Our Know-Nothing President
UPI FILE
Is it really possible that the President of the United
States knows as little about what his Administration is doing as his
defenders claim? That no one tells him
anything about what’s going on until he reads it in the papers?
Consider all of the scandals that have taken place since Barack Obama
moved into the White House: Operation Fast and Furious; the murder of
our ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya; the
Internal Revenue Service harassment of Tea Party and other patriotic
groups; National Security Agency spying on foreign leaders, as well as
millions of Americans; the incredibly botched implementation of
Obamacare… The list goes on and on.
We’re supposed to believe that Obama remained in blissful ignorance
about all of them until the media reports started. When that happened,
he was just as surprised and upset as the rest of us.
The latest “I didn’t know anything about it” scandal is the
revelation that the NSA has been monitoring the private conversations of
some 35 world leaders. Apparently, the bugging operation has been going
on for years. Yet we’re supposed to believe that no one told the
President about it until a couple of months ago.
Sure, that sounds credible, doesn’t it? Turns out, we’re tapping the
cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among others; yet no one
in the chain of command thinks that maybe, just maybe, Obama should be
told about it.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, followed the party line when she said: “It is my
understanding that President Obama was not aware Chancellor Merkel’s
communications were being collected since 2002. That is a big problem.”
It certainly is. Of all the sorry excuses that have been offered for this Presidential ignorance, my favorite is the one from
anonymous officials
who said that “the NSA has so many eavesdropping operations under way
that it wouldn’t have been practical to brief him on all of them.”
If you were in charge, how would you like to have that pathetic
excuse laid in front of you? Do you think that maybe some heads would
roll? That’s what would happen in the real world — but not in this
Administration, where the watchword is to protect the President at all
costs. And always, but always, blame somebody else when anything goes
wrong.
The latest example of this came on Wednesday, when Health and Human
Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the woman in charge of
implementing Obamacare, trudged up Capitol Hill to explain why things
have gone so disastrously wrong in the launch of the President’s pet
program — and to promise that they will get better very soon.
In her testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee,
Sebelius said that she was “as frustrated and angry as anyone” about the
problems that have occurred since the launch of Obamacare on Oct. 1.
At one point, she even denied that the Healthcare.gov website had
actually crashed, saying it just runs a lot slower than it should. Hah!
In a piece of cosmic irony, the website crashed again, just as she was
delivering this whopper. When it did,
CNN broadcast a split
screen, showing Sebelius on the right half and the crash error message
from the website (“The system is down at the moment”) on the left-hand
side of the screen.
Potential enrollees aren’t the only ones who can’t get the
information they need from the Obamacare website. Turns out that neither
can the HHS Secretary. When asked how many people had actually managed
to navigate through the website to the end and actually purchase one of
the government-mandated health plans, Sibelius said that the numbers
weren’t available yet. Check back next month.
Is it that the total number of enrollments can’t be tabulated or that
they won’t be released, since they are so embarrassingly low?
Still, Sebelius promised her skeptical inquisitors that everything
would be hunky-dory by the end of November, when the website will
finally be working properly. In the meantime, she proclaimed, “Hold me
accountable for the debacle. I’m responsible.”
Does that mean she’ll do the honorable thing and tender her
resignation to the President? Not on your life. Or at least, not yet. If
the promised re-launch of the website comes on Dec. 1, as seems likely,
I don’t think the White House will bear with her much longer. By
sometime in January, I suspect you can color Sebelius gone.
Meanwhile,
CNN reports
that the Administration is putting pressure on insurance companies not
to say anything critical of Obamacare. “What’s going on,” reporter
Andrew Griffin told Anderson Cooper, “is [a] behind-the-scenes attempt
by the White House to at least keep insurers from publicly criticizing
what is happening under this Affordable Care Act rollout. Basically, if
you speak out, if you are quoted, you’re going to get a call from the
White House, pressure to be quiet.”
Bob Laszewski, a consultant for several insurance companies, says
he’s getting calls from executives he knows, asking him to speak out on
their behalf. He told
CNN: “The White House is exerting massive pressure on the industry, including the trade associations, to keep quiet.”
Now it turns out that the insurance companies — and the Obama Administration — have known for
years
that millions of Americans would lose their health insurance once
Obamacare went into effect, despite all of the claims to the contrary.
Regulations written by the Department of Health and Human Services in
July 2010 estimated that “40 to 67 percent” of policyholders would not
be able to keep their health insurance once the Affordable Care Act went
into effect. Now there are estimates that the actual figure may be as
high as 80 percent. So somewhere between 8 million and 14 million
Americans will lose the health insurance they presently have.
Of course, Obama promised the American people exactly the opposite.
Back in June 2009 he said, “[W]e will keep this promise to the American
people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.
Period. If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your
healthcare plan. Period.”
And he’s repeated that promise countless times since then. In fact,
as of yesterday, the official White House website still claimed, “If you
like your plan, you can keep it and you don’t have to change a thing
due to the healthcare law.”
Of course, we now know that this isn’t true. Millions of people are
learning that they won’t be able to keep their present policy, no matter
how much they might like it. But the Obama Administration continues to
spread this falsehood.
This helps explain why Obama’s popularity is plummeting faster than a safe falling from a window. The latest
Wall Street Journal/NBC News
poll says that the President’s job-approval rating has fallen to an
all-time low. According to the poll, a majority of Americans — 51
percent — now disapprove of the job he is doing. Only 42 percent say
they still approve of his performance. That’s down from 53 percent at
the end of last year.
In the same poll, just 29 percent said that their representative
deserved to be re-elected to Congress.
More than twice as many, some 63
percent, said it was time to give a new person a chance.
The disdain was bipartisan, by the way, with two Republican leaders —
House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell —
joining Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in getting their highest
negative ratings ever.
Oh, and get this: Half of those polled don’t believe that an accord
will be reached by the Jan. 15 deadline on a plan to fund the
government. They say another Federal shutdown is likely.
Will all of this disdain and distrust result in votes to actually reduce the size, power and
cost of our central government? It would be wonderful if that were the case. But I wouldn’t count on it.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Repeatedly, both before and after passage, President Obama
promised the American people, "If you like your health-care plan, you’ll
be able to keep your health-care plan, period."
