The Most Duplicitous President

By Alan Caruba

I have lived through thirteen presidencies starting with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the late 1930s. I have followed the events of their administrations, policies, and lives, and I have read widely in the history of the nation.

I do not think I have ever seen a more duplicitous President than Barack Hussein Obama. And that is saying a lot!

I hold that all presidents must lie and be good liars at that. Having the welfare of the nation in their care and an ever shifting host of threats to America’s interests and defense, all presidents—-and for that matter—-all leaders of nations, elected or otherwise—-lie to ensure the outcome they desire.

When I say “lie” in this context, I mean the shading of the truth, the telling of less than the whole truth, or the withholding of information in one fashion or another that is intended to influence decisions to achieve a particular political or strategic objective. The best presidents dedicated themselves to great enterprises such as the waging of wars of defense or resolving conflicts of one sort or another.

The worst presidents lied to the nation to protect their personal interests and, of course, the classic example is Watergate in which President Nixon engaged in a cover-up of a totally stupid and needless break-in of the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, D.C. President Clinton, caught out in a foolish affair with a White House intern, lied to everyone until he no longer could.

President Obama, however, lies all the time and this is now so evident to the members of Congress that there are those in his own party who no longer trust him, even if they will not come out and say so publicly. Most certainly, the Republicans have no reason to trust him, but they have behaved with remarkable civility.

Well, there was one exception when Sen. Joe Wilson of South Carolina was unable to contain himself during one of Obama’s speeches to a joint session of Congress and cried out, “You lie!” He was right, but he apologized anyway.

It would be naïve to believe that all politicians don’t lie to their constituency, but some are more blatant about it than others. For the most part, the press protects them out of some unspoken belief that the people elected them and are in part responsible for the probity or lack of it.

There are ample examples when the lies and behavior become so egregious even this rule of thumb cannot apply and here too there are examples of members of Congress who have been sent to jail, censored, and generally abandoned by the electorate.

Two examples of Obama’s lies presented themselves this past week. One was the announcement that the United States would support launching talks on a United Nations treaty to regulate arms sales. Obama has repeatedly told America’s 90 million-plus gun owners that they had nothing to fear, but this reverses the Bush administration’s position which respected the Second Amendment and all its implications.

All the pretty talk about the Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty is just camouflage for gun control. It is comparable to Obama’s quick flight to Copenhagen to address the UN Conference on Climate Change, returning to the U.S. to tell Congress that there was “overwhelming evidence” to support global warming. He was laughed at when he said that. (To learn more, visit www.ccrkba.org)

The other example of Obama’s deceitful ways is the fact that the Interior Department, despite Obama’s call for offshore exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas in his State of the Union speech, has announced that no offshore energy exploration will take place in the Atlantic until at least 2014.

Obama is the most anti-energy president to hold office since Jimmy Carter who drove the oil industry out of America, leaving the nation vulnerable to oil rich regions such as the Middle East. (To learn more, visit www.ierdc.org)

Lying may not be an impeachable offense though surely it played a role in Nixon’s case and, to some extent, the proceedings against Clinton. A President can only be removed from office on conviction of treason, bribery, or other “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

As of this writing, it seems likely that President Obama will be politically neutered after the November 2nd midterm elections. When even solidly blue states like Massachusetts reject Democrat candidates, the writing is on the wall.

For now, I think we can expect to see Congress find ways to delay or dismiss Obama’s grand schemes to “transform” America. It doesn’t need transforming. It has been doing quite well, with some bumps along the way, without any more socialism, and without any more lies from the 44th President.