You Can't Make This Stuff Up

OK - I suppose you can but in this case I'm not. The following are actual quotes of President Obama. What's interesting is - even though the quotes were recorded via digital video/audio, there are people who will say (including Obama himself) that he didn't really say that or that what he said before doesn't matter because of what he's saying now. One thing about many Obama supporters - they live by the motto "Never mind what he said before - let's just believe what he says now."

On the attempted increase of executive power in Washington in 2008, then Presidential candidate Barack Obama said:

“I taught constitutional law for ten years. I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that were facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m President of the United States of America.”

Interesting. In his State of the Union address in January of this year he backtracked a bit.

“But America does not stand still – and neither will I. So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Later in January he uttered these words. It seems he has had a memory lapse about the things of which he accused President Bush.

"So Congress should do the right thing and extend this vital lifeline for millions of Americans. Of course, that’s just short term. Long-term, the challenge of making sure everybody who works hard can get ahead in today’s economy is so important that we can’t wait for Congress to solve it. Where I can act on my own without Congress, I’ m going to do so.”

And again in January (it seems January was a big month for the President telling us how he was going to expand executive authority):

"Now, I'm hoping that Congress goes along with this, but I'm not going to wait for Congress."

I won't get into the unilateral changes President Obama made to the health care bill after signing it into law. Legal scholars say he has the authority to approve and implement laws but not change laws to suit his own political needs. The President and his followers disagree. So he does what he wants. And Republicans have yet to take any real action other than to whine about it.

Let's talk a minute about the "shovel ready jobs" the President promised were coming with the stimulus. In December 2009 he made these declarations:

"Already, more than 10,000 of these [infrastructure] projects have been funded through the Recovery Act. And by design, Recovery Act work on roads, bridges, water systems, Superfund sites, broadband networks, and clean energy projects will all be ramping up in the months ahead."

"We’ve got shovel-ready projects all across the country. And governors and mayors are pleading to fund it. The minute we can get those investments to the state level, jobs are going to be created."

Many Americans knew that what he was promising wasn't going to happen. So it came as no surprise when 18 months later the President said:

"Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected."

The surprise came in the fact that after billions of dollars had been spent without significant job increases, the President made his statement while laughing. He thought it was funny.

We should have seen all of this coming from the beginning. In 2007, Obama pledged to seek public financing for his presidential campaign. In 2008, he rejected public financing, even though his opponent - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) - accepted public financing. Obama chose to go with the big money instead.

In the 2008 campaign, Obama rejected the idea that an individual mandate (i.e., requiring individuals to purchase health insurance) should be part of health care reform. In 2010, he signed into law an individual mandate.

In 2007, Obama said:

"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." 

In 2011, he unilaterally authorized the military campaign in Libya.

What baffles me is that even with the evidence that the President says one thing and does another, some people still believe he's a wonderful man and a wonderful President. It's difficult to understand such a mindset that will allow people to completely overlook his lies (as in Benghazi and the IRS scandal) and only see what they wish to see. 

In May of 2008, during his campaign, President Obama said:

"... it is just wonderful to be back in Oregon, and over the last 15 months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in fifty .... seven states? I think one left to go. One left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit but my staff would not justify it."

He was clearly tired. Who wouldn't be after months of continuous travel and speech after speech (lie after lie)? I can certainly understand how his brain made a little slip. But I mentioned it to one Obama supporter once and that person denied that Obama ever made the statement. I posted the video of it for him and after watching it he still denied that those words came out of the President's mouth. That's not just blind allegiance but blind idiocy. When you watch and listen to someone say something and still deny they said it there's something wrong with you.

I so wish the American people would open their eyes and hearts and take a real look at the man who occupies the Oval Office right now. Take a look at the things he does rather than the things he says. Take off the rose colored glasses of liberalism and put on the thinking caps of patriotism. You might see him in a different light.