Politically UnEZ

President Obama’s “Phony” Scandals

Yesterday, the President of the United States appeared in Jacksonville to roundup this week’s portion of his current speaking tour on the subject of the economy. Pundits and observers agree that the appearances he has made in the past week were merely presentations of recycled speeches from the campaign trail, and the real purpose of his road trip to a number of American cities was a political one, designed to gin up his support base at a time of his plummeting popularity in the polls, and to distract the public from the plethora of scandals plaguing his administration. Some of the President’s more notable remarks, made reference to Washington’s focus on what he termed “phony” scandals. With unresolved issues like the tragic death of four Americans in Benghazi, the targeting of political enemies by the IRS, the spying done on of American citizens by the NSA, and the intrusion on the first amendment rights of the press at the top of most Americans minds when this President’s scandals are mentioned, his remarks were the red meat dream of his political opponents.  One after another the intellectually honest talking heads in the media lambasted Mr. Obama for referring to such real and important open investigations as “phony”.

This writer agrees with that sentiment, but, in the interest of taking the POTUS literally, took pause to reflect on the real “phony scandals” he continues to be faced with. In the first major act of his Presidency, challenged with addressing a national unemployment rate of 7.8%, Mr. Obama stood on a stage before all Americans espousing the benefits of a massive $1.2 Trillion economic stimulus package, making the promise that all that targeted spending for shovel ready jobs would reduce our unemployment rate to less than 6% by the end of 2012. Since that time, the President begrudgingly admitted there really were no shovel ready jobs, and according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the unemployment rate at the close of June 2013 in the US was 7.6%.
When selling the public benefits of his later adopted landmark achievement, the Affordable Care Act, the President promised Americans that liked their insurance that they could keep it, those who liked their doctors could keep them, and that insurance premiums would plummet as a result, saving the Average American $2,500 a year. As the implementation of Obamacare has evolved, Americans have found all three promises amounted to one tall tale of deceit.

Obama also frequently promised Americans he would oversee the most transparent administration in the history of the Nation, but we were in fact treated to a roll out of stonewalling and cover ups on all the controversies of his tenure from Fast and Furious, to Benghazi and the use of the IRS to assault his political enemies.
For all his promises of the first post-racial Presidency, Mr. Obama has in fact played the race card at every opportunity, to be divisive and gin up distrust at times of critical opportunities to unite Americans.

While some would say with righteous indignation that there are no “phony” scandals before us, I’ll choose to disagree by remembering the scandals of phony promises to Americans like me who are becoming resoundingly disappointed with the phony in the Whitehouse.