The semi-mythical Cretan philosopher Epimenides famously propounded the paradoxical assertion that all Cretans are liars. Campaigning for Barack Obama in 2012, the cretin former president Bill Clinton propounded his own version of the paradox in his capacity as Barack Obama’s foremost campaign surrogate. Clinton regaled a Philadelphia crowd with his critique of the Romney campaign. Clinton asked: “You’re laughing, but who wants a president who will knowingly, repeatedly tell you something he knows is not true?” I can’t tell from the cold words on the page if they were laughing with or at Clinton, but he was talking to Democrats. They were probably laughing with him.
Stumping for Democratic candidates in the midwest, former President Barack Obama has now propounded his own version of the Cretan paradox. Directing his comments at President Trump and other Republicans, Obama passes judgment on their credibility and found them wanting. “[W]hat we have not seen before, in our recent public life at least, is politicians just blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly, lying.” RealClearPolitics has posted transcript and video here. The AP reports on Obama’s speeches in Michigan and Wisconsin here.
Now Barack Obama was a president who never uttered a memorably true statement in his eight years as president. At least I can’t remember one. We remember the premeditated lies of Obamacare. We remember his premeditated lies on behalf of the realignment of American foreign policy with the American enemies and genocidal maniacs running the Iranian regime. We remember his professed ignorance of scandalous Obama administration policies…until he read about them in the newspaper. He didn’t even know about Hillary Clinton’s private email set-up, even though he communicated with her on it under a pseudonym. It all came as a great shock to him, although this is a scandal that he mocks in the speech posted by RCP. Because Trump.
These make up only a few of Obama’s premeditated lies that come immediately to mind. I pass over the convenient falsehoods deriving from Obama’s profound historical ignorance (purporting to quote Winston Churchill to the effect that “we don’t torture”). One wishes that Obama had the decency to comport himself with the dignity befitting a former president rather than the passions of a partisan hack, but this failure too must undoubtedly be chalked up to Trump.
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