The Patriot Post® · Some of Obama's 'Greatest Hits'

By James Shott ·
https://patriotpost.us/articles/46917-some-of-obamas-greatest-hits-2017-01-17

As Barack Obama’s long-awaited exit from the White House nears, a review of some of his most memorable public statements — his “greatest hits” — may help us to remember exactly who the 44th president of the United States really is.

The fawning sycophants at NBC News published a list of “The 15 Most Telling Quotes of Obama’s Presidency.” It begins thusly: “As a president renowned for his soaring oratory, it was perhaps inevitable that Barack Obama would deliver several memorable statements over his eight years in the White House.”

“Memorable” depends on the ear of the listener.

For NBC, these included some whoppers. “Health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land,” Obama said, which NBC called “one of the crowning domestic achievements of Obama’s presidency.” Given the way the laughably named “Affordable” Care Act/ObamaCare became law — created in smoky backrooms, crammed through as a single-party effort and voted on before being read, all while crafted from a web of lies — and the “crazy” results it produced (to cite Bill Clinton), calling it a “crowning achievement of Obama’s presidency” is an “lol” moment.

Just as telling as the quotes NBC lists are some it omits.

There’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Period.” And, “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your healthcare plan. Period.” These two statements were never going to be true. People cannot forget the skyrocketing premiums and huge deductibles they were forced to pay, all while losing coverage and doctors. Yet somehow NBC neglected these BIG lies.

Another quote from the NBC story came after the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin following an encounter with a Hispanic neighborhood watch captain in a gated community. Obama said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” and he also said “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”

Along this same line, Obama said the “Cambridge police acted stupidly,” following the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose attempts with another person to force open the front door at the home he rented from Harvard caused a neighbor to report a break-in in progress to police. Gates was uncooperative with the responding police officer, and accused him of racial bias. Without knowing all the facts, Obama immediately blamed police for treatment of the black professor. That blame became a pattern, and the war on cops continues.

In what may be the most spectacular of Obama’s greatest hits omitted by NBC, he said, “Here’s a guy who called my administration perhaps the most corrupt in history,” he said, talking about Donald Trump, “despite the fact that actually we have not had a major scandal in my administration.”

There is a long list of Obama administration scandals, or at least “irregularities” that many Americans regard as scandals. It makes sense that someone conducting or allowing scandals, or having them develop under his watch would work hard to conceal them, and if unable to conceal them would simply deny them. Or, that someone who is a major narcissist, as Obama is, would have such a strict definition of what a scandal is that virtually nothing qualifies as a scandal.

Among them is the Operation Fast and Furious debacle, where the Obama administration let as many as 2,000 firearms be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels, all while he had inadequate or non-existent plans to regain control of them. That was, of course, by design — it was part of Obama’s gun control agenda. Tragically, it resulted in the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Part of that debacle, but worthy of being a scandal in its own right, is that in the administration’s attempt to hide documents from congressional investigators by use of executive privilege, then-Attorney General Eric Holder was ultimately held in contempt of Congress, the first sitting cabinet-level person in history to achieve this ignominious status.

Add to those two the Benghazi attack and cover-up, the IRS targeting of conservative organizations, and several other instances, and Obama’s statement is shown to be totally absurd.

As for foreign policy, in 2013, Obama issued a “red line” threat about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people. Assad simply ignored Obama’s hollow threat, without penalty. Two years after this grand snafu, GOP presidential hopeful Scott Walker, then governor of Wisconsin, said, “President Obama’s meek response to this atrocity sent a devastatingly clear message of weakness to our enemies: you will not pay a price for defying our commander-in-chief.” The resulting epic humanitarian crisis is on Obama.

There are many other similar “greatest hits.”

It would be appropriate for Obama to follow the lead of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and transition to a quiet retirement. Given his unrealistically friendly evaluation of his presidency, he could have a very successful career quietly writing fictional stories.

But that would not be the Obama we have come to know so well. He has already said the family will remain in Washington until his youngest daughter finishes high school, and he’s laying the groundwork to continue being politically active.

Given his narcissism and his desire to protect his legacy, the smart money is on him being a continual pain in the neck. Which means we haven’t heard the last of these ostensible “greatest hits.”