From the Left to the Right: President Obama Didn’t Know

Thursday, December 12, 2013

President Obama Didn’t Know – Really? (Part I)

Written : Dec. 11-12, 2013

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I give any president the privilege to perform diplomacy with foreign leaders (fib a little), and obfuscate (hide things in the name of national security), but President Obama appears to delegate - and then walks away, disengaged. Many of his supporters are angry that he has not done more. I maintain we’d be in a lot more trouble if he could manage effectively. He’s a great orator, yes. But like my father, who purposefully had no conservative friends, he doesn’t possess the skills to coerce, cajole, convince, or socialize with Republicans. President Obama stays in the dark, and it seems he likes it that way. During this administration, he (the most powerful man in the world) and his staff told us many times that he learns about current affairs not by being briefed by officials, but while watching TV. Even for the most ardent supporter, this must be hard to believe. (Even the Washingon Post is getting suspicious!) They have a set of photos outlining some of what he said he didn’t know.

Hey, we won.

1. Obamacare failure 1: The president stood by the wayside from beginning to end while his signature Obamacare health-care law crashed and burned. Leaving it to Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid to architect and twist arms for the “we won’t know what’s in it until we pass it” bill, he played golf, campaigned, and hob-knobbed with the rich and famous. No one informed President Obama of healthcare.gov’s problems until after its launch on Oct. 1, 2013, or so they claimed. He described the ease of use of healthcare.gov as being like buying “a plane ticket on Kayak,” or the “same way you shop for a TV on Amazon.” But the site crashed for weeks, instead. He appeared shocked that the government, for three years, had spent half a billion dollars on a website which didn’t work. I was surprised, too, but I am not in charge – he is.

Only 365,000 signed up so far, but how many have enrolled? Fewer, obviously.

2. Spying on our friends: When Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany feigned outrage over the fact that the U.S. was spying on her by tapping her cell phone (for the previous five years), the White House said President Obama had no idea this was happening. I support this tactic, and it is a bi-partisan one, by the way. I fully expect our allies to spy on us and any current administration to do the same, but how did the president not know? He needed to perform a delicate tap dance on this, and he did, but it fits the pattern.

Your country spied on me. No, I had no idea…

3. IRS Scandal: The IRS spied on Tea Party group activities (‘spying’ isn’t right, but there’s nothing wrong with being aware of your opponents). They also discriminated against Tea Party groups by not allowing a majority of those to receive their applied-for 501c4’s (plenty wrong with that, in fact, that’s illegal). President Obama was either kept from this knowledge, or knew and denied it. He claimed that he first learned about this IRS tactic, “on Friday, when I was watching the news.” He then appeared outraged. “If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that’s outrageous. And there’s no place for it,” the president said. A year later he dismissed the IRS scandal as false outrage. Which is it?

I did nothing wrong. It was just a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati…

4. Spying on the Media: The White House insisted it knew nothing of the fact that the Justice Department seized Associated Press reporters’ phone records, including those of James Rosen, of FOX News. Either the Obama administration has a private and consistent policy of meanness / underhandedness toward the opposition, or President Obama can’t control his own people. One of the two must be true, but which?

’A press that is free to investigate and criticize the government is absolutely essential in a nation that practices self-government…’ Thomas Jefferson.

5. Fast and Furious: The Justice Department’s famous “Fast and Furious” scandal (Eric Holder’s people ran guns to Mexico and didn’t track them) was unknown to the Obama Administration. “…the president did not know about this tactic until he heard about it through the media,” his spokesman, Jay Carney said. Sure, Jay. Sure, Jay. I'm beginning to see a pattern...