OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
— Ernest Hemingway, “The Sun Also Rises”
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President Obama and his sycophantic minions don’t even bother any more to come up with plausible answers to queries from the suddenly awakened media. Instead, they just repeat past talking points — aware that they’ve been repeatedly proven false, but not caring a bit.
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In short, their lies don’t make sense anymore, and they’re not even trying to be convincing.
Like last week, when the president was out west on yet another fundraising trip (judging from his thin schedule, you’d think Iraq and Libya and the Middle East and Ukraine and the U.S. economy were all getting along just fine.) The schedule released by the White House said that on one of those nights, he’d just be staying in at his hotel.
Now, the president doesn’t often do that when he’s on a trip. He is, after all, in Los Angeles: Can’t he find even one person to have dinner with? After all, Hollywood isn’t far away.
“The president has some downtime when he gets to L.A. and has sort of an early night tonight. Could you give us any sense of what he’s doing when they get there?” a reporter asked on Air Force One on the way to L.A.
“I will check. I’m not sure,” said the deputy White House spokesman, Eric Schultz. (Uh, isn’t that kinda’ his job to know?)
“The background to that question,” the reporter continued, “is one time when he came to L.A., he went out for dinner with [film studio executive Jeffrey] Katzenberg and we didn’t find out about it until the next day. So we’ll be very eager to find out about it today if he has plans tonight.”
“And in that event,” said another reporter, “he didn’t leave the hotel and that’s why we weren’t told about it beforehand.”
The transcript from the July 23 gaggle said Mr. Schultz responded: “Noted. (Laughter.)”
The next day, reporters again sought an answer.
“Q: Eric, can you settle the question of what the president did last night at the hotel?
“Mr. Schultz: Sure. As I mentioned yesterday, the president had a full day of events. You were with him at each of them. In fact, you filed 17 pool reports tracking each one of his movements. (Laughter.) Last night, the president didn’t have any public events or leave the hotel. If he had you would have been with him.
“Q: Was he meeting with anyone for dinner?
“Mr. Schultz: Again, he didn’t leave the hotel. And if he would, you would have been with him. And he didn’t have any public events.”
Another reporter tried:
“Q: Is there a reason you can’t just tell us what he did in his hotel, even though it wasn’t a pool movement that we were involved in?
“Mr. Schultz: Again, I understand the interest here. Our obligation to you is to let you know when there is a public movement or even a private meeting you are often — you often join us for. There was no public events, and he stayed in the hotel after a long busy day last night.”
But that’s just who the president spent time with in L.A., which, for some reason, the White House didn’t want to release. In a more hypocritical example, the White House refused to release who attended certain fundraisers or how much money was raised. When asked, Obama officials said, ask the “outside” super PAC groups holding the fundraisers.
For more hilarity, back to Sgt. “I Know Nothing!” Schultz.
“You don’t think it undercuts the principles that you outlined that the president has for him to be doing these events now when he wasn’t doing them two years ago?” asked a reporter.
“Mr. Schultz: No, I think the president’s policies positions are clear. He has tried to do a lot on this, some unilaterally, but when Republicans block measures in Congress, he doesn’t feel like we’re going to allow the midterms to happen on an uneven playing field.”
But then Schultzy tossed in this one cuz, you know, who’s even paying attention, right?
“Without a doubt, I think we’ve done more to achieve the president’s commitment to transparency than any other previous administration,” he said.
Hemingway was right. You’re just rolling along, and then, one day, you’re bankrupt. That’s exactly where Mr. Obama is right now.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
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