Our Compulsive-Liar In Chief

I still get annoyed when I think about the sanctimonious jerks on the left who accused George W. Bush of lying at every turn.  When nuclear weapons didn't turn up in Iraq, it wasn't because the intelligence was bad or inadequate.  No.  Bush lied, they said.  When Bush said tax cuts would promote economic growth that would help everybody, he was lying because that contradicted the leftist zero-sum theory that said tax cuts for the rich meant more taxes for the poor.  Policy differences were lies.  Differences of opinion were lies.

Well, guess what.  We have a real honest to God liar in the White House, and it's not a matter of opinion.   

WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of other world leaders after an internal Obama administration review started this summer revealed to the White House the existence of the operation, U.S. officials said.

And even the press can't help but notice. Turns out the "U.S. officials" who said spying was only just discovered this summer… were not from the NSA.

WASHINGTON – The White House and State Department signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Monday, pushing back against assertions that President Obama and his aides were unaware of the high-level eavesdropping.

…

If U.S. spying on key foreign leaders was news to the White House, current and former officials said, then White House officials have not been reading their briefing books.

Some U.S. intelligence officials said they were being blamed by the White House for conducting surveillance that was authorized under the law and utilized at the White House.

"People are furious," said a senior intelligence official who would not be identified discussing classified information. "This is officially the White House cutting off the intelligence community."

How unlike our press to report anything unflattering about our historic president.  Why now?

Suddenly Obama poses a serious threat to liberalism.  ObamaCare was supposed to usher in a generation of progressive majorities in Congress as Americans acclimate to socialist utopia.  Unfortunately, the ObamaCare rollout has demonstrated astounding government ineptitude and poor judgment.  And people are getting really angry.  Many quite content with their current health policies find that they can't keep them, and now they find that the White House and HHS knew all along that they couldn't, in spite of promises to the contrary.  The whole thing raises questions not only about government's ability to the things that improve people's lives, it also raises questions about government's intentions when it claims to be improving things.  

With ObamaCare hitting the fan so dramatically, the press is discovering more stories like this one, where Obama really did know about NSA spying on world leaders — stories that show Obama's cavalier attitude towards the truth, and there could be lots of them.  

Truth to Obama is whatever he thinks will flatter him in the light of the moment.  It's is a moving target.  It's Obama calling Benghazi a spontaneous demonstration on day one, then later it's Obama claiming that he said it was a terrorist attack all along.  

Wasn't that a remarkable moment when moderator Candy Crowley jumped into the middle of a Presidential Debate to defend Obama, announcing to stunned challenger Mitt Romney that yes, the president really did say Benghazi was a terrorist attack — the very next day in the Rose Garden.  She then proceeded shut down any further debate on the subject.  Our watchdog press at work.

The hogs at the trough are threatened.  It's too bad, but to most Democrats, too many Republicans, the Washington press corps, big labor, and to a host of others, Obama's choice of politics over governance, his overreach, and his incessant dishonesty are not so much a threat to our democracy as a threat to liberalisim.  With ObamaCare heading for the rocks the formerly fawning press are switching from cheerleaders to critics, distancing themselves in hope of salvaging some shread of credibility.  It would be a welcome change, except that it's probably only temporary.  It's about preserving the trough and saving their places at it.

The Imperial Presidency

When Richard Nixon claimed executive privilege during the Watergate investigations it was my fear that congressional and judicial acquiescence would give us a de facto dictator. There was reason to be fearful.

In a 1977 interview with Richard Nixon, David Frost asked: “Would you say that there are certain situations . . . where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation . . . and do something illegal?”

Nixon: “Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

Frost: “By definition.”

Nixon: “Exactly, exactly.”

I had a similar fear of Bill Clinton.  He was so "in your face" with his denials, whether it was about Whitewater or Monica Lewinski that I thought he would successfully innoculate himself against any and all charges of wrong doing.  But his denials ultimately led to impeachment, a contempt citation, disbarment, and a $90,000 fine for giving false testimony.  Though my fears were not realized, Clinton's impeachment served to tarnish the Republican brand, so much so that we are extremely unlikely to go down that road again.  So where does that leave us?

It leaves us with a de facto dictator.

Liberal commentators didn't really pick up on it yesterday, but for conservatives the key moment of Barack Obama's New York Times interview
was his dismissive answer to a question about the employer mandate
delay. Asked whether he'd consulted with lawyers before making that
call, Obama dodged, then derided the idea.

If Congress thinks that what I’ve done is inappropriate or
wrong in some fashion, they’re free to make that case. But there’s not
an action that I take that you don't have some folks in Congress who say
that I'm usurping my authority. Some of those folks think I usurp my
authority by having the gall to win the presidency. And I don't think
that's a secret. But ultimately, I’m not concerned about their opinions
— very few of them, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional
lawyers.

Congress will never make that case that Obama
has usurped its authority while the Senate remains in Democratic hands, but the
Courts are a different matter.  The D.C.
Circuit Court of Appeals, has stated it quite
forcefully in its decision concerning nuclear
waste storage at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, which requires approval by the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In a major rebuke on Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued
an unusual writ of mandamus, which is a direct judicial order compelling
the government to fulfill a legal obligation. This "extraordinary
remedy" is nominally about nuclear waste, writes Judge Brett Kavanaugh
for the 2-1 majority, yet the case "raises significant questions about
the scope of the Executive's authority to disregard federal statutes."

…

Judge Kavanaugh then offers some remedial legal education in "basic
constitutional principles" for the President who used to be a
constitutional law professor. Under Article II and Supreme Court
precedents, the President must enforce mandates when Congress
appropriates money, as well as abide by prohibitions. If he objects on
constitutional grounds, he may decline to enforce a statute until the
case is adjudicated in the courts. "But the President may not decline to
follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy
objections," writes the court.

That is especially notable given that ObamaCare's employer-insurance
requirement and other provisions are precisely such unambiguous
statutory mandates, with hard start dates. The executive has broad
enforcement and interpretative discretion but not the wholesale
authority to suspend core parts of laws, even ones he co-wrote.

All of this highlights that Mr. Obama is not merely redefining this
or that statute as he goes but also the architecture of the U.S.
political system. As with the judicial slapdowns on his non-recess
recess appointments that the Supreme Court will hear next term, Judge
Kavanaugh warns that endorsing the NRC's legal position "would gravely
upset the balance of powers between the Branches and represent a major
and unwarranted expansion of the Executive's power."

There is nothing, so far, to indicate that Obama will abide by the decision of the court.  The very idea seems so contrary to his
nature.  He is, after all, a community organizer who follows the Alinsky playbook as his governing blueprint.  He will accuse anybody who has the gall to oppose him of racism: 

"Some of those folks think I usurp my
authority by having the gall to win the presidency."

Can there be any doubt what he meant by that?  Whether he believes it himself or not, he wants everybody else to believe that those who disagree with him do it because of the color of his skin.  It is an accusation frequently made by Democrats and repeated in the media.  And it just may turn out to be very effective in this way:  Unless something extraordinary occurs, impeachment is effectively off the table.  What, then, will make him abide by the decision of the court if he chooses to ignore it?

This Is Not News

Or, it shouldn't be, but it probably does come as news to some.  Writing in Fiscal Times about Obama's dysfunctional foreign policy, David Francis provides this quote from former Obama administration inmate, Vali Nasr.

“Their primary concern was how any action in Afghanistan or the Middle East would play on the nightly news, or which talking point it would give the Republicans. The Obama administration’s reputation for competence on foreign policy has less to do with its accomplishments in Afghanistan or the Middle East than with how U.S. actions in that region have been reshaped to accommodate partisan political concerns.”

The good news is that folks are catching on.  There is nothing that Barack Obama does that isn't about partisan political concerns.  Nothing.  Is it any wonder his foreign policy is a disaster?  

Pathological Altruism

Via Best of the Web, we find a paper by Barbara A. Oakley  discussing the concept of pathological altruism — where good intentions cause harm.

A working definition of a pathological altruist then might be
a person who sincerely engages in what he or she intends to be
altruistic acts but who (in a fashion that can be reasonably anticipated) harms the very person or group he or she is trying to
help; or a person who, in the course of helping one person or
group, inflicts reasonably foreseeable harm to others beyond the
person or group being helped; or a person who in reasonably
anticipatory way becomes a victim of his or her own altruistic
actions (2). The attempted altruism, in other words, results in
objectively foreseeable and unreasonable harm to the self, to the
target of the altruism, or to others beyond the target.

The pathological part of it seems to pertain particularly to our government's intent to "help".  It has become excessive and extreme in its drive to "promote the good".  The altruistic part of it depends upon there being good intentions.

Motives are also important. Well-meaning intentions can lead
either to altruism or to pathological altruism. Self-servingly malevolent intentions, on the other hand, often have little or nothing to do
with altruism, even though such malevolence can easily be cloaked
with pretensions of altruism. A con artist soliciting for a “charity”
that he uses to personally enrich himself would not be a pathological altruist.

I once thought there were ultimately good intentions behind government's ever expansive efforts to promote the good, but it's been a long time since I've thought anything like that.  There's a natural aversion to admitting that well intended programs never actually worked, never mind that they might indeed have done a great deal of harm instead.  But it just never happens with government programs.

It goes beyond government refusing to admit that things didn't quite work out.  The notion of studying why good intentions go bad seems not to get any play from scientists and academics, and I would guess that there's some self-interest involved there.  Much of academia benefits from government grant money, and much of what government wants to know is what other ways it can expand and provide "service".  What academic wants to discourage that?

So it's a given.  Government does good.  Except that now there is clearly malevolence.  Think of the IRS targeting.  Even the individuals targeting know it and their superiors do as well.  Everybody is pointing fingers at somebody else, which means they don't want to be the ones to take the fall, which means they all know it was wrong.  For the good of the country?  To save the country from conservatives?  I'm sure that's their story.

Ms. Oakley's paper concludes that the study of the bad outcomes from altruism deserve as much if not more attention than the study of the good outcomes.  

Science has put extraordinary emphasis on studying the helpful
aspects of altruism, and this emphasis has helped reify altruism’s
benefits among the general population. However, if science is
truly to serve as an ultimately altruistic enterprise, then science
must examine not only the good but also the harm that can arise
from our feelings of altruism and empathetic caring for others. In
support of this idea, it is important to note that during the twentieth
century, tens of millions individuals were killed under despotic
regimes that rose to power through appeals to altruism (106–110).
The study of pathological altruism, in other words, is not a minor,
inconsequential offshoot of the study of altruism but instead is
a topic of overwhelming scientific and public importance.

Yes, it's a topic of overwhelming scientific and public importance, but it's not as if the potential and actual harm of altruism has gone unnoticed over the centuries.  People have studied it before.

Abstract: The basic thesis in The Road to Serfdom is that the lure of socialist ideology has the unintended and undesirable consequence of economic depravation and political tyranny when countries follow its policy agenda. Socialist planning requires economic planners to assume a level of responsibility for economic life in a country which is both cumbersome to the point of impossible, and powerful beyond any reasonable limit that could be safely trusted to any one individual or group of individuals. The papers in this symposium provide a critical reading of the Hayek’s thesis on socialism. While many strong points are made in the discussion, the critical reading of Hayek offered must ultimately be judged unsatisfactory. The issues of choice and consequences are not addressed, and as a result the basic argument presented in The Road to Serfdom is never adequately engaged.

Yes people have studied it, but big government proponents dispute, deny, and ignore the conclusions.  It is not at all in their interests to concede that there could be any truth to them.  They suppress the information.  Hence the IRS scandal.  Can't have those conservative ideas out there interfering with their plans.  Which brings us to another of Hayek's conclusion:  Why the worst get on top.

[L]eaders don’t promote a positive agenda, but a negative one of hating an enemy and envy of the wealthy. To appeal to the masses, leaders preach an “us” against “them” program.

“Advancement within a totalitarian group or party depends largely on a willingness to do immoral things,” Hayek explains. “The principle that the end justifies the means, which in individualist ethics is regarded as the denial of all morals, in collectivist ethics becomes necessarily the supreme rule.”

Us against them.  Who does that sound like?