Calling someone a liar is a serious accusation. This is why, aside from the unwritten contract allowing for mutual prevarication, politicians are so reluctant to do it. And not just anyone is a liar. Legend has it that our first president said, "I cannot tell a lie," but, being only human, G.W. no doubt could and certainly did, at some point. A liar, however, is someone who lives and breathes the lie; someone who specializes in the art of artifice; someone to whom lying is his first recourse, not his last. Such a man is Barack Obama.

In four years, Obama has gone from "change you can believe in" to a man you simply cannot believe. And it's not just Benghazi-gate, although that's a good place to start. With the recently revealed emails showing that the White House was told a mere two hours after the attack that it was a terrorist act, no reasonable person can still conclude that the Obama administration was honest in its aftermath. And the claim that the violence was sparked by some anti-Islamic film wasn't just a lie - it was a liar's lie.

It was dumb.

It was obvious that it would eventually blow up in the administration's face and make Benghazi into the scandal it has now become. But such things are only obvious to the intellect; at issue here are instincts.

Of course, since the Obama administration had failed to provide requested security for our Libyan diplomats despite previous attacks on their consulate and the approach of 9/11's anniversary, the president had a vested political interest in suppressing the truth. This made the Benghazi-gate lie one of callousness and convenience, not malice. But then there is the matter of Hampton University in Virginia.

The speech Obama gave there on June 5, 2007 received a bit of attention recently before being dismissed as "old news." But perhaps nothing reveals the president's character better.

Appearing before a mostly black audience and speaking Ebonics-style (despite never having lived in a black community), Obama accused the federal government of showing cruel indifference to the primarily black victims of Hurricane Katrina. The evidence, he claimed, involved something called the Stafford Act, which requires a locality receiving federal disaster relief to provide 10 percent as much money as Washington does. And as Obama worked the crowd, he said:

When 9/11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act. ...And that was the right thing to do. When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, 'Look at this devastation; we don't expect you to come up with your own money. Here, here's the money to rebuild...because you're part of the American family.' What's happening down in New Orleans?! Where's your dollar?! Where's your Stafford Act money?! Makes no sense. ...Tells me that somehow the [black] people down in New Orleans they don't care about as much. 

This is Racial Grievance 101, the main course offering of a community organizer (agitator?). And it's no small matter, as stoking the fires of racial and ethnic hatred has cost scores of millions of lives throughout history. Yet, isn't there something to be said about raising awareness of injustice? Well, now for the rest of the story.

Barely two weeks before Obama gave the Hampton U. speech, the US Senate had in fact waived the Stafford Act for New Orleans. Moreover, that city ended up receiving more aid than Florida and NYC combined. But that's not all. As Thomas Sowell wrote:

Unlike Jeremiah Wright's church, the U.S. Senate keeps a record of who was there on a given day. The Congressional Record for May 24, 2007 shows Senator Barack Obama present that day and voting on the bill that waived the Stafford Act requirement. Moreover, he was one of just 14 Senators who voted against - repeat, AGAINST - the legislation which included the waiver.

Absolutely mind boggling. Obama votes against the bill that includes the waiver designed to help people about whom he purports to care. Yet the bill passes despite his resistance. Obama nonetheless appears before a black audience not two weeks later and claims that the waiver for aid was never granted. Even more damnably, he clearly implies that this is due to white "racism."

Then there is the most ironic chapter in the Obama Annals of Artifice. It's common to dismiss those who question the president's origins as cranks and con men, but, as American Thinker pointed out, Obama was "the original birther."

This refers to the revelation in May of this year that Obama's former literary agency, Acton & Dystel, printed a promotional booklet in 1991 that touted Obama as having been "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." Note that this was a polished volume created at great expense by a professional outfit, and there is only one source from which its agents could have gotten the notion that Obama was born in Kenya: Obama himself.

Thus, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the president has lied about his birthplace - either when claiming more recently that he was born in Hawaii or, far more likely, when claiming in 1991 that he wasn't. And it's easy to understand why he would've claimed the latter. By the '90s, having exotic origins could truly enhance your cachet and hence your marketability. And this little twist on truth was small potatoes for a guy willing to disgorge lies designed to foment racial unrest.  

This brings us to the presidential debates. It's fine to fact-check, to reveal that Obama really did lie about the decline in oil production on federal lands, tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, middle-class tax cuts, Egyptians' newfound love for America, and a Status of Forces agreement. But at some point it's a bit like trying to itemize the libations of a guy who has crashed both your cars, squanders the family funds on booze, staggers home in the wee hours, and is a continual embarrassment around the neighbors. You no longer need to prove that certain individual drinks were imbibed; it's painfully clear that the individual is a drinker.

While hard-core partisans will remain in denial on our drunk-on-power president, good people, who generally have a desire to be polite, should realize that politeness becomes vice when it obscures truth. And if we don't wish to descend into dishonesty ourselves - the intellectual variety - we need to acknowledge that the truth about Barack Obama is that he simply cannot tell it.

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