Thirty years ago, an American President defied public opinion to make a reckless foreign policy stand tied to military conflict in Afghanistan. At a time when the U.S. economy was struggling and unemployment was rising, the nation’s patience with an upstart Democrat President was wearing thin.
President Jimmy Carter’s unpopular decision to declare a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow shattered the lives of 466 American athletes. Carter believed the boycott was an appropriate response to the Soviet Union’s military operations in Afghanistan.
The unsettling parallels between Carter’s Presidency in 1980 and Barack Obama’s in 2010 are beyond dispute. Obama even delivered an Olympic disappointment of his own. He was flown in as the headline speaker last October when Chicago made its final pitch to be awarded host rights to the 2016 Games. The International Olympic Committee was not impressed by the hollow pleas of Obama and the First Lady and it rejected Chicago’s bid. Even worse. Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting.
Carter’s Presidency was notable for a string of boneheaded decisions and an inner circle of novices. This is where the parallels diverge. Obama’s inner circle is a dedicated collection of radicals who embrace Socialism and are fully aware of what they want to do, regardless of how it might damage the nation and the office.
As author and radio host Mark Levin chronicled during his Monday show, Obama’s disregard for honesty during his 18 months in office is staggering. In his zeal to jam a transformational agenda down the throats of the American people Obama has subverted the rule of law, ignored the Constitution, misrepresented facts and, in some cases, flat out lied to the American people.
The case of freed terrorist Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is highly alarming. “They have affirmatively lied to us time and again, feigning outrage”, Levin said, about the 2009 release of the Lockerbie bomber. The White House expressed dismay and surprise when the Libyan terrorist who bombed Pan Am 103 in 1988 was set free, allegedly terminally ill. He is still alive and well in Libya, where he was returned, we now know, with full White House compliance.
In fact, Levin wonders (and tens of millions of Americans agree with him): “How do you trust Obama on anything?” Look no further than the health insurance reform debate that culminated with ObamaCare becoming law.
In trying to sell nationalized healthcare, Obama promised there would be no provisions for federally funded abortions (lie); that any individual who likes his existing insurance coverage can keep it (not always, it turns out); and that the bill would help reduce the federal deficit (lie).
Obama’s team promised that the $862 billion stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) rammed through Congress would hold the unemployment rate around 8%. The rate reached 10% and is now stuck at 9.5%.
Commentator Charles Krauthammer forecast Obama’s inclination to engage in deception three months into his term, in March 2009. “The fraudulent claim that (healthcare, energy and education reform) are both cause and cure (of the U.S. financial crisis) is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.”
Years later, Carter acknowledged regret about the 1980 boycott. He encountered Olympic wrestler Jeff Blatnick, who was denied the chance to compete in Moscow. They were fellow passengers aboard a commercial flight bound for Minneapolis. Blatnick was stunned when Carter confided, “That was a bad decision. I’m sorry.”
It is all but impossible to imagine Obama expressing similar regret when history exposes the consequences of his Presidency. And the lies.