One of the interesting things about the response to Rep. Joe Wilson’s blurting out “You lie!” to Barack Obama during the President’s healthcare speech to Congress was that Wilson was censured for his incivility, not his lack of veracity. And indeed, there is an argument to be made (as Dennis Prager and others have) that good manners should reign at the top levels of government, though I confess I am partial to the honest outspokenness of “Question Time” in the British Parliament.
No matter your opinion of these standards, however, Wilson was basically telling the truth. This was tacitly acknowledged the next day when the administration “clarified” the intent of the healthcare bill, suddenly spelling out language preventing illegal aliens from gaining free access to the system.
But Obama has always been a liar. We have known that since he claimed he didn’t know anything about the extreme views of Jeremiah Wright – after having spent twenty years in Rev. Wright’s church (the same church Oprah Winfrey had left eight years before because she was uncomfortable with the views of the bigoted minister). The MSM gave him a pass on this whopper, enabling his election, because he was their candidate. They were evidently unfazed by the ancient Roman legal principal: Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
Well, there have been plenty of omnibuses since, but few so risible as Obama’s answers this Sunday to George Stephanopoulos concering the ACORN scandal:
STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?
OBAMA: You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.
OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?
OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.
These ludicrous statements almost Fisk themselves, but allow me to do it briefly.
“You know, if – frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.”
I hate corny Internet acronyms, but this one deserves the corniest of all: ROTFLOL. ACORN is the best-known community organizing group in the country. Obama was a community organizer. He knows perfectly well where their money comes from. Also, his minions have been running all over the cable news playing clean-up for this debacle – not to mention that Arnold Schwarzenegger, among other “minor” figures, has publicly called for an investigation.
“You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.”
That video – singular? As of now it is six – or is it seven – videos from locations ranging from the nation’s capital to Brooklyn to San Diego with who knows how many more to come. Surely, Obama knows that – or the gist – and was simply attempting to downgrade the importance, which leads to his last statement…
“George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.”
Translation from the Barack: I’m going to semi-stonewall this, because I know I can rely on you, my friends in the mainstream media, to downplay this as a minor episode so that, in the end, I will be able to override this momentary aberration in Congress and continue to fund (and grow) our ACORN allies.
Everything is upside down here because Obama knows what we all do – ACORN is a poster boy for the welfare state in all its manifestations. This is no sideshow. It’s the heart of the matter. No wonder he is lying about it.
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54 Comments
1. Minerva:1) ACORN is the best-known community organizing group in the country.
2) Obama was a community organizer.
= Obama knows where ACORN’s money comes from.
Might have used a Venn Diagram, Doc Simon, but we follow.
Sep 20, 2009 - 1:58 pm 2. Barry Dauphin:Of course ACORN was getting chump change compared to the trillions in future debt being contemplated. Forgive the president, Roger, what’s a few billion in that context. LOL2
Sep 20, 2009 - 2:09 pm 3. zhombre:By next Wednesday the White House will be puzzling over why Obama’s weekened media blitz produced zero dividends.
Sep 20, 2009 - 2:11 pm 4. zhombre:That should say “weekend”
Sep 20, 2009 - 2:12 pm 5. Barry Dauphin:zhombre
“weakened” works too.
Sep 20, 2009 - 2:17 pm 6. trinket59:Let me see if I have it straight. Congress neither reads or writes the bills it passes, and the President doesn’t read the bills (stimulus bill = possible $8.5 billion for ACORN) he signs into law. Have I got that right?
Sep 20, 2009 - 2:27 pm 7. joh:“Have I got that right?”
Or he’s a liar. The simplest answer is usually the correct one.
Sep 20, 2009 - 3:04 pm 8. Pastorius:Glad you said it, Roger.
How did Stephanopolous keep from laughing … or at least wincing?
Sep 20, 2009 - 3:32 pm 9. cfbleachers:So let me see if I understand…one absorbs, reflects upon, comments upon and intervenes…into a minor police interaction with an obscure professor…yet…one has absolutely no interest in the wholesale bastardization of our sacred voting process, the holy grail of democracy?
Thugs, thieves, pimps and predators lurk around our voting booths and it isn’t worthy of even the slightest blink, yawn and nod?
Oh, ok.
Sep 20, 2009 - 3:49 pm 10. Dr. Dealgood:Breaking News!:
ACORN’s top officer said Sunday that she was “outraged” by the content of hidden-camera videotapes showing her organization’s employees offering advice to undercover filmmakers posing as a pimp and prostitute, as she pledged to “reform” the inner workings of the activist group.
Roger, speaking of our beloved filming biz:
CASABLANCA
Sep 20, 2009 - 4:38 pm 11. zfredz:Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Lie? Moi?
Sep 20, 2009 - 5:19 pm 12. Stephen Rittenberg:Roger,
Sep 20, 2009 - 5:49 pm 13. anitahope:You’re so old fashioned! You still believe there is such a thing as ‘truth’. O. is a thoroughly Post-Modern man. For him, there is no such thing as ‘truth’; there is only the ‘narrative’. In this instance the narrative is “I’m a busy man, trying to save the economy while undoing the horrors inflicted on us by W.” Those who are distracted by minor concerns, like taxpayer funding of a criminal enterprise, are simply frightened of change. Let’s all just move on.
Steve
There must be a paper trail from the period he was in Chicago as a Community Organizer till he left where the funding came from, should be looked into
Sep 20, 2009 - 6:17 pm 14. pst314:as one means of his having to face this very visual lie. If it has been espunged from records then Acorn books really need to be gone under a federal/IRS microscope.
Obama is the reincarnation of Stalinist apologist Lillian Hellman, about whom Mary McCarthy famously said “every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”
Sep 20, 2009 - 6:19 pm 15. Dred Scott:Forget the ACORN paper trail, we can’t even get transcripts of his academic records.
Sep 20, 2009 - 8:26 pm 16. Wallace:How does ObamACORN throw ACORN under the bus?
He lies on the road. And if the media is under the bus as well, he lies in front of them too.
Sep 21, 2009 - 4:44 am 17. Samizdatc:When I saw this video I had to laugh. As the article points out, the President is intimately aware of how ACORN is funded, including the tax payer money it recieves.
The President has a credibility problem of the first order. It is obvious to most casual observers that he knows all about ACORN and it’s nafarious behavior as he has enabled the organization since the early 90’s. He employed the organization in his campaign, for Pete’s sake. How stupid does he think we are? Pretty, I suppose.
The other wopper that came out of the ABC interview, which I give Stephanopolous some credit for, was the question he asked about Obamacare amounting to a huge new tax on the middleclass. The President denied the nationalization of healthcare would effectively act as a new tax on middle America, even though enforcement would be implemented via the IRS and fines would be imposed by the agency if people didn’t subscribe and obtain insurance. It damages the President’s credibility further to suggest that this is not a huge new tax on the middleclass. It would obviously tax people who are making way less than 250,000 a year.
The President is becoming less and less believable with each passing day.
Sep 21, 2009 - 5:05 am 18. Instapundit » Blog Archive » ROGER SIMON: Stephanopoulos and ACORN: Obama Lies Again. “One of the interesting things about the …:[...] SIMON: Stephanopoulos and ACORN: Obama Lies Again. “One of the interesting things about the response to Rep. Joe Wilson’s blurting out “You [...]
Sep 21, 2009 - 5:10 am 19. Koblog:What’s next out of Obama’s mouth? “I am no crook!”?
Sep 21, 2009 - 5:19 am 20. Danny Lemieux:Joe Wilson’s outburst reminded me of an old joke from the Soviet Union:
A worker, fed up with waiting in a bread line, runs out into the street and shouts at the top of his voice, “the General Secretary of the Soviet Union is an Idiot!”.
He is promptly arrested and charged with two crimes: one, for embarrassing the General Secretary, two for revealing State secrets.
Sep 21, 2009 - 5:20 am 21. bandit:Obanma: “I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.
The whole world: (cough into hand) BULLSHIT! (cough into hand)
Sep 21, 2009 - 5:53 am 22. Michael Smith:The real scandal about ACORN is what it reveals about the morality of altruism: that any stray collection of mooching, unemployable, useless, parasitic lowlifes is granted a claim on our earnings if they are performing ANY sort of “service to others” — which means, that YOU, who earned your money, do NOT have a right to it, but THEY, who have not earned it, have the unchallengable right to practice charity with it.
Roger is correct that ACORN is the essence of the welfare state: one group of parasites sustaining their own existence by helping deliver looted, unearned benefits to another group of parasites. And now our Looter-in-Chief and Master Prevaricator wants to pretend that it has no significance because, after all, there is much larger-scale looting to be implemented.
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:01 am 23. ak:“one absorbs, reflects upon, comments upon and intervenes…into a minor police interaction with an obscure professor…”
Excellent point. He also took time out of his busy schedule to comment on Kanye West. But the ACORN scandal? He hasn’t paid too much attention.
His answers to Stephanopolous are beyond unreal. Obama was a lawyer for ACORN in Chicago.
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:12 am 24. Grernalo:There’s no scandal, unless you’re a wingnut. Other than that, keep chasing windmills, Don Quixote.
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:13 am 25. RebeccaH:“You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.”
I read that as deliberately ambiguous. Who does President Won want investigated? ACORN or the filmmakers who made the videos? You decide.
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:34 am 26. Immanuel Goldstein:What’s unreal is the speed at which Obama and his administration are crashing and burning. The only thing keeping them afloat and immune from the consequences of their own incompetence is the support of the mainstream media. But with Fox, talk radio and the Internet exposing them for the frauds that they are, the media and the administration are bringing each other down in record time. This is a total systemic revolution, and it is happening in front of our eyes. The landscape is changing and it will never be the same again.
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:36 am 27. Seth:If Congresscritters were censured for lack of veracity, Congress wouldn’t have time to do anything else. (I’m not saying that would be a bad thing, just suggesting a reason that Congress doesn’t want to go there.)
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:43 am 28. Bernie:I am going to sell bumper Stickers, “YOU LIE”
NO MORE FUNDS FOR ACCORN,
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:45 am 29. jaafar:Danny LeMieux and Michael Smith got me laughing out loud.
I’m sorry, I still can’t figure out why ANYONE voted for the Thug-In-Chief. But I also still cannot understand why his “Approval Index” is not -100%.
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:56 am 30. Matheus:Barack is unequivocally a pathological liar, and vain attempts to deny this are frivolous. Beyond contempt, he obviously thinks most Americans are complete dolts like ACORN employees or as infatuated with him as his msm acolytes. He truly believes he can get away with anything, that he’s untouchable. Given his track record of denying a host of suspect associations plus the free pass the slobbering media allow him – his feigning all knowledge of ACORN funding is hardly surprising. However if he and msm haven’t noticed yet, we’ve beyond had it with his hyperbole and the msm covering for him. His arrogance and lies are tearing the heart of this nation and frankly the msm could care less. Freakin Cowards the whole lot of them! They are as much a disgrace as every bald faced lie Obama utters.
All I could think of after watching that sorry interview is that Joe Wilson is owed an apology.
Beck’s antics may not be to everyone’s taste but they’ve had the desired effects of distracting the left’s most prominent agitators. While focusing all their hate and anger on him, Giles, O’Keefe and Breitbert have flown under the radar to lay the real groundwork and make the real breakthroughs. Overall it’s is a concerted effort by all conservatives everywhere and one that mustn’t cease until some thirty odd czars are thrown out on their backsides along with their dubious leader.
Sep 21, 2009 - 6:59 am 31. John:What is ROTFLOL? I get the LOL, but what is ROTF? Sorry, I must be older than I though.
What I don’t get is that Stef, who thinks of himself as a journalist, can sit there and not react when he is lied to his face! The press isn’t doing the O any favors letting him play the game so poorly! If they don’t start asking a little tougher questions, he won’t raise his game.
Sep 21, 2009 - 7:34 am 32. BackwardsBoy:Just look at all the success ACORN has in the inner cities; reduced crime, increased employment, high literacy and graduation rates, low rates of out-of-wedlock births. Why, anyone could see that this organization deserves to be fully funded by the taxpayers!
/sarc
Sep 21, 2009 - 7:34 am 33. Plumpplumberbalding:Obama is a liar. We know it, so we can only try to contain his corruption. Sad to say, our constitution forsaw this and gave us the right to overthrow this gov if things don’t change for the better.
Sep 21, 2009 - 7:38 am 34. Jack Denver:He’s no more a liar than Bill Clinton was. It all depends on what the meaning of “whole lot” is.
Sep 21, 2009 - 7:56 am 35. ak:“There’s no scandal, unless you’re a wingnut. Other than that, keep chasing windmills, Don Quixote.”
Interesting that more and more, Obama’s defenders have nothing substantive to say. No rational arguments, no facts, no figures. Not even defensible opinions, really. It’s always just, “There’s nothing wrong. You wingnuts are crazy.”
Sep 21, 2009 - 8:08 am 36. Brother J:John @ 31, ROTF = Rolling On The Floor.
Sep 21, 2009 - 8:14 am 37. Beth:The guys does nothing but lie. I will be looking for an HONEST candidate next election, most of all.
John @ 31, here’s a nifty site that translates all the latest internet slang.
Sep 21, 2009 - 8:48 am 38. marybel:If Georgie-boy keeps playing at hardballing Obama this way, he will be dropped from those daily morning briefing calls from the White House.
Rahm will Georgie-boycott him.
Sep 21, 2009 - 10:18 am 39. Vader:“There’s no scandal, unless you’re a wingnut.”
Right, because moonbats aren’t scandalized by corruption. It’s stock in trade.
Sep 21, 2009 - 10:23 am 40. Some Guy:Um, Obama is fairly familiar with ACORN. He represented them in a lawsuit and ran training courses for them. Not trying to rant like a right-wing loonie, but I’m guessing itwould be inaccurate to say he wasn’t “following along” with their funding.
Sep 21, 2009 - 10:26 am 41. Jungus:The real problem for Obama here, in my opinion, is that ACORN is most likely the one’s model for the new volunteer army.
Sep 21, 2009 - 10:50 am 42. M. Report:That, and the other problem that this corrupt organization was instrumental in getting him elected. In a way this taints his election. (Well, in a new way considering we already knew about the registration fraud).
A more general reason why TPTB are
Sep 21, 2009 - 10:52 am 43. Nan in Can:acting like there will be no tomorrow:
They do not think there will be;
They expect the US to be totally involved in
surviving its economic meltdown, Part Deux,
while the rest of the world goes to Hades in
a nuclear powered handcart.
The 2010 elections _are_ the last ones;
If we do not throw the rascals out, and
give the world some Hope that we are going
to Change our ways, by 2012 the US will be
a de facto authoritarian state, as a result
of measures taken to insure national survival.
What was the bon mot:
“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” ?
As a transplanted American living in Canada, it took a couple of years for the parliamentary style of question period to grow on me but now I highly favor it. The PM is required to stand up and defend himself to actual individuals whose whole job it is is to keep him honest and keep him from relying on talking points and one-liners. There is no such provision in the states and it really bothers me. It’s time to ditch the meaningless non-productivity of decorum for question period SANS teleprompters!
Sep 21, 2009 - 11:00 am 44. Constitution First:0bama is as closely tied to ACORN as he is to Rev. Cone’s Black Liberation Theology; That was his entire resume.
Sep 21, 2009 - 11:26 am 45. Lili von Shtupp:Riiight. He must be the first lawyer in the history of the US who DIDN’T know exactly how his clients got all that money in the first place….
Sep 21, 2009 - 12:22 pm 46. Dinocrat » Blog Archive » Ho hum:[...] Roger Simon has some pointed commentary on the exchange. For our part, we noted last year the close association of the President and ACORN, including his praise for ACORN, his legal representation of the group, his campaign’s paying the group, etc. Ho hum. [...]
Sep 21, 2009 - 4:27 pm 47. Frank:If a bill should actually come out of conference committee (unlikely) and land on Obama’s desk, I wouldn’t be surprised if he VETOES! (His first veto, a high-profile power dsiplay)
Sounds crazy, I know. But think what a hero he’d be on the far Left … particularly after they thoroughly whitewash the whole affair with a phony “audit” and minor purges plus, of course, a massive roll-out of the emerging mainstream media meme that it’s just a wonderful organization of thousands of grass-roots heros doing humanitarian work with the oppressed poor — heros who have been wrongfully tarred — victimized! — by a few bad apples (now gone) and pervasive angry racism.
ACORN may actually come out of this stronger … scrubbed clean and widely praised for its greater good by the media and, finally, endorsed strongly by the president himself in his veto defense … bulletproofed against future “racist” charges of election fixing … just in time to do their criminal deeds for the critical 2010 elections.
Sep 21, 2009 - 4:37 pm 48. selwyn mills:talk about “taut” reform…how about a Cap on Obama’s BS. A maximum of 4 lies in the first 5 minutes.If he runs out of rhetoric he can read the Communist Manifesto for the remainder of the speech.
Sep 21, 2009 - 8:20 pm 49. el polacko:As for the home-bred army he promised…Acorn already has the red tee shirts repleat with a recognizable logo
so..this ’stimulus’ bill of his that had to be rammed through as quickly as possible included handing out BILLIONS of dollars to people about which he knows nothing.. have i got that right ?
Sep 22, 2009 - 12:53 am 50. oldguy:Like debating with a chimp flinging handfuls of crap. Good one Stephie; do you think Obama will forget your insolence?
Sep 22, 2009 - 6:00 am 51. Susan:I think you on right on. He smiles right through his lies to the American people. No other President would get away with this. Why is he?
Sep 22, 2009 - 10:05 am 52. wancow:Roger L. Simon wrote: “And indeed, there is an argument to be made (as Dennis Prager and others have) that good manners should reign at the top levels of government”
Wancow Quotes: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. … Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Sep 22, 2009 - 1:26 pm 53. Mambo Bananapatch:> By next Wednesday the White House will be puzzling over why Obama’s weekened media blitz produced zero dividends.
By next Wednesday the White House will be gloating over the dividends manufactured by the media.
Sep 25, 2009 - 4:24 pm 54. Mambo Bananapatch:Nan in Can, glad to have you here.
Forgive me if I tell you things you already know, but even here, an MP will be tossed out if they use certain words, including “lie”, “stupid”, etc. Also, an MP cannot be sued for libel or defamation when they speak in the House of Commons.
Sep 25, 2009 - 4:29 pm