KUHNER: The tainting of the 2012 election

OPINION:

Did President Obama win re-election on false terms? This is the question that must be answered in the wake of a recent bombshell story in The New York Post.

The Post’s John Crudele revealed that in the final months prior to the 2012 presidential election, the U.S. Census Bureau released fabricated data. In particular, in September 2012, the Census Bureau astonishingly claimed that the unemployment rate had dropped in one month from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent. I — along with many others — said that the number was not only bogus, but had been deliberately manipulated to help Mr. Obama achieve a second term. I was right.

The mainstream media and the Obama campaign immediately seized on the new unemployment figures to claim the economy was rebounding. According to the president’s surrogates, it was definitive proof that Mr. Obama’s economic policies — the $787 billion stimulus, lavish government spending, the auto bailouts and high deficits — were finally paying off. The liberal media pushed this narrative to persuade Americans that Mr. Obama was an effective economic steward. It was a giant lie.

According to The Post, the September 2012 job numbers were faked. The data was manipulated in order to drive the unemployment numbers down. In fact, the Census Bureau allegedly knew there were employees who were rigging the figures several years before the 2012 election. Yet, the government agency did nothing. One of the employees involved in the deception campaign, Julius Buckmon, told The Post that the numbers were falsified at the behest of his superiors.

“It was a phone conversation — I forget the exact words — but it was, ’Go ahead and fabricate it’ to make it what it was,” Mr. Buckmon said.

The Post story goes on to state that there are other “rogue employees” throughout the Census Bureau who also manipulated the unemployment data — and some continue to do so to this day. The bureau has been suppressing this information and refuses to punish the culprits. In other words, the Census Bureau may have been turned into a partisan tool of the Obama regime.

This should come as no surprise. The sudden drop in unemployment from 8.1 to 7.8 percent in the fall of 2012 was met with considerable skepticism — especially, among conservatives and some in the business community. For example, Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, openly accused the Obama administration of cooking the books.

“Unbelievable job numbers,” Mr. Welch tweeted. “These Chicago guys will do anything can’t debate, so change numbers.”

Liberal pundits vilified Mr. Welch as a kook, a crazy conspiracy theorist. He is the very opposite: a successful businessman who, understanding the private sector and basic economics, realized that such numbers could only be generated by a Reagan-style expansion. The economy — as should have been evident to any sane person — was not booming in 2012 (or any other time during the Obama presidency). Hence, such figures were not only improbable. They were impossible.

The president’s entire re-election was based on a pack of lies. If the electorate knew the true, destructive nature of the administration, Mr. Obama might never have won. His regime transformed the Internal Revenue Service into a political weapon to intimidate and harass opponents, preventing groups from organizing against him in 2012. On Benghazi, the president and his allies deliberately misled the public to cover up the terrorist killings of four Americans — including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens. They did this while claiming al Qaeda had been smashed and defeated. Instead, the Islamist network was on the march. Mr. Obama’s surveillance state, using the National Security Agency to spy on millions of fellow citizens, was kept in the shadows.

Finally, the president’s central promise regarding Obamacare — that if you like your health care plan, you can keep it — turns out not only to have been false, but Mr. Obama knew it was false. The Obamacare regulations compelling millions to change insurance were written into the law years before the 2012 election. In short, he repeatedly, consistently and knowingly lied.

This raises the question: If Mr. Obama’s entire re-election was based on fraudulent promises and deliberate mendacity, then was his victory illegitimate? If Americans knew then what they know now — the Obamacare debacle, the moribund economy, the terrorist assault on Benghazi, the IRS scandal and the growth of a soft police state — the president would have lost and lost big.

Mr. Obama’s regime is imploding. It is only because the U.S. system has fixed, four-year presidential terms that he is still in office. Under a parliamentary system, such as that of Britain or Canada, Mr. Obama would either have been forced to call an early election (and be defeated) or face an internal leadership challenge and be driven from power. Instead, he has been reduced to a permanent lame duck. The liberal savior has finally been unmasked.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a radio host on WRKO AM-680 in Boston.