With this article, I am introducing a new category on the blog, the “Big Lie.” The big lie is a huge falsehood, easily verified as false, but nevertheless repeated over and over so that many people believe it.
This article addresses the lie, “the Obama Administration is one of the most corrupt in history.” Looking back at history we see that the Obama administration is actually one of the least corrupt administrations in history. In fact the top contenders in my lifetime are the Reagan administration and George W. Bush. There has been not a single conviction of an Obama administration official for an office-related crime.
The use of pardons (before trial), disappearing emails (millions of them) and the invocation of executive privilege held down the numbers, particularly with the George W. Bush administration, but even so the numbers are large. Depending on how you count, Reagan administration convictions range from a conservative 21 to 32. I counted 17 convictions and guilty pleas from the George W. Bush administration, but then what were in those 5 million deleted emails? Also during a congressional investigation of possible use of the Justice Department to target Democrats, 12 officials including Karl Rove refused to testify and resigned (not counted).
Depending on how you count, the Clinton Administration had 1-3. Squeaky clean Jimmy Carter had none.
I’m not someone who collects scandals and keeps them at hand to poison the well in some discussion, but I think that from time to time such information should be reviewed lest we forget and lose our sense of perspective. Fortunately, the Wikipedia has a long memory of these scandals.
One of the many crazy things about the GOP is that every minor “scandal” (and I use the term loosely) is turned up to full volume amps with hysterical screams of impeachment, etc, thus negating any real impact for useful reform or simply embarrassment of one’s opponents it might otherwise generate.
It is so transparent that the foaming-at-the-mouth weasels only want to get rid of the hated B Barry Bamz, aka the Kenyan Mooslem Commie Usurpator in Chief, to magically replace him with Rick Santorum, that no one, certainly not the American people who has other more pressing worries, take them seriously.
The same is happening with Hillary being insanely portrayed as the Satan Whore of Benghazi or something like that. It’s a forestaste of what’s to come, I suspect.
I understand the concept of opposition and the cunning plans (quoting Black Adder) necessary to upset your opponent, but this is just plain stupid on a scale measured in light years.
Basically, you’ve become a one-party state: the center-right Dems and the Loony Party (apologies to Monty Python). They should make the GOP wear animal suits so we can quickly tell them apart before they open their mouths.
Furthering the point I just made:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/05/30/fox-drags-another-obama-official-into-manufactu/194266
wingnutjobs reading this post will conclude that it proves only how vicious democrats are in their relentless persecution of patriotic americans. when will those weak-kneed republicans ever learn to finally stop trying to please the devil or bringing wet hankies to a gunfight?
The fact that no one in Soetero-Shabazz-Bunel-Dunham’s administration ever gets convicted is PROOF of how corrupt they are. I venture to say that everything, including the sunrise, is proof of this.
I think it’s too early to make an apples-to-apples comparison between the Obama Administration and those of other two-term presidents. Scandals tend to erupt in second terms, although they are often due to activities during the first term. Carter and Bush I might have had cleaner administrations than Reagan and Bush II, but it’s also possible that their tenures as president were not sufficiently long for their political opponents to uncover whatever misbehavior might have been going on.
while the president cannot be held responsible for every cog in the wheel that comes loose, dubya’s administration did have amusing little misfires such as:
DOC: I’m not someone who collects scandals and keeps them at hand to poison the well in some discussion, but I think that from time to time such information should be reviewed lest we forget and lose our sense of perspective. Fortunately, the Wikipedia has a long memory of these scandals.
i’m reminded of the findings from an article i just read “Gallup Poll Shows Republicans Are More Manipulable Than Democrats”
within the article is, thinkprogress.org headlined “Fox News Viewers Are the Most Misinformed: A Seventh Study Arrives to Prove It”
which concluded
“The views of Republicans seem to reflect the cable news outlet they watch, regardless of whether it is Fox or CNN/MSNBC.”
the views of democrats, on the other hand, do not vary much – “In other words: whereas Democrats sought information, Republicans sought simply confirmation of their beliefs.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/gallup-poll-shows-republi_b_3355985.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
what is it? when i read or hear something which sounds BIZARRE to me, i look it up – i research the source …… wait drudge didn’t say that …. it was posted on drudge but it actually quotes say the right wing “washington free beacon” as “proof” that zimmerman is a registered democrat – no other media had that “scoop” nor has any other credible media re-posted it – but now it’s “fact” to the right –
lupin posted from the much maligned media matters which posted a photo of donilion (in the oval office on 9/11/2012) above the fox question “where was donilon on the night of benghazi” – SERIOUSLY, where was he?
so what is it? why is it that democrats seem to seek information while republicans channel search to confirm their beliefs (and mostly land on fox)?
on 10/10/2012, there was the headline “Google poll: Voters use Web to fact-check the candidates” and concluded “Persuadable voters “fact check” online: Fully 64% of voters use the Internet to verify or “fact check” a claim made by a candidate” and on 8/28/2012 “Mitt Romney Campaign: We Will Not ‘Be Dictated By Fact-Checkers'”
is it just because a dem is in the white house? a black guy? i can only question whether the headlines and results would have been the same had there been a “fox” during the nixon era
a recent headline was “Study: PolitiFact Says Republicans Lie Three Times More Often Than Dems” and then there is a recent interview of bachmann’s staffer, Peter Waldon, during which he said “What I do know is that she can be misinformed. What I do know is that she can misunderstand and what I do know is that she has made a lot of mistakes and she has misspoken and I’m certain that it’s caused her embarrassment.” […] She represents a constituency that believes much of what she says. […..] she speaks as a champion”
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/former-bachmann-staffer-lies-okay-because
really? “a champion”? politifact found that 75% of the time she registered either “false”, “mostly false” or “pants on fire” (from only quotes they questioned) – she registered “true” 8% of the time – would anyone with a brain consider her “a champion” and believe her?
sorry, i did go on but i continue to question why those on the right DON’T QUESTION
Because they’re simply authoritarians who need a strong Daddy figure to lead them. Women and minorities need not apply.
aarrgghh:
don’t forget rudy’s bud and former business partner, bernie kerik, an “honorable man”, who was just released from prison – bush was just about to tap him to head DHS – my former DA (and fox host) jeanine pirro wanted bernie to plant an illegal bug on her husband’s boat “Jeanine Pirro Under Investigation for Asking Kerik to Tape Husband ”
“This is the same husband who went to jail a few years ago for tax evasion, where Jeanine wasn’t indicted because she had innocent spouse status even though she signed the return. The feds were tapping Bernie in 2005 on an unrelated matter and they caught his conversations with Jeanine.”
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/09/27/045/61672/elections2006/Jeanine-Pirro-Under-Investigation-for-Asking-Kerik-to-Tape-Husband
the “innocent spouse” is an attorney, a former judge and DA but somehow didn’t know the tax returns she signed contained tax evasion? seriously?
aarrgghh
Your above about Claude Allen peaked my curiosity so I did a google run-down for a larger picture about the man and his history. Seems he came out of his ‘scandal’ fine, and still lives in Gaithersburg, MD. A very interesting man to say the least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Allen
I also found out that his son and namesake is being tried for a drug related murder. I wouldn’t wish such a tragedy on any family.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yWZVk6jC94
Now let’s see if I get this straight !
None of you Obots were in the “break out” session when Zullo presented the hard evidence of forgery but you already know that it is completely bogus?
Oh! I get it !!!
Wrong thread.
So far that would make for a reasonable prediction. Would you not agree?
Oops!
“Poisoning”
“Al Qaeda weapons expert says U.S. ambassador to Libya killed by lethal injection”
http://freebeacon.com/possible-poisoning/
Could this and the NSA shakeup just be a coincidence?
Shades of Andrew Breitbart !!!
Could this just be people making stuff up? Funny how a birther is so jaundiced against Obama that they believe Al Qaeda!
I know you tend to believe myths. Garbage in Garbage out
Poor Hermi.
Worse, he quickly accepts the words of an Al Qaeda terrorist as factual.
Such a tool.
Assuming that Donilon resigning is at least in part due to Benghazi, by definition Stevens death and the shakeup at NSA are not coincidental. Not sure how a claim by Al-Qaeda that it killed Stevens directly, rather than indirectly, has any bearing on the matter. And the link to Breitbart falls in the category of “What are you smoking?”
Bill Gertz (author of the piece and no stranger to conspiracy theories) didn’t even mention Donilon.
You nailed it: Hermitian just made this one up all by himself.
It’s no surprise birthers hate Obama so much they would side with a terrorist if they had any hope of Obama being out of office.
They are so transparent and they don’t even realize it…
If he’d held another session next door with “hard evidence” of leprechauns riding unicorns through the Whitehouse corridors (which is equally as likely as the forgery fantasy) would you have believed that?
Somethings are so ridiculous, that one not need to hear about them in person to reasonably dismiss them out of hand. Forged Obama BCs and unicorn riding leprechauns are in the same category.
Please do not get Herms started on Breitbart.
Or, hey, please do, as it will inevitably result in yet another ban. (What is the record at OCT? Not that Doc would keep records on such undignified matters…)
Poisoned via a lethal injection of lead?
It’s amazing how you can disbelieve official records and official verifications, yet believe in unknown things told at secret meetings being “hard evidence”.
You would probably also believe that I have a perpetuum mobile because I showed a steam engine at an official presentation and claim to then have shown the actual PM at a secret meeting behind closed doors to a selection of Google and Apple employees. And you would use this non-knowledge of my presentation to bolster your claims that all physicists are lying and likely also send me money to be one of the first to receive such a machine once they hit the market “any day now” or “within the next 6 months”. Right.
Neither were you, and yet you know it was 100% mind blowing?
Considering that every single thing that has come out of Zullos mouth since the inauguration of the CCCP has been bogus (apart from the “please send money” sentences, of course) I think you don’t have to be a philosophical septic to devine that its most likely completely bogus this time too.
If Zullo had ‘hard evidence of forgery’- why was he presenting it at a conference instead of to the District Attorney?
See- this is the difference between me and Birthers.
If I had ‘hard evidence’ of a crime- I would go to the FBI or the DA or the relevant law enforcement agency- not have a press conference or a super secret presentation….
Listen, Hermiaton!
Neither original paper documents, nor official paper copies of them can be transmitted over the Internet. Only digitally varying “likenesses” can appear on your screen or be printed on your printer. To call such a representation a “forgery” when the relevant birth-related information it displays, has been officially confirmed as accurate by the State of Hawaii, is moronic.
It is the state’s official confirmation of the informational accuracy of the “copy” (including its own self-authenticating official seal), and a court’s acceptance of the reassurance eother provides, which officially sets the standard of whether a document can be officially believed and accepted as representing the relevant facts accurately enough.
Such a document does not become a forgery designed to trick people in to believing a false account, simply because an endless stream of “doubting Thomas types” can conjecture up theoretical ways in which the copy may have been “doctored”.
There’s no attempt by Obama to defraud here except in the minds of persons who hate him and simply want to speak badly about him.
The charge of “forgery” here is as absurd as saying that Hillary’s face is “forged” because she wears lipstick.
Hear, hear!
Hermitan made the grandiose assertion that Obama’s identity and legitimacy is suspect because “no one” has seen his certified birth documents. I have repeatedly asked him which Presidents’ documents he has witnessed. No reply has yet been made.
I would conclude from that, that he is a HYPOCRITICAL LIAR since it is obvious that he hasn’t seen other Presidents’; yet, doesn’t question their identities.
Ol’ Herm-orrhoid is a bit slow on the uptake.
If Hillary becomes President, expect nutjobs to demand she publically appear naked to prove she didn’t “defraud” the voters by claiming she’s a woman when she actually isn’t one.
Or that she forged her BC to cover-up a gender change.