I was thinking this week that it is a pity no one is keeping a Web site or page listing Obama’s lies. It would require a considerable staff — maybe dear Andrew Breitbart would consider adding “Big Lie” to his stable of “Big” blogs (Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism) — but it is a resource that would help conservatives win the hearts and minds of the independent voters needed for victory. That’s assuming we will have elections in November 2010, which I do not think is a correct assumption. I think the vast right-wing conspiracy should get on a plan for how to assure that elections will be held AND how to respond if they are not. Because when Obama says he takes unpopular positions because he doesn’t care if he’s a one-term president, you should assume he’s just announced he doesn’t care whether you like him because by hook or by crook, he’s going to be president-for-life.
Since this post is about Obama’s lies from 2008 to the present, let me point out Obama’s prevarication pattern:
- In accordance with the rules of Saul Alinsky, he finds out what his marks want to hear.
- Obama tells his marks what they want to hear.
- The marks relax because Obama has told them he agrees with them — thus demonstrating his wisdom and prudence — and they give him their trust. They also — and this is crucial — then stop paying attention to what he says because you can trust a truthful man to keep his word and don’t have to keep track of what he says 100 percent of the time to ensure his promises and statements are consistent with one another. Oops.
- Obama then makes promises to the marks of what he will do in exchange for their money and work on his behalf.
- The marks give their money and work for Obama.
- Obama makes promises to another group of marks that are irreconcilable with his promises to the first group. The second group gloats that THEY are the ones Obama truly loves.
- Obama doesn’t deliver on his promises and instead only does what is best for himself.
- Sometimes the marks get restless about this. To bring the marks back into line, Obama filibusters, race baits, hate mongers, sneers superciliously, befogs and gaslights them, or vows he will keep his word in an ever-receding future.
- If the marks still don’t obey and toe the line, Obama and his minions threaten them with their ultimate weapson: if they do not conform, the evil conservatives will get them and condemn them to a life of making the most of themselves and their opportunities and enjoying the fruits of their own labors. The horror!
- Repeat steps 1 – 9.
Obama is never concerned that his falsehoods hurt people because he is a sociopath — which means he has no conscience — and a narcissist.
OK, so the best review of Obama’s lies from 2008 to the present was written this week by Victor Davis Hanson and published at the National Review Online. The following is a sample — be sure to read the whole thing:
Perhaps most Americans also were only mildly irked that Obama demagogued the Bush anti-terror protocols during the campaign, only to continue unchanged precisely those practices that he had most fiercely railed against — tribunals, renditions, Predators, the continuing presence in Iraq.
And perhaps most Americans did not believe Obama when he promised to close Guantanamo within a year and to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in New York — and they were right. These too were isolated Obama untruths.
Then some of us were troubled that Obama had once decried passage of health-care reform by mere 51 percent majorities — only to do precisely that last weekend. Candidate Obama likewise damned the use of executive orders to countermand legislative action — and then did just that on matters of abortion and Obamacare. Chalk it up to the Chicago style of the ends justifying any means necessary.
So was anyone surprised that the health-care bill did not sit on the president’s desk for five days before the signing, as he once bragged would be the new administration’s policy, for reasons of transparency? And wasn’t that reminiscent of his continued, but reneged on, pledges to air all the health-care debates on C-SPAN?
I could go on and on, but again the pattern is clear. Each time Obama prevaricates, we grant him an exemption because of his lofty rhetoric about bipartisanship and his soothing words about unity. Only later do we notice that in retrospect each untruth is part of a pattern of dissimulation within just a single year of governance. Obama has proven so far that in fact one can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time.
Conservatives know that Obama in particular, and Democrats in general, are assisted in fooling a lot of the people a lot of the time by the fact that the mainstream media do not cover stories revealing Leftist/liberal corruption, totalitarian tendencies or anything that presents conservatism fairly. After I started reading conservative blogs and conservative journalists online pretty much the minute Sen. McCain announced Gov. Sarah Palin would be his running mate in August 2008, I was absolutely horrified at how much information had been kept from me to ensure my obedience and support of liberalism/Leftism for the empowerment of Leftist elites.
Update, 3/27/10, Sat.: Prof. William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection reviews the economic devastation wrought by the passage of Obamacare in less than a week after being signed into law on Tuesday. He links to Doug Ross, who explains that union workers will lose their cushy health coverage by the end of 2010:
Remember how the President endlessly bragged that health care reform would never — never! — impact your existing health plans? You know, the “if you like your plan, you can keep it” shtick? Well, I know this comes as a shock, but he lied.
What no one appears to be pointing out is that DemCare specifically targets private sector union members first. Because of the dizzying new regulations imposed by the new law, “industrial concerns [and/or] those with unionized employees, say the end of the deduction could force them to … curtail or even cancel them [health benefits],” according to The Los Angeles Times. That’s right: most union retirees will have their cushy plans slammed by DemCare through changes in the tax code.
Update, 3/31/10, Wed.: Jim Geraghty at National Review Online posted a long list of Obama’s lies this week, with links as documenation, charitably continuing to call them “promises with expiration dates.” He’s missing important lies to the gay and lesbian community — for example, after gay donors stopped giving last spring, Obama made big noises about all sorts of rights he could provide by executive order to gay and lesbian federal employees, including a long, specific list. Come to find that in the small print of Obama’s promise was that his order would provide only rights that would not conflict with the Defense of Marriage Act, which included pretty much everything on the publicized list except the right to extended leave to care for a life partner. Woohoo. Pledges of support for gay equality twice were followed by devastatingly thorough amicus briefs filed by Eric Holder against gay rights plaintiffs — including one filed last October about two weeks after addressing the Human Rights Campaign at a big fundraising dinner where Obama pledged to work for homosexual equality.
Update, 4/1/10, Thurs.:
Thank you, Prof. William Jacobson, of Legal Insurrection, for linking this post today and for making A Conservative Lesbian the blog of the day! See his post, “Droll, baby, droll” for links to the Left’s cries of betrayal by Obama this week.
And thank goodness this week we seem to have hit a critical mass of people who have figured out Obama’s pattern of appearing to agree with his opposition and requiring immediate concessions from them in exchange for concessions from him in the distant future. Obama wants to ram his economy-destroying cap-and-trade legislation through the Senate and therefore needs to lull Republicans and conservatives into a false sense of security. His gambit was to claim to approve of offshore drilling. No sale!
Energy expert and former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin PWNS Obama at National Review Online with a slapdown entitled, “Stall, baby, stall.” It begins as follows:
Many Americans fear that President Obama’s new energy proposal is once again “all talk and no real action,” this time in an effort to shore up fading support for the Democrats’ job-killing cap-and-trade (a.k.a. cap-and-tax) proposals. Behind the rhetoric lie new drilling bans and leasing delays; soon to follow are burdensome new environmental regulations. Instead of “drill, baby, drill,” the more you look into this the more you realize it’s “stall, baby, stall.”
“That’s assuming we will have elections in November 2010, which I do not think is a correct assumption.”
Not that I’d put that past the socialists, but I think it will be more subtle. There will be a massive extension of *small scale* atrocities against democracy: some vote rigging here, some illegal digging up of questionable dirt on opponents there, some outright local lies somewhere else. They will try to distract from that by pointing to the mythical angry racist mobs, and in the off chance that someone is brought to justice, nothing will be traced to the top.
But maybe I need to think like that; that there is still some vestige of an American spirit that means that they at least have to hide their plans. Maybe I just don’t like to think what it would take to cancel or “postpone” the elections without provoking an insurrection.
Liz,
I think you are correct — Obama and the Democrats don’t have to suspend elections thanks to their other strategies. Remember, the laws requiring ID to vote are now weak or repealed. In addition, the polls in many states are open for weeks before Election Day. This allows The-Organization-Formerly-Known-As-ACORN and the SEIU to bus people around state-to-state to vote. But we still have to figure out how to counter their plans to steal the elections. I just don’t believe their confidence is based on persuasion and hope. Obama never plays a game he hasn’t rigged.
Cynthia
I’m glad I’m not the only one uneasy about November. The Dems have been acting way too confident, and obviously don’t care what the voters think. I’ve been saying they have something up their sleeves for months.
We can only hope that their unpopularity becomes so great that the 3-5% points they gain through voter fraud isn’t enough.
BTW, I started an ObamaLie list in May ’08, and updated constantly until sept ’08, when I just couldn’t keep up with them any more, and the game was over with the financial crisis, anyway.
http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/the-lies-of-barack-obama/
Curse McCain for being such a weak candidate.
Here’s another list I just found from the election:
http://obamawtf.blogspot.com/2008/05/documented-lie-50-obama-claimed-he-had.html
And a blog that’s been cataloging Obama’s lies and scandals – 1000 so far:
http://conservativeamerican.org/obama-administration-scandals-list/page-20-951-1000/
Nice Deb,
Thank you for all the links — they will be very helpful! It’s wonderful to hear from you! Also, the CD of the CPAC photos arrived, but I haven’t opened it yet — thanks for sending it!
Cynthia
People are in the state of lethargy that they can’t listen to the cry of those who know the implications of the health care law. Anyway, people will just wake up later and realize that our freedom has been stolen from before our face.
Before the health care bill was approved, everything was already prepared on what could be the next plan for implementation in order to pursue their political interest. We have been waiting for November to come but I am afraid there might be no election. Let us watch and see…
I read your blog. Very interesting. Agree with you on many points but you lost me for a few reasons.
1. Your criticism of the Right is nearly non-existent. Yes, the Left is a hot mess… but so is the Right. Why not remain [truly] independent? Or become a true Libertarian? Are you truly critical of the Left/Right dichotomy? Or are you critical of the political actors who currently represent the Left/Right in the public political spectrum?
2. Referencing Sarah Palin as an expert on anything. I’d be more inclined to see your point(s) were you to reference, say, Olympia Snowe. Why use Sarah Palin as a reference when she (appears) to contradict so many things that you publicly claim to represent (at least as described on your ‘about me’ page)? Perhaps I overlooked the link, but have you ever grappled with the entirety of Sarah Palin’s political package & brand on this blog?
Just wondering – aside from the fiscal conservatism & the climate change skepticism, why do you affiliate as a Republican? No malice here, I am generally curious, and I ask the same thing of many of my friends who self-identify as Democrats (for different reasons, clearly). Perhaps representative democracy would be a bit more representative if more people were true independents.
Anon,
I write to illumine, give joy, inspire, persuade and make people laugh. Criticism is not a means to any of those objectives.
When I write about Obama’s lies, my intention is to teach people on both the Right and the Left never to fall for anything he says. I explain his pathology and techniques, especially since he starts by telling people what they want to hear. The effect this has on most people is that they say to themselves, “Well, finally he has come to his senses! Now I can relax and stop paying attention and trust him to carry on consistently.” When I write posts like that, I believe they will do the most good for people on the Right because they actually follow enough news sources to know that Obama is deceitful. The MSM and Left blogosphere corruptly decline to publish stories unflattering to Obama, so liberals/Leftists are unaware of the degree to which they are being used and exploited. In fact, they become enraged with anyone who contradicts the propaganda they believe to be news. But occasionally a Left-wing friend of mine will claim Obama is honest and Right-wingers are not, so I also write those posts as a handy record I can use to provide objective evidence that it is Obama who is the liar.
Regarding my treatment of the Right, I believe it is the Right that will see that keeping gays and lesbians as second-class citizens contradicts all their stated ideals and that it is the Right that will provide the voting majorities to secure our equality under the law. For the last year, I have been the ONLY Right-wing voice actively arguing for gay equality. Mark Koenig was the second at Newsreal. However, criticism is not persuasive. I write to persuade.
If you are wondering what faults I find with the Right, they are as follows:
a. Social conservatism is a form of totalitarianism and it looks to me like the religions that power it are seeking to overthrow the Constitution and make the U.S. a theocracy with their religion in charge — far more people would embrace fiscal conservatism if the social conservatives didn’t make people believe that they can only do so by knuckling under to social conservatives.
b. Intelligent Design is rebranded Creationism and is based on a distortion of my father’s work on information theory and the origin of life. What should be taught in schools is that the origin of life is unknowable and why. The Right is wrong to support Intelligent Design and wrong to support the non-stop efforts of social conservatives to use the schools to proselytize.
c. Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. Woman cannot be equal unless they have access to birth control and abortion is legal. Otherwise, religions and dictators view them only as baby-makers, housekeepers and whores.
d. Gays and lesbians must have full equality under the law: federal, state, local and military.
e. The individualism of the Right seems to lead to people on the Right leaving their leaders under attack to fight overwhelming odds by themselves. This is particularly true for Sarah Palin. I rally to the side of my friends who are under attack.
f. Regarding Sarah Palin, click the “Sarah Palin” category. People who are dismissive of Sarah Palin have just revealed any number of negative things about themselves: they haven’t really looked at her record, or if they have, they do not understand what her victories mean and therefore are unfamiliar with the political process, and/or are sexist, elitist or just plain stupid. I love Sarah Palin and I know she’s a genius. I wanted to attack the nonsensical, sexist and unfounded meme of the week that she is unpresidential but I needed to do other things instead. Of the four candidates in the race in the fall of 2008, Sarah Palin was the best qualified of the lot. If she had become president, I believe our economy would be thriving thanks to her “common sense conservatism,” which is rooted in the work of the economists von Mises, Hayek and Friedman. Also, our nation’s allies would know they have a staunch friend and our enemies would live in mortal dread. All of which is the opposite of what Obama has accomplished.
g. I registered as a Republican in December 2008 because I want to work and fight with a team and the Democrats finally tore off the mask and proclaimed themselves totalitarian Leftists with the election of Barack Obama and all the corrupt skulduggery they performed to make that happen. Independents are wishy-washy suckers and the natural prey of con artists who will tell them what they want to hear. Or, a more flattering view is that the majority of independents would BE Republicans if the totalitarian social conservatives were not constantly trying to appear in control by attempting purges and requiring purity pledges to their lists of ideas. Or, to put it another way, more people would be Republican if they knew they could just be fiscal conservatives.
h. Fiscal conservatives have the best policy for money and for giving people the best possible conditions for achieving their full potential in every aspect of life. Yet they sell it like it’s castor oil. That’s got to change.
Cynthia