Michael Goodwin

Michael Goodwin

US News

Meet the Democratic Liars Club

The old warning to beware of lies, damned lies and statistics deserves an update. Nowadays, we must also beware of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bill de Blasio.

The unholy trinity comprises the leaders of the Democratic Liars Club. Whether born or convicted, the president of the United States, his would-be successor and the mayor of New York are, to borrow a phrase, “people of the lie.”

This is not to accuse them of being merely imperfect humans. It is to say they are chronically dishonest and concoct such significant lies that they deserve zero public trust.

The latest clincher is the admission of a top White House aide that much about the Iranian nuclear deal was a fabrication sold to a lazy, gullible press corps. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes boasts that most reporters were too dumb to know or care they were being misled.

“The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns,” Rhodes told The New York Times. “They literally know nothing.”

He said that much of what passed for independent analysis of Iran in the media was a regurgitation of White House talking points. “We created an echo chamber,” he gloated. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”

Rhodes thus joins the infamous Jonathan Gruber, the administration insider caught conceding that ObamaCare was designed to exploit the “stupidity of the American voter.” If people understood the plain meaning, Gruber said, the law would not have survived.

The twin admissions mean Obama’s self-described legacy accomplishments — the Iran deal and the Affordable Care Act — are fraudulent to the core. Even worse, Obama himself led the charge for both scams, insisting that anyone who opposed the Iran deal wanted war, and that under ObamaCare, “you can keep your doctor.”

The implications are enormous and resolve any doubts that Obama is a con man in a league of his own. Instead of getting the Nobel Peace Prize, he is worthy of the Joseph Goebbels Award for proving Goebbels’ claim that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Unfortunately, both the Iran deal and ObamaCare will outlast Obama’s term and do lasting damage to America, and in the case of Iran, the whole world. They make Watergate look like amateur hour.

These Democrats are chronically dishonest and concoct such significant lies that they deserve zero public trust.

The admissions bring new clarity to the stakes of Clinton’s bid for a third Obama term. Already distrusted by the vast majority of Americans for career-long duplicity, her election would signal that the nation no longer values integrity and is willing to be lied to again and again.

While Obama’s charisma and appeals to a historic presidency blinded many Americans, there can be no excuses for electing Clinton. Her track record of dishonesty is matched by fresh evidence that she is beyond hope of change.

It is a reflection of Washington’s hollowed-out morals, and Obama’s personal corruption, that Clinton has not been charged in the email scandal. Her failure to protect national-security secrets make her unfit for any office, yet millions of Americans are ready to entrust her with their well-being and safety.

As for Mayor de Blasio’s misconduct, it has not risen to such corrosive destructiveness, but that’s only because his office limits his opportunities. But as the hydra-headed scandals swallowing his mayoralty suggest, he has rarely missed an opportunity to deceive the public by saying one thing and doing another.

The latest report has the feds investigating his 2013 campaign, which comes on top of probes focused on possible financial shenanigans in 2014, 2015 and this year. In short, much of his career is suspected of being one long crime wave.

Like his pals in the Democratic Liars Club, de Blasio fights truth with imaginary victimization. “How convenient that when we’re doing a lot of work to help everyday people, there’s all sorts of efforts being made to obscure that work,” he said of the probes.

That disinformation echoes Obama’s nasty tendency to accuse dissenters of ignorance and corruption or, when that fails, racism. Clinton, of course, retreats behind charges of sexism and, when that fails, claims to spot a vast right-wing conspiracy.

In fact, there is a conspiracy. It comprises monstrous lies told not only against the truth, but also against the very soul of America.

Echoes of ‘The Ronald’

The candidate “knew what the sophisticates and elites did not — that the American people were thirsting for leadership and to be told that it was OK to cherish their children’s future.”

The passage sounds like every postmortem on Donald Trump’s march through the Republican primaries. In truth, it was written about Ronald Reagan’s quest for the 1976 nomination.

It comes from Craig Shirley’s 2005 book, “Reagan’s Revolution,” and pinpoints the Gipper’s losing ’76 campaign against Gerald Ford as the foundation of the world-changing success that followed.

I am not making a case that Trump is the second coming of Reagan, yet they share the distinction of stoking the enthusiasm of the party’s rank-and-file despite powerful internal resistance. Reagan was regarded by top Republicans such as Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater as a dangerous simpleton. #NeverReagan would have been their hashtag.

Worse things are said about Trump, and defectors include the 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, and some GOP senators. House Speaker Paul Ryan says he’s not ready to endorse Trump, and both former Presidents Bush may not support him.

The resistance seems genuine and can be respected on one condition: that the dissenters acknowledge they are playing with fire.

Because the next president likely will be either Trump or Hillary Clinton, it is irresponsible for Republican leaders to say, as Romney and Jeb Bush have done, that they will vote for neither. Those who stay home could be helping elect Clinton.

It’s possible that some of those huffing and puffing the loudest actually prefer Clinton. Under her, they would keep their seats at the elites’ table, while Trump will disrupt their comfort and turn over the table.

In his own way, that’s exactly what Reagan did, and it saved the country and the party.

Rockets (& blame) loom for Israel

With Israel and Hamas exchanging military fire across the Gaza border, two things seem certain. Another summer war is brewing, and Israel will be blamed.

Never mind that Hamas fired first and is stockpiling weapons and digging tunnels. Scapegoating Jews is a vile habit the world refuses to kick.

Crossing potty lines

Color me confused. The Justice Department accuses North Carolina of violating the civil rights of transgender people because a new law requires everybody to use public bathrooms that match the gender on their birth certificates.

How is that discrimination? The same law applies to everybody. Isn’t that the essence of equal rights?