Another Obama Lie
by Big Dog on Jan 28, 2010 at 05:13 Political
Nearly every American who pays the least bit of attention is aware of the bribes that were offered and taken in order to get votes for health care. People are also aware that the labor unions met at the White House to carve out a deal for union members that the rest of us will not get but will pay for. Most people are also aware that Barack Obama and people from his administration were directly involved in these bribes.
Everyone, that is, except Barack Obama.
In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Obama denied that he was involved in these negotiations (bribes):
“Let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals [on health care]. … There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked Washington Examiner
Obama could be parsing words here because he said he was not involved in a “bunch” of deals. I guess that would mean he was involved in some. I think the implication is that he had nothing to do with the deals.
Where is reality? The Washington Post reports:
Schumer, who spent more than 13 hours in Reid’s office Friday, said the Medicaid issue was settled around lunchtime, and the final eight hours of the talks focused on the abortion language. Boxer estimated she spent seven hours in Reid’s offices — without ever once sitting in the same room, even though they were all of 25 steps apart.
Reid and Schumer kept up the “shuttle negotiation” between the leader’s conference room and his top aide’s office, Boxer said. Keenly aware how tense the talks were, the White House dispatched two aides who together have decades of experience in the Senate — Jim Messina and Peter Rouse — to work with Nelson. They relayed their intelligence to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who monitored the talks from a dinner in Georgetown.
Hmm, I wonder how Obama was not involved in this?
The Examiner also includes this from Michelle Malkin:
The unmitigated chutzpah here is so blinding that I don’t just need sunglasses to protect my eyes. I need blackout curtains. Watch President Obama blame Congress for Demcare bribery and sabotage of transparency. As if Rahm and all the senior goons in the White House weren’t twisting arms and cracking heads to ensure that the deal met their boss’s timeline. As if the Cadillac tax break for unions hadn’t been hashed out at 1600 Pennsylvania.
It would seem to me that Obama was involved in ALL of this and I say that makes it a bunch. He can parse it how he likes but he lied to us.
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I swear, I had a hard time during the SOTU BS fest that Barry was spewing, not to go all “Elvis” on my TV-
This man is soooooooooooooooooo narcissistic that I think the teleprompters must have built in mirrors.
I don’t think in all my years alive, nor in my study of history, have I seen a man so tone- deaf to the will of the people- perhaps Nero or Caligula- they might come close- or Mao.
Take your pick, none of them are exemplar leaders, and yet, as Reagan might have said, “There he goes again…”
BLK: “I don’t think in all my years alive,… have I seen a man so tone- deaf to the will of the people”>>
DAR
Let’s check that a bit:
“Democracy Corps conducted dial testing of the speech with 50 independent and weak partisan voters in Nevada, followed by focus group discussions with voters who shifted toward approval of Obama’s performance in office. This difficult audience for Obama was a heavily Republican-leaning group (46 percent Republican, 20 percent Democratic) that split their votes in 2008 (52 percent Obama, 46 percent McCain) but had moved away from him over the past year, with majorities expressing disapproval with his job performance and unfavorable views of him on a personal level.”
“Entering the evening, swing voters in this group agreed with a 48 to 16 percent plurality saying Obama “puts Wall Street ahead of the middle class.” But after the speech, the number disagreeing with that statement jumped a remarkable 50 points, to 66 percent. Moreover, Obama saw a 38-point increase in support for his banking reform plan and a 40-point increase in the percent saying that he “stands up to special interests.” Link.
So we find Blake’s interpretation to be… rather atypical. Big surprise!
D.
Atypical? Not hardly- but then you are a Chris Matthews lover- he who said, ” I forgot he was black for an hour-” Wow- talk about closet racists- but then your side has been well known for deception on every front- bluntly, you are liars, the ends justify the means, etc.
But when you have almost every media outlet kissing the hem of his skirt, it might seem easy to overlook his blatant lies.
When have I ever said anything nice about Chris Matthews? I haven’t. He is an airhead and probably gets paid by the word.
He gives some mediocre explanation here:
Link.
I think the context shows it’s just another example of his diarrhea of the mouth, not racism. This will be far too subtle for you but… if a Limbaugh type had said it, they probably would have meant something racist by it. Just another one on the pile.
“This man is soooooooooooooooooo narcissistic that I think the teleprompters must have built in mirrors.”
There he goes again? There you go again. Narcissistic? Do you know what that word even means? I mean, every politician has a bit of it but for you to continue to pretend Obama is a man who cannot see his own faults, can’t say he has been wrong, that he is so in love with himself, well…you say it enough times somebody might fall for your lie.
But what is best about your quote is that the teleprompter does have a built in mirror. That’s how it works…
I thought as much- that is why he simply MUST drag TOTUS to a 6th grade classroom- what? He can’t even speak extemporaneously?
I guess when Obama wants to speak to the press he doesn’t want to sound like Bush used to sound on most occasions.
He referred to himself over 130 times in the speech. How is that for narcissistic?
Any idea how many times other presidents have referred to themselves in the speeches?
I’m not finding any body that references how they arrive at such a number. If we can find out I can compare it to previous years.
Obama repeatedly insisted that he inherited massive budgetary problems from George Bush, but the Con Law professor may want to retake his high-school civics class. Congress passes budgets, not the President, and the last three budgets came from Democrats. In three years, they increased annual federal spending by $900 billion, while the admittedly profligate and irresponsible Republican Congresses under George Bush increased annual federal spending by $800 billion — in six years. And during the last three years before taking office as President, Obama served in the Senate that passed those bills, and he voted for every Democratic budget put in front of him.
And not only that but–“Every Senate Democrat just voted to increase the debt limit to 14.3 trillion.” Right down party lines.
I don’t know what kind of high-school civics class you had. I didn’t exactly go to the best high-school but mine sure didn’t talk about the United States budget process. I took political science classes on American government in college that didn’t even discuss the budget process.
As we’ve talked about in other threads we should not pretend there is a vacuum between the President and Congress on budgets. The President is involved in the process on multiple levels. Has a president ever tried to shirk responsibility for the budget and deficits by saying “Look, this is all Congress, I’m the President, I don’t set the budget”? It would be absurd.
Certainly not but once a president proposes a budget he is basically powerless over what Congress puts in or takes out. Congress and only Congress has the power of the purse.
If Obama were to propose a 1 billion dollar budget and Congress passed a Trillion dollar budget it would be on them. This is different than bills that the president signs which contain tons of pork. If he signs it he is responsible for it.
When I wrote certainly not I meant it as the president is not detached from the process (in agreement with you).
Victoria is right though, as Obama continues to blame Bush for the mess he did vote for every budget put forward by the Dems. He was one of the Senators with the highest dollar amount of earmarks. He was not concerned about it then and he blames Bush now. He could have taken a principled stance then if he really cared about it.
This is of course ignoring the fact that it was the Bush tax cuts, two wars, and the recession that drove the deficit above all else. While we certainly can’t pin the recession on Bush as if he caused it himself the tax cuts or the wars do matter and they aren’t to be left out of consideration when it comes to who is to blame for the current level of deficit. Even next year when more and more of the deficit is the work of Obama’s policies and agenda there will still be the lingering affects of those three things in the mix.
ADM: “Bush tax cuts, two wars, and the recession that drove the deficit above all else.”>>
DAR
Add to that the completely unfunded $800 billion medicare debacle.
Bigd: “[Obama] was one of the Senators with the highest dollar amount of earmarks.”>>
DAR
In 2008, he wasn’t even in the top ten:
Earmarks top ten senators.
Republicans came in 1st, third, fourth and fifth.
Stats here.
Also:
“Working with her New York colleagues in nearly every case, Clinton supported almost four times as much spending on earmarked projects as her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), whose $91 million total placed him in the bottom quarter of senators who seek earmarks, the study showed.”
Wash. Post.
D.
Senator Barack Obama on Thursday released a list of $740 million in earmarked spending requests that he had made over the last three years, and his campaign challenged Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to do the same. NYT
The pork-barrelers also risk diluting one of Mr. McCain’s winning messages. Hillary Clinton has a miserable earmark record, which Mr. McCain has used to embarrass her over a funding request for a Woodstock museum. Mr. Obama likes to point to Senate work to increase earmark transparency. But he too has asked for plenty of money and refused to release information about his early earmark requests. Either Democrat will want to neutralize this issue. [emphasis mine] Real Clear Politics
Long list of earmarks
“Since he became a U.S. senator, Obama slipped nearly $1 billion in earmarks into various bills, such as three-quarters of a million to fund a visitors’ center and another $700,000 to fund soybean-disease research.”
And Obama was only a Senator for 2 years.
It is interesting that the study was from 2008 when Obama cut his earmarks drastically because he was running for president. Look at him and compare only his two years of actually being in the Senate and see how he fairs. He requested nearly a billion dollars so he is not near the bottom.
Bigd: “And Obama was only a Senator for 2 years.”>>
DAR
Really? Are you using your funny anti-global warming calculator again?
Obama won election to the US senate in November of 2004. He began serving in January, 2005… “until he resigned after his election to the presidency in November 2008.”
Now set aside the calculator and just get out your fingers for this one:
’05, ’06, ’07, ’08.
Since when does nearly four, actually equal two?
He was elected to a 6 year term and he served as a Senator for four of those until he moved to the White House. He started announced he was running for the presidency on 2 May 2007 and spent most of the rest oif his time doing so. He had about 150 days actually working in the Senate. He had 2 years experience when he decided to run. He might have been in the Senate on paper for four years but he was in the Senate for 2 of them. He curbed his earmarks as the campaign moved on so the actual comparison is for the time he actually spent being a Senator.
True or false:
“Obama was only a Senator for 2 years.”
Oh, and a follow up:
When you add up McCain’s years in the senate, do you subtract the years he was running for president?
Well Darrel proves the point, if a liberal says something that can be perceived as racist then it is not racist but a conservative is racist no matter what.
Reid and Matthews get passes while the libs pile on people who are not racist. Ask Limbaugh’s employees if he is racist and how he treats them.
I don’t think of Obama as black, just radical. Matthews thinks of his color, what does it say?