Officials in the White House may have thought they had stopped Barack Obama’s public relations blood-letting when they abruptly cancelled a ceremony where Obama was scheduled to receive an award for promoting governmental transparency. 
They needn’t have bothered since the American people can already see right through him. Attempting to make a sow’s ear look like a silk purse, White House press secretary Jay Carney came valiantly riding to the rescue. “What I will not concede is that his record on the issue [transparency] is anything but exemplary,” Carney said. Mr. Carney, what have you been smoking and on which planet do you inhale it?
“This president is less transparent, less willing to accommodate data transparency which the committee fought for on a non-partisan basis,” said Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Issa has repeatedly been stonewalled by the White House when Issa has requested information from the Obama Administration. “This administration has not been willing to cooperate,” says Issa.
Issa’s experience with Obama is hardly unique. Here are some of the other issues in Obama’s past that have failed to have been resolved by Obama through a full public disclosure of the facts:
- On January 21, 2009, his first day in office, Barack Obama implemented and signed into law Executive Order 13489, denying any release of any information about him. This is quite interesting given the fact that on that very same day Obama said the following: “The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”
- The long form of Obama’s Hawaiian Birth Certificate has never been released.
- Obama’s Law practices client list and billing records have not been released. The records are alleged to have been lost.
- Obama’s Columbia University records, as a foreign exchange student under the name of Barry Soetoro, have never been released.
- Obama’s Harvard Law School records as a foreign exchange student under the name of Barry Soetoro have never been released.
- Obama’s Illinois State Senate records have never been released.
- The reason Obama lost his license to practice law in Illinois, supposedly for perjury, has not been released.
- Obama or Barry Soetoro – the countries he visited outside the United States before 2008 have not been released.
- Obama, as Barry Soetoro, his Harvard Law Review articles, if any exist, have not been released.
- Last week Obama refused to provide minutes for meetings in which ObamaCare was devised.
- Stanley Anne Dunham and Obama Sr.’s marriage license has never been released.
- Stanley Anne Dunham and Lulu Soetoro’s marriage license has never been released.
- Barry Soetoro, aka Barack Obama’s adoption records has never been released.
- Obama’s Selective Service Registration has not been released.
- Obama’s U.S. Passport has never been released.
- Barack Obama’s Baptism Certificate has not been released.
- Obama’s medical records have not been released. However, a one-page statement was released that simply said that Obama was healthy.
- Obama’s Illinois State Senate schedule has not been released.
- Obama’s University of Chicago scholarly articles, if any exist, have not been released.
Obama clearly has a penchant for keeping both his personal and his public life secret. However, given the fact that he occupies the highest political office in the land, it is impossible for Obama to keep all the details of his life away from the public’s prying eyes. For example the public is painfully aware that Obama is jetting away for yet another vacation, this time to Rio De Janeiro, while Japan fights a nuclear meltdown, Libyan rebels are on the verge of being exterminated, Israel boards a ship loaded with weapons for Hamas, the U.S. economy is imploding, and both food and gasoline prices are skyrocketing. Wasn’t it Hillary Clinton who warned us that Obama wouldn’t be there to answer the 3 a.m. telephone call?
Ron Bonjean, writing in May of 2010 for the Thomas Jefferson Street blog, had this to say about Obama’s dismal record on the issue of transparency:
President Obama is now suffering the consequences of breaking his transparency promises. In a memorandum to heads of executive agencies on WhiteHouse.gov, he said, “We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”
But his administration’s actions speak louder than his memos or campaign promises. It refused to allow cameras into daily negotiations on the healthcare bill. Instead, White House officials used a televised staged summit as a mea culpa to the public. The recently held nuclear summit closed to the press corps also comes to mind.
Bonjean hit the nail on the head. Obama is now suffering the fate of those who lose faith with the public. People no longer listen to what he says. And they have good reason to ignore him.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sara Griffin, a while ago, published a book titled “How to Judge the True Character of a Person in an Hour.” The title of the first chapter? “Don’t Let Them Fool Ya’” If there is anything we have learned about Obama over the past several years it is that he uses misdirection techniques to take the focus off of personally sensitive subjects that he really doesn’t want to talk about. Case in point is the never-ending subject of his birth certificate. Asked point blank about it during a television interview, Obama replied that he simply didn’t have the time to retrieve it. Obama misdirects. He obfuscates. He delays acknowledgement of issues even while the world is crashing down around him. He ignores questions. He refuses to lead on major issues such as the current budget battle in Congress. He votes “present” and then disappears into the woodwork on both domestic and foreign affairs. He goes on vacations. He seldom holds press conferences. He follows Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals to the letter. He surrounds himself with toadies. In short, he unwittingly has created a situation in which the citizens of the United States of America are now judging him on the content of his character – Or more precisely, on his lack of character.
Obama’s insistence on absolute secrecy, his habit of breaking promises he makes to the American people, and his communistic agenda have all combined to destroy whatever credibility he once had. He has become a pariah to the American people. He cannot win a second term in office. Despite the fact that the Republicans don’t appear to have an exceptionally strong slate of candidates to run against Obama in 2012, it appears that they don’t need to. The vote is going to become a referendum on Obama and he will be weighed in the balance and found to be lacking.
Obama has done this to himself. He alone holds the blame for his failed presidency. Obama just this week publicly yearned for a better job for a man of his abilities. Expressing a desire to rule China instead of the United States, Obama unintentionally offered yet another glimpse into the heart, mind, and character of a would-be king. As the world burns, Obama/Nero fiddles his way to Argentina. Rome was lucky in AD 64 as it only burned for five and a half days. America will burn for another two years and even after the Emperor Obama is turned out of office, it will take another decade to undo the damage done by our would-be King. And that’s a conservative estimate.
