Take notes here, folks, and put on your sunglasses. You are about to see the most glaring case of hypocrisy in modern US history.
“You know, I think what’s important if you’re running for president is that the American people know who you are, what you’ve done and that you’re an open book. And, you know, that’s been true of every presidential candidate dating back to Mr. Romney’s father,” President Obama said when asked if he thinks it is unpatriotic to have a Swiss bank account in an interview with WMUR-TV.
“Who you are” – Barack Obama still hasn’t explained substantial portions of his past, has not released his college transcripts, and has written a pair of books that have turned out to be full of “composite” characters and outright fiction. More than four years on the national stage, and the American people still don’t really know who their president is or what makes him tick.
“What you’ve done” – Prior to the presidency, what had Barack Obama done? He had won a couple of elections by getting his opponents kicked off ballots or by personally destroying them. He had given speeches. He had been a “community organizer” and an adjunct teacher. He was a backbencher in the Illinois and US Senates. He never ran a business or met a payroll or, really, did much of anything useful. He did, according to his biography, spend two of his high school years in a drug haze before getting into Ivy League schools. How’d that happen? He isn’t saying.
“Open book” – Says the man who still cloaks his true relationship with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and race-baiter/mentor Jeremiah Wright. Be an “open book” says the man who casts all discussion of his own background as if it’s based on racism or some other sin. Be an “open book” says the man who has spent about a million dollars hiding his past. Be an “open book” says the man who just helped his attorney general hide thousands of Fast and Furious documents and who conceals his true agenda from the people while he pursues that agenda via regulation and fiat.
There is, by the way, video at the link — video which should turn up in a Romney ad before long.
It seems impossible that Obama could have said what he did and not recognize the tremendous contradiction it makes with his own 2008 presidential campaign. Indeed, Obama said openly that his lack of an accountable past was a campaign asset — the famous “blank screen for others to project upon” remark.
But more important than Obama’s consciousness of his hypocrisy is this: Will American voters sense the contradiction between his sanctimonious words and his actual practice of personal concealment? Upon that question, the election could very well turn.
What the President said five years, days or minutes ago may not be useful now, so it is without any apparent self-awareness he contradicts himself. It helps that he is reading what others write for him, no doubt a battalion of them; but that excuses him, though it doesn’t explain why he can be so mendacious. He lies so shamelessly, so glibly, to the American people, how is it that so many don’t understand what contempt he must hold for at least 50% of us? Why can so many foreign leaders see right through him, when we won’t?
It’s not the lies and hypocrisy that bother me so much. It’s that they are so easily pointed out that bothers me. They aren’t putting any effort in trying to misdirect me. I’m worth at least some effort.
Of *course* it’s hypocrisy, but that’s not the point. The WH insistence that Romney be an “open book” is a cue to the media to go vet Romney, knowing that same media will let the blatant hypocrisy pass. As far as they’re concerned, Obama is already president, so we already know the guy. Thus nothing to investigate.
– meat.