Arguably, the president made an unprecedented number of unprecedentedly brazen misrepresentations in his latest address to the joint session of Congress, and to the nation. These alleged misrepresentations have already been documented in various articles and fact-check web sites. This piece will focus on perhaps arguably the most outrageous misrepresentation of all, which is not even being widely discussed, if at all, to wit, the president’s statement that “The time for games is over.” Yet it is this President who has arguably toyed with the American people as he arguably treats his agenda as one big game, akin to a con game, in more ways than any previous president.
Preface: For the record, I admire President Obama as a role model for Whites and Blacks and individuals of all other colors and combinations as to his basic intelligence, perseverance, and personal work ethic; however, I respectfully believe that it would be an insult to the memory of the late Rev. Martin Luther King and all other fair American citizens, dead or alive, to let Obama’s skin color serve to color his place in history or absolve him from being judged as fairly as everyone else as to his policies, Many of which seem to be counter productive at best, and seem to encourage those who lack integrity, honor, honesty, and a work ethic, especially those illegal aliens who have flouted the law every moment since they entered this country, at the expense of the people who paid all kinds of taxes into the system all of their lives but now stand to have to give their places on line for health care and other vital services to the people who never stood on an immigration line or signed on the dotted line for a single income tax obligation, and many other obligations that come with citizenship, and never had to deprive themselves and their families of their fair wages in order to sit on a jury for token remuneration. (Proposals to solve this last mentioned dilemma, incidentally, appear in my article that appeared on page 2 in The New York Law Journal July 1, 1994, entitled “Perspective: Further Jury Reform Proposals.”)
In the wake of President Obama’s recent unprecedented (and some would add “unpresidential”) speech about health care (or, perhaps more accurately, health rationing) to a joint session of Congress, there is near unanimity on both sides of the aisle that it was wrong of a legislator to use that forum, which is supposed to benefit only the platform of the president, to accuse this president of lying about whether the proposed legislation would benefit people who are now considered illegal aliens. The secondary focus has been as to whether or not the legislator was correct as to his accusation. Much has been written as to whether the president may have been accurate in a technical sense, de jure, but not in a practical and actual de facto sense, given the Democrats’ refusal at that point to close many of the loopholes pointed out by Republicans or to put teeth into the legislation dealing with illegal immigrants, especially since many illegal immigrants can get drivers’ and other licenses and other benefits even without first becoming legal, and due to the Democrats’ simultaneous advocacy of amnesty for the benefit of many if not most of these illegal immigrants. So even if illegal immigrants would not be covered, officially, at the moment when the health care bill would be put into effect, many if not most of them would surely be covered in the near future, if the Democrats would have their way, once amnesty would take effect.
Arguably, the president made an unprecedented number of unprecedentedly brazen misrepresentations in his latest address to the joint session of Congress, and to the nation. These alleged misrepresentations have already been documented in various articles and fact-check web sites. This piece will focus on perhaps arguably the most outrageous misrepresentation of all, which is not even being widely discussed, if at all, to wit, the president’s statement that “The time for games is over.” Yet it is this President who has arguably toyed with the American people as he arguably treats his agenda as one big game, akin to a con game, in more ways than any previous president.
There were many factors that led to the election of President Obama, some flattering and some damning; but there is no doubt that a significant contributing factor was his ability to appeal to the middle class, especially by promising that he would not raise taxes for 95% of the people. Unfortunately, shortly after being elected, he promptly turned around and created a larger deficit than all the prior presidents combined, with the bill to go to this generation as well as future generations, and to be paid off, inevitably and extensively, with new taxes. Everything but the air we breathe seems to be getting taxed already, and energy from wind power will inevitably be taxed as well.
Once elected, the president rammed an unprecedentedly huge and costly stimulus bill through Congress, which bill was put to a vote with the “emergency” card and without serious scrutiny, debate, or hearings, and which clearly was not so urgent considering that most of the "stimulus" is to take place in future years anyway, not coincidentally closer to the next election cycles. I read that the stimulus bill also included, among other clauses hidden from the media, anywhere from 20 million dollars directly to 8 billion dollars indirectly for the arguably corrupt get-out-the-vote-for-Obama Acorn organization. Ironically, Congress shockingly put an end to this outrage, but after all too much irreparable damage was done and after all too many votes were counted (fictitious and otherwise), and for the wrong reason, because of a few rotten apples rather than because of a few thousand acrid acorns.
Then the president tried to ram a health care bill through Congress using the same “emergency” card as he used so successfully for the stimulus bill, hoping to get it passed by the first week in August. This time, the American people did not allow the same game to work, so the town hall meetings were convened, and when grass roots opposition emerged when the people found out some of what the bill stood for, the president and his followers made it seem like most of the opponents were just trying to drown out the health bill adherents, while the clear majority raised questions in a most civil way. Even were the people who tried to drown out the anti-waterboarding wing of the Democratic party in the majority, they were still less antidemocratic than the person who has been increasingly described as the Dictator-President who once again wanted to ram his second most far-reaching legislation in a generation – and in a few months -- without convening virtually a single pre-vote town hall meeting in many parts of the country prior to the first week of August! By Obama’s calling or implying that all who opposed his bill were anti-democratic, he was arguably playing a most cynical game since it was he who in effect wanted to prevent 100% of the town hall meetings that were convened after the first week of August from being convened before the bill would have been voted upon.
Full-length articles have been written demonstrating how the health bill (with the life and death repercussions) would not prevent people who are now illegal aliens from benefiting from it. Most notably, for example, David A. Patten wrote a piece widely circulated on the Internet and easily downloadable, entitled, “Wilson Apologizes, But Still Thinks Obama Wasn’t Honest.” Patten’s or any other sophisticated analysis of the facts shows that although Obama may technically have not been lying in claiming that illegal immigrants will not benefit directly from his proposed legislation, it is clear that Joe Wilson was correct that the practical result of the legislation as proposed at the time of the joint session of Congress would be that many people who were illegal immigrants at that time could expect to reap many benefits of the health care legislation as proposed by President Obama and his cohorts.
President Obama’s most outrageous lie
Arguably, President Obama’s most outrageous lie, of course, is that Republicans allegedly favor doing nothing about health care, contradicting his own earlier assertion that virtually all Republican and Democratic administrations since Teddy Roosevelt, in the course of about a full century, have made proposals in the past. (Remember, he just wants to be the last.) It is clear that most Republican members of Congress favor some sort of health care legislation; just not exactly what Obama tried to ram through Congress by the first week of August.
Now, for just saying “You lie” to the president’s face, unlike many Democrats who booed President Bush to his face and behind his back and accused him of lying in various public forums, without apologizing as Mr. Wilson did (or in any other manner), the generally soft-spoken Mr. Wilson, speaker of this arguable truth, about the arguable lie, as well as virtually all other Americans opposed to the bill, are now being accused of being racist, most notably, by the former one-term U.S. presidential peanut farmer most known, after getting outed as a liberal – with other people’s money -- and then ousted from power, to hobnob with, and get money for his self-aggrandizing library from, dictators and open supporters of terrorists.
Thinking back, during the presidential primaries in 2008, President Clinton just said the obvious about African Americans’ voting power in the South in Democratic primaries, only to find, to his astonishment, that the press, with the cooperation of Obama and his people, raised the race card and converted President Clinton overnight from “the first Black President” in the sense that he attempted to identify with and represent the interests of African-Americans as much as any White man could, into a purported racist critic of the second “Black president,” who in making this claim, incidentally (let alone the claim to be the first Black president) completely whitewashes the role and race of his White mother, who cared for him much more extensively than his Black father.
Obama and his supporters are quite adept at playing the “race card” virtually every time they are criticized with meritorious arguments they cannot answer on the merits even though, in President Obama’s election, it was the White electorate that gave him more votes than it ever gave another African-American despite his skin color, and it was the Black electorate that voted for him so uniformly at least partly due to his skin color in such overwhelming numbers that even the iconic “conservative” “ Republican,” Colin Powell, felt obliged to cross party lines, and to double cross party leaders, in order to support Obama and to publicly try to rationalize why a “conservative” “Republican” would do so.
Although few games could be as reprehensible as the game to portray President Clinton as a racist, and I am certainly no fan of President Clinton, while flitting back to the primary season, who can forget the game of amnesia that the President claimed in not knowing the basic positions of his pastor of 20 years, who was also his mentor to the point of inspiring the title of one of Obama’s self-defining autobiographies, or the comparable game of amnesia in claiming, during one of the presidential debates, that William Ayers was just a neighbor a generation apart, covering over their close relationships in an earlier Obama campaign for office and in leadership positions within the same Foundation at the same time (not just people who happened to sit down at the same table at some Board meetings).
Now, at this very moment, it is rumored that the first “Black” president is selling out the first Black governor of New York, trying to pressure him into withdrawing his bid for re-election as the first Black elected governor of New York not because of a difference in values but rather because of pure political expediency based on present poll numbers and a concern that Democratic candidates on the same ticket could suffer if being associated with the unpopularity – and the policies – of the leading Democrat in the state.
Is it gamesmanship for President Obama to have become the first President in United States history to take advantage of his bully pulpit and the miracle of videotape to appear on virtually all of the Sunday morning network political talk shows except for Fox, in order to circumvent the spirit of the fairness doctrine and the fairness of debate, and to present only his point of view on all of these programs virtually simultaneously, except for Fox, which virtually alone among the networks regularly gives both sides of issues a fair and full opportunity to be expressed? Some say that this president is “jokingly” discriminating against Fox in retaliation for this network’s not having aired his speech to the Joint Session of Congress. Others say that President Obama is discriminating against the Fox network to avoid tough questions. Is it possible that the gamesman-in-chief is discriminating against the Fox network also, and perhaps primarily, to prevent members of the public from tuning in on Fox and discovering that its on-the-air personnel are fairer, wittier, and more worthwhile to listen to and to view on a regular basis than many of the fawning and fainting liberals who swoon at President Obama’s every left-leaning move?
Race, Class, Urgency, Health, Death, Alien, Stock, Big Business, Bank Cards
So now we have come full cycle. The president who used the Disjointed Session of Congress to declare that “The time for games is over” has toyed with the American public perhaps more than any of his predecessors, with a poker face, in more ways than any other president. Arguably, he has used the “race” card, the “class” card, the “urgency” card, the “health” card, the “death” card, the “alien” card, the “tax” card, the “stock” card, the “big business” card, the “bank” card, and virtually every other card in the deck, except the report card, bent out of shape, to create a tottering stack of cards that seems destined to come crashing down on all Americans now and for generations to come, if we will only let the games continue.
Aaron I. Reichel, Esq., a member of the Federal and State Bars in New York and New Jersey, is the author of Fahrenheit 9-12 – Rebuttal to Fahrenheit 9/11, a moderate and reasoned response to critics of some significant policies of a prior Republican ticket.
