Speaking in Nevada on Monday, former president Barack Obama uttered what may have been the most pompous, patronizing, and pretentious lie from a politician since Woodrow Wilson, the president who championed executive power over legislative power by expanding the executive branch, who stated, “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.”
Obama actually said this: “Unlike some I actually try to state facts. I believe in facts. I believe in a fact-based reality and a fact based politics. I don’t believe in just making stuff up.”
This astonishing statement flies in the face of that stubborn thing called the truth. Here are just a few of the times Obama has wrought havoc with the truth as he sold (and sells) his bill of goods to America:
1. Rated the “Lie of the Year” by left-wing Politifact, Obama said, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” Politifact noted in 2013, “So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong. Boiling down the complicated health care law to a soundbite proved treacherous, even for its promoter-in-chief. Obama and his team made matters worse, suggesting they had been misunderstood all along.”
2. Obama said this year about his administration: “We didn’t have a scandal that embarrassed us.” Oh, really? He conveniently forgot the IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal, the Fast and Furious Scandal, letting Hezbollah funnel cocaine into the United States, and secretly wiretapping AP reporters.
3. Obama asserted in 2013 vis-à-vis the Benghazi scandal, “The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.”
Nope. Obama repeatedly described it as “an act of terror,” but never mentioned the word terrorism, possibly because he didn’t want to damage his 2012 campaign theme that the U.S. had terrorists beaten.
In fact, the day after the attack in Benghazi, here was his conversation with Steve Kroft of CBS News in which he studiously avoided calling the Benghazi massacre an act of terrorism:
Kroft: “Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word ‘terrorism’ in connection with the Libya attack.”
Obama: “Right.”
Kroft: “Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?”
Obama: “Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.”
Eight days later, Obama was asked this question at Univision town hall: “We have reports that the White House said today that the attacks in Libya were a terrorist attack. Do you have information indicating that it was Iran, or al-Qaeda was behind organizing the protests?”
Obama answered, “Well, we’re still doing an investigation, and there are going to be different circumstances in different countries. And so I don’t want to speak to something until we have all the information. What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.”
Five days after that, on ABC’s “The View,” Obama was asked, “It was reported that people just went crazy and wild because of this anti-Muslim movie — or anti-Muhammad, I guess, movie. But then I heard Hillary Clinton say that it was an act of terrorism. Is it? What do you say?”
Obama answered, “We are still doing an investigation. There is no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault, that it wasn’t just a mob action. Now, we don’t have all the information yet so we are still gathering.”
Obama believes in facts, all right. His facts.