So it was then that the speech last night which was
billed as being Barry’s final State of the Union address was instead, quite
frankly, little more than yet another exercise in dishonesty, with Barry doing
that which he does so very well. That
being said, I’m quite sure that there were more than a few Americans, most of
whom, I think it fair to say, can be said to be of minimal intelligence, who
believed every word that was uttered last night and for no other reason than
because of who it was that said them.
I’ve heard the speech described as being less of a State of the Union
and more a State of Denial. And I must
admit that there’s more than a little truth in that assessment.
We all know that Barry is relatively well known regarding his ability to distort the truth. And Barry also has that very ‘Clintonesque’ ability which allows one to look you straight in the eye and, very convincingly, tell you that which he knows to be an outright lie. And that’s what those who chose to watch saw on display last night. It can be said, I think, that lying comes very easy to Barry, almost too easy. And he’ll lie about anything. So while the number of outright lies that Barry told last night, if added up, would likely encompass nearly the entirety of his hour long speech, what follows here is but a ‘Top 10 List’, of sorts, of some of the more glaring untruths told by Barry.
1. “[W]e’ve done all this while cutting our deficits
by almost three-quarters.” This is nothing more than a work of absolute pure
fiction. Barry has doubled the national debt, and it’s not because he cut the
deficit. Rather, he spent staggering amounts of money in his first months in
office–which he assigns, dishonestly, to the previous fiscal year, under George
W. Bush. He “cut”, meaning he spent more
gradually, from that spending, but only under protest, after Republicans took
the House in 2010.
2. “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in
decline is peddling fiction.” With that line, Barry took a shot at his would-be
Democratic successors, as well as his Republican critics. But the truth is that
despite the slow recovery–the slowest since World War II–labor force
participation is the lowest it has been since the Jimmy Carter days, Wages are
stagnant, household incomes still have not recovered from the recession, and
young people see what can only be described as being a very bleak future.
3. “That’s what the Affordable Care Act is all
about. It’s about filling the gaps in employer-based care so that when we lose
a job, or go back to school, or start that new business, we’ll still have
coverage.” That’s nothing if not the cruelest of jokes, given that Obamacare
canceled insurance coverage for millions of Americans who did not change jobs.
It also raised deductibles and premiums so high that many insurance companies
are leaving the Obama exchanges totally.
4. “Food Stamp recipients didn’t cause the financial
crisis; recklessness on Wall Street did.” Actually, food stamp recipients,
metaphorically speaking, were indirectly responsible–as well as Wall Street
sharks. Barry, quite conveniently, leaves out the government’s role, under the
Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), in pushing mortgages on people who could not
afford them, and in backing the derivatives based on those mortgages that
ultimately burst the whole bubble.
5. “We’ve protected an open internet…”. Barry’s
policy of Net Neutrality has turned Internet service providers into public
utilities under an ancient regulatory regime. The result has been a sharp
decline in broadband investment and a much less free and open system. In
addition, Barry is rushing to shift control of ICANN to the international
community, which will ensure that the Internet is less free, and subject to
overseas censorship.
6. “Seven years ago, we made the single biggest
investment in clean energy in our history. Here are the results.” It is
laughable that Barry would claim his failed clean energy spending, think
Solyndra, led to the fracking-fed energy boom we have enjoyed for the past
several years, especially when the administration did all it could to stop oil
and gas development. He also nixed the Keystone pipeline and has begun a plan
the purpose of which is to kill coal plants.
7. “No nation dares to attack us or our allies
because they know that’s the path to ruin.” Of all the lies in Barry’s speech,
this was undoubtedly the worst, coming hours after Iran seized two U.S. Navy
boats and ten of our sailors. Barry didn’t even mention those Americans in
captivity at any point in his speech, declining the chance to reassure the
nation that they would come home safely. It is an omission that will define
this address in history.
8. “As someone who begins every day with an
intelligence briefing, I know this is a dangerous time.” Barry does not attend
most of his daily intelligence briefings, preferring instead to read
intelligence reports, or so he claims, on his iPad, a stark contrast to the
attentive approach of his predecessor. Late last year, even as Barry claimed
that there was little risk from attack, radical Islamic terrorists carried out
brutal attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino.
9. “We are training, arming, and supporting forces
who are steadily reclaiming territory in Iraq and Syria [from Islamic State].”
Barry’s attempt to train and arm Syrian rebels has been a disaster. Belatedly,
the administration has helped Kurdish peshmerga forces, and the Iraqi military
has made gains lately, but Barry has not made a serious effort to defeat the
Islamic State, and is even giving up on regime change in Syria.
10. “Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to
promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America.” And a year of appeasement
has not promoted democracy, either. The Castros remain firmly in power, and we
are not helping the opposition. Worse, the Cuban regime continues to arrest
thousands of political dissidents, to cozy up to enemies like Iran and North
Korea, and to carry out provocative acts–such as stealing a U.S. Hellfire
missile.
And it was toward the end of his speech that Barry
did tell one quite important truth. It
was when he said, “There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or
Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide.” A rather unusual, but long overdue, admission
of guilt? And, you know, I find it quite
sad when looking back at how a man who came into office holding so much
promise, a man who could have been a remarkable force for good, a man who could
have been a great healer, so very badly squandered it all. Because instead of trying to heal, he sought
only to exploit, to manipulate and to politicize. And in so doing left our country far worse
off than he found it.
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