Men of Low Character

The most troubling part of our current situation in America is the realization that our President is a man of low character.  American Presidents are supposed to be shining examples of honesty and integrity that all citizens can hold up as a model for their children.

For the last couple of weeks, Obama's been on a tour of the country demagoguing the "sequester" as some kind of draconian spending cut that will make lines longer, hamper our police and fire departments, lay off teachers, and perhaps even starve poor children.  I think it was former New York mayor Giuliani who illustrated it this way:

Suppose you make 100 grand a year and your boss promised you a ten percent raise next year.  So you're looking forward to receiving 110 grand next year.  Then your boss comes back and says, "Sorry, we can't afford to give you a 10 thousand dollar increase next year, but we will give you about 8 thousand."

Do you rant and rave about the unfairness of it all and tell your boss your children will starve and have to stay home from school if he doesn't give you the full 10 grand?  No, you're a bit disappointed that you'll get a smaller raise.  But you will adjust.

Giuliani's illustration is exactly right.  Obama's over-the-top chicken little act is dishonest.  He even sent Arne Duncan out to talk about the thousands of teachers that will be laid off because of the sequester over the weekend.  Some intrepid reporters decided to check that one out, and found one school district in West Virginia that is reassigning some teachers.  Turns out that school district's actions have nothing to do with the sequester, but a need to reorganize within their own organization for better efficiency.  Add to that fact that there may not be any teachers terminated, merely reassigned to new jobs, and the whole story is proven false.

The report came out this week that ICE is releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants from detention, to be followed by as many as 10,000.  The releases being attributed to the sequester, of course.  But when it came out that such unlawful acts may be impeachable offenses, all of a sudden the White House said they knew nothing about the releases, and laughably even Janet Napolitano denied knowing anything about it either.  They'd have us believe a decision to release thousands of illegal immigrants from custody and blame a sequester that hasn't even taken effect yet was made by some mid-level manager in ICE?  We don't need proof to presume they're lying once again.

Top it off with the iconic Washington Post reporter, Bob Woodward, who brought down Richard Nixon with his Watergate reporting and can in no way be called a Republican tool.  He merely told the truth, that the sequester was an idea created by Obama, who then insisted on its inclusion in last year's debt deal.  Of course, that means he's been lying when he constantly tries to blame the sequester as a GOP scheme.  Woodward was harrassed to stop telling that story by the White House, then he was threatened in an email.

You don't do that to Bob Woodward, even if you're aligned with him as a Democrat.  Bob went public with the email, proving that the White House is entering dangerous territory that suggests they are willing to use their power to suppress the first amendment freedoms of the press and expression.  Could you imaging George W Bush, George H.W. Bush, or Ronald Reagan doing anything like that to a reporter that's printing stories that cast them in a bad light?  Notice that the "mainstream" networks have been ignoring Woodward and his experience.

Bill Clinton was also a president of low character.  Not just because of Monica Lewinsky, although that's enough of a sin for me.  But he then used the immense power of his office to force her and others to lie to investigators, and repeatedly lied himself in his attempt to cover up the whole affair.  He was impeached, but the Senate decided to ignore the facts of the case and refused to convict him out of fear of the violence that may have occurred from liberal Americans who love the Clintons.

I sort of think it would be better to have a Jimmy Carter in office rather than Obama or Clinton.  Carter was incompetent on domestic governace because of his socialist worldview, and inept on foreign policy because of a stunning naievete.  But at least I don't recall him lying as a matter of course or strong-arming the press or other citizens to force favorable treatment of his administration.

We re-elected a man of low character, either because slightly more than half of voters were ignorant of that fact or because they don't care.  If the truth is the latter, the country is already beyond hope.