In response to criticism, Mr. Obama was quoted the 6/28/09 WSJ as stating that “If you have an argument made frequently enough – whether it’s true or not – it has some impact. If you want to attack a democratic president, how are you going to do him? Well, you’re going to talk about how he wants more government and he wants to socialize medicine and he’s going to be oppressive towards business. I mean, that’s pretty much standard fare.”[1]

At what point did we decide that dishonest and deceptive rhetoric was acceptable for a president? Mr. Obama’s statement was true if taken out of context, but the communicated message is factually inaccurate and deceitful.

With respect to this statement, Mr. Obama’s policies call for and have resulted in increased government and increased government control that result in oppression toward business. Mr. Obama’s administration has taken ownership of multiple private corporations (AIG, GM, Chrysler, multiple financial institutions), called for significant expansion of federal regulatory authorities over financial institutions, proposed a new federal regulatory agency to govern the mortgage industry, proposed and discussed numerous new and increased taxes that significantly impact both the wealthy and working classes, and expanded the federal deficit more in one year than the combined deficits of President Bush. With respect to socialized medicine, Mr. Obama has called for the establishment of government health insurance to compete against private companies, even though Medicare, a current government medical system, is on the verge of insolvency. These are all actions of Mr. Obama and the democratic leadership, and not Bush administration decisions. 

Mr. Obama’s statement implies that criticism about how he wants more government and he wants to socialize medicine and he’s going to be oppressive towards business is false, but standard fare. The facts of his political agenda do not support his assertion. Mr. Obama should not be allowed to make clearly misleading statements without serious journalistic scrutiny.

Mr. Obama was further quoted as saying “I suppose we could just stand pat and not do anything on either of those fronts [health care and energy]…That’s been tried for four or five decades. And in both energy and health care, the problems have gotten worse, not better.”[2]  This is another example of clear deceptive intent, if not an outright lie. President Carter established the Department of Energy to address our energy problems in the 1970’s. In addition, there has been a stream of legislation and programs designed to correct real and perceived problems in health care, none of which have sufficiently worked. 

At what point did we decide that deceptive rhetoric was acceptable from our political leaders? If we are to effectively address the challenges facing America, we require truth and honesty from our political leaders, not carefully crafted statements designed to deceive and accomplish political objectives. With any luck, our liberal elite in the media and universities will put aside the deception and accurately evaluate reasons for public policy decisions. Public policy decisions and programs must stand on their own merit and not rely on the misstatement of opposition and objections to achieve support.