The Exaggerations, Lies, Distortions, and Flip-Flops Of Barack Obama

Check out this excerpt from Obama’s North Carolina victory speech:

The attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences, to turn us against each other for political gain, to slice and dice this country into red states and blue states, blue collar and white collar, white, black, brown, young, old, rich, poor … this is the race we expect, no matter whether it’s myself or Senator Clinton who is the nominee. The question then is not what kind of campaign they will run; it’s what kind of campaign we will run.

It’s what we will do to make this year different. You see, I didn’t get into this race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics, but I am running for president because this is the time to end it.

We will end it — we will end it this time not because I’m perfect. I think we know at this phase of the campaign that I am not.

We will end it not by duplicating the same tactics and the same strategies as the other side, because that will lead us down the same path of polarization and of gridlock.

We will end it by telling the truth.

We will end it by telling the truth forcefully, repeatedly, confidently, and by trusting that the American people will embrace the need for change, even if it’s coming from an imperfect messenger, because that’s how we’ve — that’s — because that’s how we’ve always changed this country, not from the top down, but from the bottom up, when you, the American people, decide that the stakes are too high and the challenges are too great.

That’s right. Barack Obama fancies himself to be the truth-telling candidate. And anyone who says otherwise will (of course) be accused of racism, and “playing on our fears”.

Well, I don’t care. I’m pretty thick skinned. Let’s just examine how truthful this man is:

♦Obama claims the Kennedy family payed for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship to meet his Kansan mother.

Status - NOT TRUE:

Contrary to Obama’s claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama’s father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

♦Obama claims that a detailed questionaire filled out in his name, in 1996, with responses reflecting ultra liberal views on everything from gun control to abortion, was filled out by an aide, and doesn’t reflect his views.

Status: LIE

… a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer.

♦Obama sites photo of black man bleaching his skin in Dreams From My Father. Claims said photo gave him the feeling of an “Ambush Attack”

Status - NOT TRUE: No such photo appears to exist.

♦Obama states in January 2008 debate: “I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer.

Status: Flip-flop or LIE: Barack at AFL-CIO conference in June 2003: “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage.

♦Obama in 2004: Doesn’t see himself running for President in 2008: “If I were to seriously consider running on a national ticket…I would essentially have to start now…before having served a day in the Senate. Now there might be some people who would have no problem doing that, but ah…I’m not one of them“.

He said two years ago that he would “absolutely” serve out his Senate term, which ends in 2011, and that the idea of him running for president this cycle was “silly” and hype “that’s been a little overblown”.

In an appearance on Meet the Press with Tim Russert, January 22nd, 2006:

Russert: “When we talked back in November of ‘04 after your election, I said, ‘There’s been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your six-year term as United States senator from Illinois?’”

Obama: “I will serve out my full six-year term. You know, Tim, if you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things. But my thinking has not changed.”

Russert: “So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?”

Obama: “I will not.”

Status: Gross flip-flop or LIE. Obviously.

♦In July ‘07 Barack Obama tells a group of reporters in Boston that the United States has an “absolute obligation” to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a success: “The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster,” he said at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, according to an audiotape of the session. “It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective.”

Status - Flip-flop or LIE: Obama Campaign pledge 9/07: Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq.

♦Obama tells this stirring tale to a Selma audience: He had been conceived by his parents, Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham, because they had been inspired by the fervor following the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights demonstration that was commemorated March 4.

Status - Bad Info or LIE: Obama was born in 1961, and the Selma march occurred four years later, in 1965.

♦On January 24, 2008, the Obama campaign released a statement, saying, “To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Status: NOT TRUE:

The Associated Press reports that “documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim” while at a Catholic school during first through third grades. …the Chicago Tribune confirms that Obama was “listed as a Muslim on the registration form for the Catholic school.” A blogger who goes by “An American Expat in Southeast Asia” found that “Barack Hussein Obama was registered under the name ‘Barry Soetoro’ serial number 203 and entered the Franciscan Asisi Primary School on 1 January 1968 and sat in class 1B. … Barry’s religion was listed as Islam.”

…the Toronto Star visited the Jakarta public school Obama attended and found that “Three of his teachers have said he was enrolled as a Muslim.”

♦Obama told the Sun-Times his “best estimate” was that Rezko raised “between $50,000 and $60,000″ during Obama’s political career.

Status: Very sloppy fact-checking, or LIE: Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Additionally, Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.

♦During a nationally televised debate last fall, Obama hesitantly raised his hand and joined with most of his Democrat rivals to declare that he opposed decriminalizing marijuana. (first video).

Status: Stupid gaffe, or LIE:

But as a candidate for the U.S. Senate four years ago, Mr. Obama told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use or possession, according to a videotape of a little noticed debate that was obtained by The Washington Times.

“I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws,” Mr. Obama told an audience during a debate at Northwestern University in 2004. “But I’m not somebody who believes in legalization of marijuana.” (second video).

♦ Obama promised to use public funding in the general election if the Republican candidate would do so also.

Status: Welcher:

Well, McCain has agreed to it, but now Obama wants to back out of the deal. After all, when he made the promise, he didn’t have a chance of raising more than the public’s $85 million stipend. But now that he can raise $300 million, well, what’s a little untruth between the waited-for one and his people? Yes, he can.

♦Obama’s campaign claims he meant every word he said about overturning the free-trade treaty, and that no one had contacted the Canadian diplomatic corps to reassure them that it was mere demagoguery.

Status: LIE:

CTV responded today by naming names — and suddenly the Obama campaign has grown quiet.

CTV didn’t stop there. They also announced that their sources, at “the highest levels of the Canadian government”, reconfirmed the story to CTV. One of their primary sources provided a timeline of the discussion to CTV. Contrary to some reports, CTV has not retreated at all from this story.

Jim Geraghty notes:

I realize Obama’s campaign can still claim that one of his advisers went rogue in contacting the Canadians about his NAFTA rhetoric, but to me, this is game, set and match to CTV. … If Goolsbee had not talked to officials in the consulate, it seems likely that his answer would have been, “No, I didn’t talk to them.”

♦Obama: I didn’t hear (reverend Wright’s) inflammatory sermons.

Status: BULL

♦Barack Obama, May 2008: he never sought Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s counsel on political issues.

Status: LIE:

Obama January 2007: “What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice,” Obama said. “He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics.”

Also:

Mr. Obama consulted Mr. Wright before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Mr. Wright before announcing his candidacy last year.

♦Obama continues to claim that McCain favors 100 more years of US troops fighting in Iraq:

Status: Gross distortion:

What McCain actually said:

QUESTIONER: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years –

McCAIN: Maybe a hundred.

QUESTIONER: Is that — is that –

McCAIN: We’ve been in South Korea — we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans –

QUESTIONER: So that’s your policy?

McCAIN: — As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, then it’s fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, and equipping and motivating people every single day.

♦Hotair reports:

The Barack Obama campaign responded to the pictures of Obama political and community associate William Ayers stomping on the American flag, first published in 2001 in Chicago Magazine. In a statement reported on Fox & Friends this morning, Team Obama deplores Ayers’ actions but rejects any connection between Ayers and Obama:

Status: Doesn’t add up!

That distance might be hard to maintain. First, the profile in the magazine wasn’t exactly a low-profile article in an obscure publication. Ayers had just published a memoir of his days as a fugitive for domestic terrorism in the Weather Underground, and both the book and the publicity gained national attention, especially after 9/11. Obama continued to work with Ayers after this, appearing on public panels with Ayers into 2002.

If Team Obama wants to disassociate itself from Ayers in this manner, it should recheck its website. Obama still defends William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn as part of Chicago’s “mainstream”. Does Obama think that stomping on a flag in an alley to celebrate a memoir of domestic terrorism represents the mainstream of political thought?

Important Source: The Obama File, Freedoms Enemies

To be continued….

MORE:

Obama said in his North Carolina victory speech:

The other side can label and name-call all they want, but I trust the American people to recognize that it is not surrender to end the war in Iraq so that we can rebuild our military and go after Al Qaida’s leaders.I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Status: NOT QUITE:

Ed Morrissey:

I’m particularly bemused by the references to FDR and Truman. Both men ended up having to conduct massive wars that outlasted their presidencies, and in FDR’s case in no small measure because Western nations insisted on talk rather than action. While we maintained diplomatic contact with Germany and Japan until Pearl Harbor, FDR did not meet with Hitler and Tojo. And that diplomatic contact didn’t stop war from coming; indeed, it make it much worse than it otherwise would have been, at least in Europe, had the US, UK, and France had taken the appropriate steps to disarm Hitler when he started his Versailles Treaty violations.

Truman met with Joseph Stalin during and after World War II, but that didn’t stop the Soviets from blockading West Berlin or ringing down an iron curtain across eastern Europe, enslaving those nations for almost 50 years. If Potsdam and Yalta are Obama’s idea of successful foreign policy, then he obviously hasn’t studied 20th century history. Talking with implacable tyrants leads to appeasement, which leads to either war or more implacability of the tyranny in question.

UPDATE (May 10):

Obama says he’s been to 57 states during a campaign stop.

Status: GAFFE.