How can we tell if the lunatics are running the asylum?

By Dan Barber

How can we tell if the lunatics are running the asylum? The short answer is, just look around.

Obama's promise of a transparent administration seems to have come to naught.  Now he’s looking around in the dark trying to fix his own failed policies that have all come home to roost in his final year’s challenge to save his own legacy.

Enough of the tired, but appropriate, clichés.

Obama picked all the wrong examples to try his hand at social re-engineering. Remember his attempt to smooth over the racism misunderstanding early in his administration with a “beer” summit between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley who was only trying to do his job of protecting Gates home?  The absent-minded professor forgot his house keys so he was trying to break into his own house. Sergeant Crowley didn’t know that the break-in underway was being committed by the homeowner. And the homeowner thought that it was beneath his professorship dignity to comply with the law officer.

That example” blew up” in Obama’s face when he picked sides with a “knee jerk reaction?  

Important policy decisions only became worse as time went on because then we had the “Hands up, don’t shoot” false narrative from Ferguson, Missouri that did nothing for the good people who lived and worked in that community. However, it did provide some great “theatrics” for some uninformed people, politicians, athletes, and performers.

The good people of Chicago are now all fired up about canning their mayor, former White House Chief of Staff and good Obama friend Rahm Emanuel for how he is ruining their great city or not…who knows what Chicago politicians are up to these days, maybe someone should ask Oprah or even Bill Ayers or Bernardine Dohrn who were leaders in the violent and extremist Weather Underground group in the sixties. Obama said that his political career was born in Ayers and Dohrn’s Chicago living room and he attended Reverend Wright’s Chicago church with Oprah.

The president's push to reform America’s much-needed healthcare industry and to control health care costs has only managed to punish patients and healthcare providers while enriching huge insurance companies.

Obama made some talking point promises to Americans that couldn’t possibly come to pass with how the Affordable Care Act was written, even though he emphasized each point with a PERIOD?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Jonathan Gruber, the administration and Democratic legislators, architect of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) who stated in a recorded conference that the administration had to count on the "stupidity of the American voter to get the act to pass." 

People are still dangerously obtaining routine health care services in Emergency Medicine Departments everywhere because they can’t be turned away. And many working people still can’t afford to purchase health care insurance. Because of that, our government is taking a fine from those people through the Internal Revenue Service so that revenue can be turned over to the health insurance companies who are providing insurance coverage to those who can’t or don’t work…but it is still not enough because of the apparent failure of so many “non-profit” health insurance exchanges.

The Obama administration, including the Clinton, State Department lied to Americans and the families of the people who were killed at the Benghazi Embassy attack. The initial talking point was that protesters angry over an obscure video, not terrorists caused the attack until public outrage of a blatant lie changed the Obama narrative. Then the liberal media tried to provide cover for the administration's lies with nonsense about the “Fog of War.” Also, liberals and some Democrats were accusing the Republicans of being mean to their heroine Clinton in Congressional hearings for trying to find out what really happened. 

In my required high school civics class, I was taught that our Congress is supposed to provide oversight of government activities, what happened in the last 50 years?

Then there was the Rose Garden celebration announcing the rescue of a “heroic soldier” lost in Afghanistan and held captive by the Taliban for 5 years. In the speech, Obama failed to mention anything about the swapping of five high-profile Guantanamo war prisoners for one US Army “alleged deserter." From the looks of things, Sergeant Bergdahl's (promoted during his stay with the Taliban) Court Martial won’t be concluded until Obama is out of office.

Obama’s “optics” was also way out of focus when he expressed his outrage and “heartfelt” feelings for the family of the beheaded journalist by ISIS at an impromptu news conference, then moments later teeing off at a Martha’s Vineyard golf course.

Ignoring and hiding from bullies (extremist) or trying to become friends with them (Iran) will not make them go away...it will only encourage them to continue their effort to rule over the weak everywhere. Perhaps Obama should take a cue from Teddy Roosevelt when he said, “speak softly, but carry a big stick.” 

Hint: Keeping a Carrier Air Wing and support ships parked in the ocean near troubled spots in the world gives great backing and strength to our diplomatic missions.

Our lazy or biased media in collaborating with any political ideology by allowing an ongoing false narrative to push the favored message of the day is dangerous for freedom loving people everywhere. 

Sometimes the growing malignancy of dishonest journalism is exposed on social media, which really ticks off those "established" J-school scholars.

Yes, Obama does have several serious challenges in his final year in office… but they are of his own making.

OK…I lied about the clichés, but only because we managed to elect a political cliché into office rather than a fresh and enthusiastic young person who offered “hope and change.”