Obama lies a lot, and flip flops on key issues

OBAMA LIES ...Or Miss-spoke, Alot
Printer-friendly version
Contributed by Sam Minervino myMaineToday.com 2008-04-04


Portland — “Barack Obama has attended Wright's sermons for over twenty years. By his own admission, Obama consults with Wright before making any "bold political decisions." Obama calls Wright his "spiritual advisor." He calls Wright one of his prime mentors. Obama got the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope," from a Wright sermon of the same name. He says that Wright was extremely important in shaping his life and his views. Obama and his wife were married by Rev. Wright. Reverend Wright baptized Obama's daughters. Barack Obama donated over $20,000 to Wright's church in 2006. He continues attending services in Wright's church.”- antiprotester.blogspot.com

Barack H.Obama wrote these words in "'Dreams of My Father," -- "I found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race." His mother is white.

Hillary has her Bosnia lie and Obama has….

( From “newsbusters.org”

)

1). Will Obama get the same media treatment with his lies? Don’t hold your breath. In a speech to a Selma, Alabama crowd meant to pump up his civil-rights movement authenticity and his Kennedy Camelot image, Barack Obama claimed that the Kennedy administration paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and therefore was responsible for his “very existence”. However, the first march on Selma took place on March 7, 1965. Obama would have been about three and half years old at that time. For some reason the media never did the math on this.

2). Obama’s Selma speech offers a very confused chronology of both the Kenya student program and the civil rights movement. Relating the story of how his parents met, Obama said: “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Junior was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama.”

…. bloggers pointed out that the Selma bridge protest occurred four years after Obama’s birth.

3). (From “freedomsenemies.com”) In his memoir, Obama writes of one of the watershed moments of his racial awareness -- time and again in remarkable detail. It is a story about a Life magazine article that influenced him. The report was about a black man who tried to bleach his skin white. When Obama was told no such article could be found in Life, he says "it might have been Ebony.

He is 9 years old, living in Indonesia, where he and his mother moved with her new husband, Lolo Soetoro, a few years earlier. One day while visiting his mother, who was working at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Obama passed time by looking through several issues of Life magazine. He came across an article that he later would describe as feeling like an "ambush attack."

The article included photos of a black man who had destroyed his skin with powerful chemical lighteners that promised to make him white. Instead, the chemicals had peeled off much of his skin, leaving him sad and scarred, Obama recalled.

"I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams."

Yet no such photo exists, according to historians at the magazine. No such photos, no such article. When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been ... who knows what it was?" (At the request of the Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past articles, none of which matched what Obama recalled.)

In fact, it is surprising, based on interviews with more than two dozen people who knew Obama during his nearly four years in Indonesia, that it would take a photograph in a magazine to make him conscious of the fact that some people might treat him differently in part because of the color of his skin.

4). Barack Obama in 2003, talking to the AFL/CIO:

“I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. That’s what I’d like to see.”

In January, 2008, Obama claimed in a nationally televised debate:

"I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer."

5). Responding to questions about his intent to serve out the six year senate term, Obama says, in this video, (link removed), that he will not run for the presidency in four years.

Notice: The video has disappeared. Using WayBackMachine, I found two links -- both played empty videos -- a lot of stuff is being scrubbed from the web.

Here is what he said in the video:

"I think I've been very clear. Ah-ah-mumble-mumble, there's a presidential election in four years. I'm not running for president in four years."

Here is a backup story -- during a meeting with reporters at his Illinois campaign headquarters after his election to the U.S. Senate, he ridiculed as "a silly question" whether he would run for president or vice president before his term ends in 2011. "I’ve never worked in Washington," he said. "I can unequivocally say I will not be running for national office in four years, and my entire focus is making sure that I’m the best possible senator on behalf of the people of Illinois."

6). On July 28th, the day after his speech at the Democratic convention catapulted him into the national spotlight, Barack Obama told a group of reporters in Boston that the United States had an "absolute obligation" to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a success.

"The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster," he said at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, according to an audiotape of the session. "It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective."

In late winter, 2008, on the campaign trail, Obama says he wants to bring the troops home yesterday -- you decide -- was he lying then or is he lying now?

7). On the January 22nd edition of "Meet the Press," Tim Russert and Obama had the following exchange:

Russert: "When we talked back in November of '04 after your election, I said, 'There's been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your six-year term as United States senator from Illinois?'"

Obama: "I will serve out my full six-year term. You know, Tim, if you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things. But my thinking has not changed."

Russert: "So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?"

Obama: "I will not."

8). On January 24, the Obama campaign released a statement, saying, "To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.

On March 14th, in a statement to The Times, the Obama campaign offered this statement to correct their previous statement, that appears to be a bold-faced lie:

"Obama has never been a practicing Muslim. The statement added that as a child, Obama had spent time in the neighborhood's Islamic center."

And, the original statement began, "To be clear ..."

So, in three months, Barrack's campaign has gone from describing the U.S. presidential hopeful as never having been a Muslim and never having been raised as a Muslim to now never having been a practicing Muslim.

9). On May 8th, Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.

The death toll was 12.

10). On May 10th, Obama botched his facts in a speech criticizing the U.S. auto industry for "investing in bigger and faster cars while foreign competitors invested in more fuel-efficient technology."

Obama stated that "while our fuel standards haven't moved from 27.5 miles per gallon in two decades, both China and Japan have surpassed us, with Japanese cars now getting an average of 45 miles to the gallon." But Toyota, which should know, has responded, "No carmaker gets 45 mpg; ours is closer to 30 mpg."

Well, we're glad to see Obama's shifting the blame from the consumer to the automakers. That must explain why the Illinois Senator and Presidential candidate owns a HEMI-powered V8 Chrysler 300C.

Obviously it's Chrysler's fault Obama bought a big 5.7-liter engine from them -- he just didn't have a choice.

11). During his 12 years in politics, Sen. Barack Obama has received nearly three times more campaign cash from indicted businessman, Tony Rezko and his associates, than he has publicly acknowledged, the Chicago Sun-Times has found.

Seven months ago, Obama told the Sun-Times his "best estimate" was that Rezko raised "between $50,000 and $60,000" during Obama's political career.

However, Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Additionally, Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Obama and Rezko.

12). On October 6th, Obama accused his fellow American citizens of the indiscriminate murder of Iraqi civilians, saying, "And these private (Blackwater USA) contractors, they go out and they're spraying bullets and hitting civilians and that makes it more dangerous for our troops."

(According to newsmax.com; “Blackwater USA, the private contractor that provides heavily armed security for U.S. diplomats serving in Baghdad, has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks. Security forces employed by the company are accused of killing 13 Iraqi civilians in a violent incident in central Baghdad last month. North Carolina-based Blackwater _ which Obama did not mention by name _ contends its employees came under fire first,…”)

13). Last fall during a nationally televised presidential debate, Obama hesitantly raised his hand and joined with most of his Democratic rivals to declare that he opposed decriminalizing marijuana. (first video).

But as a candidate for the U.S. Senate four years ago, Mr. Obama told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use or possession, according to a videotape of a little noticed debate that was obtained by The Washington Times.

"I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws," Mr. Obama told an audience during a debate at Northwestern University in 2004. "But I'm not somebody who believes in legalization of marijuana." (second video).

Asked about the two different answers, Mr. Obama's presidential campaign said he in fact has "always" supported decriminalizing marijuana as he answered in 2004, meaning the candidate mistakenly raised his hand during the presidential debate last fall.

14). On December 22nd, in a small-town café in Pleasantville, Omaha, Obama was asked a question that typically only circulates on the Internet.

As he sat down to have a slice of pie with a small group of potential voters and an elderly woman asked him about being Muslim.

"I've always been a Christian," the Illinois Democrat responded. "I have never practiced [Islam]."

Note: The newspaper editors had to add the word, "Islam."

In his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," Obama mentions studying the Quran.

He was enrolled in two Jakarta schools as a Muslim. His teacher Tine Hahiyary said that she remembered that he had studied "mengaji" (recitation of the Quran)." Classmate Rony Amiris described Obama as being a very devout Muslim, saying, "Barry was previously quite religious in Islam." Another classmate, Emirsyah Satar, now the CEO of Garuda Indonesia, was quoted as saying, "He (Obama) was often in the prayer room wearing a 'sarong.'" (See Obama's Education.)

Yet, on his official campaign website, Obama has posted this statement, "Barack has never been a Muslim or practiced any other faith besides Christianity."

Obama's grandfather was a Muslim. Obama's father was a Muslim. Obama's stepfather was a Muslim. His African relatives are Muslims. What was he for the 27 years before his alleged conversion if he wasn't a Muslim?

If Obama has always been a Christian, why was he enrolled in two Jakarta schools as a Muslim, and why did he study the Quran?

And note his Clintonesque defense, "I have never practiced."

This is Obama's biggest problem -- his dissimulation.

Saying, "I've always been a Christian," is a bold-faced lie.

15). February -- As Sen. McCain has pointed out, Obama promised to use public funding in the general election if the Republican candidate would do so also. Well, McCain has agreed to it, but now Obama wants to back out of the deal. After all, when he made the promise, he didn't have a chance of raising more than the public's $85 million stipend. But now that he can raise $300 million, well, what's a little untruth between the waited-for one and his people? Yes, he can.

16). March 7th -- Obama's courage: Contrary to a recent hyperbolic campaign ad, it wasn’t "courageous" to give his 2002 anti-war speech, primarily because he delivered it at an anti-Iraq war rally.

At the last debate, America’s former co-president claimed that it was easy to give that speech, and it wasn’t a gamble for him because he wasn’t in the US Senate and therefore wasn’t in a position of responsibility. Obama’s impassioned reply was, "I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign."

Wrong. In reality, Obama did not announce his intentions to run for the US Senate until January 2003.