These two posts have entirely different content, but both are distinguished by Leftist lies, whether the Leftist is spouting the lies to others or (and I’m being generous in my interpretation here) only telling them to herself:

A Harvard Fairy Tale About Romney and Obama

How Soon They Forget

Gateway Pundit explains just how badly the blog “Jumping in Pools” can burn you.  It’s all of a piece with the fake Chamber of Commerce press conference.  Once Leftists and puckish anarchists make truth impossible to find, people will give up on looking.

Obama lies.  He does not merely prevaricate, waffle, beg the question, evade, mince words or engage in any other delicate dodge around the truth.  When it comes to the health care bill he is trying to sell American, he and out and lies.  He tries to sell us big, fat, juicy, completely false representations of facts.  You and know this, but I have to give Michael F. Cannon and Ramesh Ponnuru lots of credit for putting together one of the most lucid, compact summaries I’ve seen to date explaining the biggest of those lies.

“You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.” — Abraham Lincoln

Obama lies, and lies, and lies again. Sometimes he lies directly, and sometimes he lies by having his administration make a formal announcement. AJ Strata decimates the administration’s lie about “jobs saved or created.”

Obama’s lying again, which is always fascinating, because his lies fall into the “who are you going to believe — me or your lying eyes?” category.  That is, it’s not as if he has a guilty little secret, and is lying.  Nor is it a simple he said/she said scenary, in which you know one is lying, but don’t know which one.  Instead, Obama just absolutely, completely and blatantly denies his previous on-the-record statements.  I’ve blogged on this extensively, with this post standing as a good example.

Obama’s latest blatant lies concern his promises regarding the stimulus.  Karl Rove meticulously documents lie after lie:

Mr. Obama is attempting to lower expectations retroactively, saying in an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post that his stimulus “was, from the start, a two-year program.” That is misleading. Mr. Obama never said if his stimulus were passed things might still get significantly worse in the following year.

In February, Mr. Obama said this about the goals of his stimulus package: “I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving four million jobs.” He later explained the stimulus’s $787 billion would “go directly to . . . generating three to four million new jobs.” And his Council of Economic Advisors issued an official analysis showing that the unemployment rate would top out in the third quarter of this year at just over 8%.

That quarter began on July 1, and unemployment is now 9.5%, up from 7.6% when Mr. Obama took office. There are 2.6 million fewer Americans working than there were on the day Mr. Obama was sworn in. The president says now that unemployment will exceed 10% this year, and his advisers say it will remain high through much of next year.

Earlier this year, Mr. Obama assured us that most of the stimulus money “will go out the door immediately.” But it hasn’t. Only about 7.7% of the stimulus has been spent in the six months since its passage, and more of it will be spent in the program’s last eight years than in its first year. So now the president claims he said something different. “We also knew that it would take some time for the money to get out the door,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio address on Saturday.

Karl Rove isn’t the only one who is mad at the lies.  Steve Schippert went ballistic with the latest rounds.  Since he’s away from blog, Rick, at Brutally Honest, published his right-on-the-money rant about the hectoring, dishonest Manchurian candidate in the White House.

Obama is a big fan of Lincoln.  He would do well to remember Lincoln’s words: “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”

Back in May 2008 2007, I examined the way in which Obama tells lies:

Obama is also a fairly compulsive liar, something that highlights myriad other problems.  That is, whenever he’s caught in a problematic situation (ah, those friends of his), rather than making a clean breast of it, or a good defense, he instead engages in a perfect storm of ever-spiraling affirmative defenses, with the common denominator always being that it’s everyone’s fault but Obama’s.

For those who are not lawyers, let me explain what affirmative defenses are.  A complaint contains allegations that the defendant committed myriad acts of wrongdoing.  In response, the defendant does two things.  First, he denies everything except his own name, and he’d deny that too, if he could.  Next, he issues affirmative defenses, which concede the truth of the accusations, but deny that they have any legal or practical meaning.

As an example of how this plays out, imagine a complaint alleging that I smashed my car into a fence, destroying it.  I’d start by saying, “No, I didn’t.”  Then I’d begin the affirmative defenses:  (1) “Okay, I did bring my car into contact with the fence, but I didn’t actually hurt the fence.”  (2) “Okay, I hurt the fence, but I didn’t hurt it badly enough to entitle its owner to any damages.”  (3) “Okay, I destroyed the fence, but it was falling down already, so it’s really the owner’s fault, so he gets no damages.”  And on and on, in a reductio ad absurdum stream of admissions and excuses.

These affirmative defense patterns have shown up with respect to some of Obama’s nastiest little pieces of personal history.  When Jeremiah Wright’s sermons first surfaced, Obama denied knowing anything about them.  When that denial failed, he claimed that he only had one or two exposures to this deranged level of hatred, so he didn’t make much of it.  When that denial failed, he conceded that he’d heard this stuff often over the years, but wasn’t concerned about it, because he knew his pastor was a good man.  (Which makes Obama either complicit in the statements or a fool.)  Indeed, he even made a much-heralded speech about what a good man his pastor is.  He then promised that he’d never abandon his beloved pastor.  But when his pastor became dead weight, Obama dropped him so hard you could hear the thud.

The same pattern appeared when word got out about Obama’s connection with two self-admitted, unrepentant, America-hating terrorists.  (That would be William Ayer and Bernadine Dohrn, for anyone out of the loop here.)  When caught, Obama again engaged in a perfect storm of affirmative defenses.  (1)  I don’t know them.  [A lie.]  (2) Okay, I know them, but not well.  [A lie.]  (3)  Okay, I know them well, but we’re just good friends, not political fellow travelers.  [A lie.]  (4) Okay, we’re more than just good friends, because we served on a Leftist board and I sought political advice from him.  And on and on.  With every lie, Obama concedes, and then comes forward with a new lie.

[snip]

In an odd way, Obama’s approach to truth reminds me of how they used to break the news to patients about cancer — incrementally, very incrementally.  I know this first hand, because this is what happened with my Dad.  In his case, the following statements played out over the course of about a week:  “Nothing’s wrong.”  This was a lie.  “There’s a slight anomaly on the tests, but nothing to worry about.”  This was a lie.  “There’s a tumor, but we’re sure it’s benign.”  This was a lie.  “The tumor is, in fact, malignant, but it’s completely treatable.”  This, too, was a lie.  “You have one year.”  Finally, the truth.  What you end up with is that, at the end of all the lies, cancer is cancer, and Obama’s past is Obama’s past.

Compare what I said with two reviews of Obama’s presser about Iran.  First, from Power Line:

Characteristically, however, Obama wouldn’t admit that today’s position represented an almost complete reversal of his original reaction to protests in Tehran. Asked by Major Garrett of Fox News, “What took you so long?” Obama claimed that “we’ve been entirely consistent, Major, in terms of how we’ve approached this.” Sure. No doubt some of the more slavish Obamaphiles will actually believe it. The others–those who have been vigorously defending Obama’s “smart” refusal to take sides for the last week–presumably will feel a little foolish.

And now from Commentary’s Contentions (in a post fittingly titled Not What It Seems):

The president’s press conference was a tour de force of misdirection.

[snip]

Even worse was his denial of what everyone knows: the president’s language on Iran has toughened in response (one supposes) to critics inside and outside the administration who found his initial statements inexcusably weak:

So we’ve been entirely consistent, Major, in terms of how we’ve approached this. My role has been to say the United States is not going to be a foil for the Iranian government to try to blame what’s happening on the streets of Tehran on the CIA or on the White House, that this is an issue that is led by and given voice to the frustrations of the Iranian people.

Does he even believe this? We went from “no meddling” and no real difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi to “appalled” and “condemn.” You judge. And why does the president lie? Is he, like George Bush, loath to admit error?

What’s truly impressive about Obama’s lies is the fact that he keeps saying them despite being caught over and over and over again.  Admittedly, the media bubble protects him somewhat, but the fact that real time videos and transcripts of his speeches are there for everyone to see (and for thousands to comment upon), makes it almost unbelievable that he cannot admit the truth:  “I learned the facts (and it will never be clear whether by facts he means the facts in Iran, or the facts of American voter polls) and I changed my mind.”

Bottom line:  the man has a personality disorder (malignant narcissism is my guess), and such people lie compulsively.  But, typical for a narcissist, Obama will deny that he lies and, in a way, he’s right.  While normal people know they are lying, narcissists don’t.  Instead, because they are the center of their own universe, they always view their needs at any particular moment as the truth.  There is no past, there is no future, there is only the need in the now.

I didn’t post it last week, but in an email I sent to a group of political bloggers discussing Obama’s debate performance last week, I noted that, when Obama attacked McCain for allowing people to yell “kill” Obama, Obama probably already knew that this myth had been debunked.  Color me prescient (and I’m quoting Matt Lewis’ post in its entirety because it’s so short):

Newsweek reports that not only were the reports that folks attending a McCain rally yelled “kill him” likely false — but also that Obama knew these reports were false before using them in last week’s debate:

“During a heated moment in his final presidential debate with Sen. John McCain, Sen. Barack Obama noted the anger of some supporters at rallies for McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “All the public reports suggested,” Obama said, that people shouted “things like ‘terrorist’ and ‘kill him’.” Making a death threat against a presidential candidate can be a crime. But even before Obama cited “reports” of the threats at the debate, the U.S. Secret Service had told media outlets, including NEWSWEEK, that it was unable to corroborate accounts of the “kill him” remarks—and according to a law-enforcement official, who asked for anonymity when discussing a political matter, the Obama campaign knew as much. Now some officials are disgruntled that Obama gave added credence to the threat by mentioning it in front of 60 million viewers. At this point in the campaign, said one, candidates will “say anything to make a particular point.”

This, of course, is merely the latest example of Obama’s willingness to inaccurately portray himself as a victim and flagrantly gin up sympathy votes, while simultaneously, ignoring the really, really objectionable behavior his own supporters engage in (viewer discretion advised).

Or perhaps you should just color me wise to Obama’s lies.

I don’t know whether this Churchill story is true.  I first read it about 30 years ago in a book printed about 50 years ago.  It doesn’t sound like the man, but it’s a good story anyway for my purposes.

Churchill was asked to give a speech to a trade organization.  He asked his secretary to get him facts and figures that would be relevant to the organization, and told him that he’d need the information in two days.  The secretary check it out and reported back to Churchill that it would take at least six months to get all that information.  Much to the secretary’s surprise, when Churchill gave his speech, he reeled off an impressive list of facts and figures, all entirely relevant to the organization.  Afterward, the secretary asked Churchill how in the world he had done that.  His answer?  “I made it up.  I figured it would take six months before anyone realized the information was wrong and, by that time, the situation would have changed to so much, no one would care.”

That was the old, slow information world.  In the new, quick information world, within hours of the Presidential debate, Biden’s fourteen lies were exposed for everyone to see.  At least, that is, people could see the lees if they didn’t limit themselves to the MSM.

Biden and Obama are still living in the old media bubble of 60 years ago, when information was hard to get, and the media protected favored politicians.  One hopes that this is the last election in which that bubble operates.

UPDATE:  Sorry about the typos.  I’ve been very, very rushed the past few days, and proofreading is always the first thing that goes.

Mike Devx was right, and I was too generous.  Obama was not phrasing things infelicitously or making Freudian slips when he made the lipstick/pig speech.  He has now admitted that he intended to refer to Palin when he used the phrase “lipstick,” something he denied right up until he got onto Letterman, when he suddenly started leaking out the truth.

Of course, Obama still denies calling either Palin or McCain pigs or stinky fish, but we’re already familiar with the Obama pattern when it comes to lies:  first you deny everything, then you start trickling out the truth until everybody is bored and no one is listening anymore.  If he follows that same-old, same-old pattern, we can assume that he’ll eventually admit that, well, the pig referenced wasn’t realy the stale old Bush or McCain policies, but was McCain himself, and that McCain is stinky old fish too.

I wonder how long it will take before the American people stop enjoying the sense of being played for fools.

Karl Rove has written a tidy little summary of Obama’s dizzying changes on Iraq:*

Throughout 2006 and early 2007, Mr. Obama pledged to remove all U.S. troops, even voting to immediately cut off funds for the troops while they were in combat. Then, in July 2007, he started talking about leaving a residual U.S. force, in Kuwait and elsewhere in the region, able to go back into Iraq if needed.

By October, he shifted again, pledging to station the residual U.S. troops inside Iraq with two “limited missions of protecting our diplomats and carrying out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.”

Last week, writing in the New York Times, Mr. Obama changed again. He increased the missions his residual force would perform to three: “going after any remnants of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces.” That’s not all that different from what U.S. troops are doing now.

And just how many U.S. troops would Mr. Obama leave in Iraq? Colin Kahl, an Obama adviser on Iraq, has said the senator wants to have “perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces” in Iraq by December 2010. So much for withdrawing all combat troops.

It’s dizzying. Yet, Mr. Obama acts as if he is a paradigm of consistency. He told a Georgia rally this month that “the people who say [I've been changing] apparently haven’t been listening to me.” In a PBS interview last week he said, “this notion that somehow we’ve had wild shifts in my positions is simply inaccurate.”

Compounding all this is Mr. Obama’s stubborn refusal to admit the surge was right and that he was wrong to oppose it. On MSNBC in January 2007, he said more U.S. troops would not “solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” Later that month he said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that the new strategy would “not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly.” In fact, the surge has done far more than its advocates hoped in a much shorter period.

Yet Mr. Obama told ABC’s Terry Moran this week that even in retrospect, he would oppose the surge. He also told CBS’s Katie Couric that he had “no idea what would have happened” without the new strategy. And he still declares, in the New York Times last week, “The same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true.” Given all that has happened, it’s hard to understand how Mr. Obama can say, as he did Tuesday in a story on NBC Nightly News, that “I don’t have doubts about my ability to apply sound judgment to the major national security problems that we face.”

As you see, Rove points to the fact that Obama denies that his position ever changes — and implies that Obama knows as well as we do that this is a lie.  Given that Obama shows every sign of malignant narcissism, I’m beginning to think that, for once, Obama is speaking the truth.  You see, the malignant narcissist has only one truth:  his immediate needs.  Everything else subordinates itself to those needs.  The narcissist, therefore, at any given moment, will convince himself that the facts surrounding him, and the history backing him, are completely congruent with his need right now.  He is his own moral compass, he is the truth, the way and the light.

So when Obama told AIPAC that Jerusalem would never be divided, that was his truth at the moment, since his need was for AIPAC approval.  When he later told Palestinians that he just meant it would never be divided by ugly barbed wire, he was also speaking the truth — because he needed for the Palestinians to hear that so that they too would approve of him.  And in true narcissist fashion, he erased the past entirely.  It never happened, and no amount of video footage would prove it.  The past was inconsistent with his current sense of self and, therefore, no longer existed as an objective reality.

It’s a pretty pathetic coping mechanism when you think about it, because it reflects someone so insecure that he is incapable of dealing with his own past.  Beyond pathetic, though, it’s quite dangerous.  If a person like this is a friend or family member, he can leave you doubting yourself, and destroy completely and irrevocably your friendships and work relationships.  (Because remember, just as he is lying to you about them, he’s lying to them about you.)  The scope of damage he can commit becomes unimaginably worse when you give him leadership of the world’s most powerful nation.

Incidentally, for anyone interested in learning more about severe personality disorders, I highly recommend Barbara Oakley’s Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend.

________________________________

* IBD also has a good summary and editorial about Barack’s pathological refusal to admit that he was wrong on the Surge.

UPDATE:  Larry Elder poses some hypothetical questions aimed at forcing Obama to confront his continuously updated realities.