3/2/2018 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com
Upon hearing that
former President Barack Obama recently boasted that he had a scandal-free
administration, my first thought after regaining my faculties was: How can I
possibly cram all the evidence refuting this in a little bitty column?
Then I read that what
he actually said was, "We didn't have a scandal that embarrassed us."
At first blush, that sounds better, right? Because I assume he doesn't mean
he's incapable of being embarrassed. After a little more thought, though, it
occurred to me that this construction just highlights the real reason he has
apparently deluded himself into thinking he served eight honorable years: The
liberal media had his back the entire time, even when he treated them like
dirt.
In fact, Obama was a
perpetual power-abusing machine. He was so routinely high-handed and
selectively contemptuous of the rule of law that people were beginning to think
presidential authoritarianism was the new normal. How ironic that so many of
Obama's enablers are now projecting these sins onto President Trump, who -- to
this point, at least - hasn't actually crossed the line into flouting the
Constitution. The left believes -- and acts on the belief -- that the ends
justify the means, and so, it naturally assumes we will do the same. Obama was
hell-bent on fundamentally transforming America as founded, and he was willing
to scratch, bite, kick, steal and flush the rule of law to accomplish it -- and
he did, like no president before him. In other words, Obama's lies were OK
because lies are sometimes necessary for the greater good.
For your review, let me
just give you a list of examples, many of them snatched from my two Obama
books, which chronicled his two disgraceful terms. Not all technically qualify
as scandals, but enough do.
--Benghazi: In addition
to the scandalous betrayal and death of our people, Obama and his cohorts
concocted and disseminated the lie that the attack on our consulate was caused
by an anti-Muslim video. Later, Judicial Watch obtained a smoking-gun email
from top-level Obama aid Ben Rhodes, sent to a dozen members of Obama's inner
circle, that contained talking points to prepare then-U.N. Ambassador Susan
Rice for the Sunday talk shows. Three of the four main bullet points Rhodes was
advising Rice to convey were patently false, including the lie about the video.
They knew, because the CIA made it clear, that the attack was not the result of
a spontaneous protest to an anti-Muslim video but preplanned by al-Qaida. The
Obama administration manufactured this canard to insulate Obama from criticism
two months before the November 2012 election, as he had boasted that he had
al-Qaida on the run.
--Obama's IRS conspired
to target conservative and pro-Israel groups for discriminatory treatment in
acquiring tax exemptions.
--Obama and
then-Attorney general Eric Holder's Justice Department was never held to
account for its actions on the gunrunning scandal known as Operation Fast and
Furious, in which an American was murdered with weapons this administration
deliberately put into the hands of Mexican cartels.
--This same Justice
Department was also under a cloud due to scandals involving its massive culling
of Associated Press reporters' phone records concerning a leak investigation,
slandering Fox News reporter James Rosen over classified information, and
monitoring Rosen's phone calls and emails.
--Obama's lies on
Obamacare were legion and scandalous: He knew from the jump we couldn't keep
our plans or our doctors, and that Obamacare would reduce rather than increase
people's access to care. He knew it wouldn't reduce premiums by $2,500 for the
average family of four. He deceived us when he said no federal dollars would be
used to fund abortions. He grossly distorted the picture of the true number of
uninsured. His goal, proved on videotape, was always single-payer. He used
budgetary accounting gimmicks to grease Obamacare by the CBO, including the
double counting on Medicare.
--After Obama's failure
to pass cap-and-trade legislation through Congress to purportedly reduce the
global temperature by suppressing traditional energy production and
consumption, his Environmental Protection Agency unilaterally and
unconstitutionally issued a decree to accomplish his goal administratively.
Some called this one of the biggest power grabs in American history, as the EPA
had positioned itself to regulate fuel economy, set climate policy for the
nation and amend the Clean Air Act -- powers never delegated to it by Congress.
-- The Obama
administration flagrantly defied a federal court order on his moratorium on
offshore drilling when his interior secretary, Ken Salazar, said he would just
reimpose the moratorium based on information that wasn't fully developed
earlier.
--Obama rigged the
playing field to secure for his labor-union friends a bigger stake in his new
General Motors than was warranted by their actual ownership interest. He robbed
secured creditors of their preferred-creditor status and the value of their
investment by using the power of his office to strong-arm a restructuring of
the company. When Democratic Party donor and super-lawyer Tom Lauria opposed
this plan on behalf of his client, according to Lauria, the White House threatened
to destroy his client's reputation.
--The Obama-Hillary
Clinton FISA scandal, the egregiousness of which is being casually dismissed by
many, will someday be fully exposed.
--Then, there's the
Iran nuclear deal, Obama's unprecedented federal land grabs; his dismissal of a
voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party that had already
been won; his bullying of doctors and insurance companies when it served his
purposes; his endless stirring of the racial pot; his bullying and fact-starved
attack on BP that culminated in his authoritarian command, "Just plug the
damn hole"; his stable of unaccountable "czars"; his war on Fox
News, which preceded Trump's battles with the press that Democrats find so
horrifying; the Department of Veterans Affairs scandal; the Solyndra scandal;
the deliberate targeting of the coal industry; the shakedown of banks; the
massive redistribution scheme disguised as an economic stimulus program; the
federal commandeering of the student loan program; his public dressing down of
the Supreme Court; his whispered hot-mic pledge to Russia to be more flexible
on missile defense; his cavalier treatment of Arizona and its immigration laws;
and gobs more.
I truly could go on,
but I trust you get the picture.
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