly immodest compared to his all-out assault on the truth two weeks earlier, when he officially launched his re-election campaign. That speech, which has become known as the Kansas Declaration, was so filled with misstatements that the Washington Post gave it three out of four “Pinocchios” for “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”
One of his most outrageous whoppers was that his stimulus program has been an outstanding success. After all, he claimed, it helped create three million new jobs.
While it may be technically true that three million new jobs have been created in this country since Obama took office, what he didn’t mention is that more than five million jobs have been lost in the same time period. So the net effect is that there are two million more people unemployed than there were at the beginning of his Administration.
For a moment, though, let’s accept Obama’s numbers. And his claim, which is patently absurd, that his administration deserves the credit for every single new job in this country.
Obama’s stimulus program has cost U.S. taxpayers about $800 billion. That means each new job cost $266,667 to create.
With the average new job paying about one-fifth that amount, one has to wonder: Where did the other $220,000 per job go? Why, to line the pockets and pad the budgets of the folks dispersing the money, of course. Despite all of the efforts by Washington to subsidize solar power and other “green” energy, the only growth industry in the United States this decade has been government. Oh, and government-supported unions, of course.
Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s official fact-checker, cited another gross distortion in the President’s speech: Obama’s crusade for what he calls “fairness.” He quotes the President as declaring, “Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent — 1 percent. That is the height of unfairness.”
When pressed for evidence that there is even one billionaire in this country who paid just 1 percent in taxes, the White House couldn’t find any. The only evidence the White House offered was a clip from some TV program.
An unsubstantiated remark by some talking head on some TV show became the basis for national policy and another blatantly political and incredibly dishonest speech by our President. Isn’t that wonderful?
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest, where his Straight Talk column appears weekly. This article first appeared in PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
