Why Trump?
December 8, 2018 at 4:35 a.m.
By Gary [email protected]
It was moving to watch the funeral service of President George H.W. Bush.
Regardless of your politics, you had to respect the man. He was a skilled leader. He knew how to get the most from the people in his adminstration. He took time to get to know them. They all admired him and would move mountains for him.
This is a stark contrast from the current occupant of the White House, who tends to lead by bludgeon and exaggeration and might as well install a revolving door in the West Wing.
So I was wondering.
How did we get here? How did this country get to the point where we elected Donald Trump as our president?
I think a lot of it has to do with the way the electorate was treated by the previous administration.
Prior to last month’s midterm election, President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail and made lots of comments about how awful President Trump is.
Obama decried “cynicism” as the “greatest threat to our democracy,” and he said the country needs to restore honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government.”
Certainly, Trump deserves heaps of criticism, but didn’t Obama give Americans plenty to be cynical about?
Remember when the architect of Obamacare basically said the Obama administration counted on the “stupidity” of voters to get the bill passed?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Jonathan Gruber said the law passed because most lawmakers and voters didn’t know how it worked.
"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass."
He said voters would have rejected Obamacare if they understood the penalties.
"If CBO scored the (individual) mandate as taxes, the bill dies. If you had a law that made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people are going to get subsidies, it would not have passed.”
Never mind the “like your doctor, keep your doctor" lie that Obama used to help pass the bill.
Never mind we were told that, while we would be subject to a penalty if we didn’t buy insurance, employers would be forced to provide it for their employees or face penalties themselves.
Never mind businesses were given a waiver from the mandate right before the 2015 election.
Never mind we were told that those without insurance would be able to buy it at a much lower cost than ever before.
Never mind we were told there would be a really slick website where all this would happen.
Basically, nothing about Obamacare worked like it was supposed to.
How could Americans not be cynical?
Remember when Nadir Soofi was shot to death during a terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, at a Draw Muhammed contest?
Well, five years before that Soofi walked into Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Phoenix to buy the 9-millimeter pistol he used in the attack.
Soofi, of course, didn’t know the gunshop was part of the federal sting known as “Fast And Furious.”
The secret plan by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was to allow the gunshop to sell illegal weapons to criminals. Then the feds would track the guns in order to locate drug cartels and smuggling networks.
Problem is, the feds lost track of most of the guns – a couple thousand of them.
This – of course, how could it not – led to the death of a border agent named Brian Terry, along with dozens of Mexicans and the arming of Soofi, the Texas terrorist.
Oddly, the media never really cared too much about Fast and Furious, even when the administration refused to cooperate with investigators.
Even when Obama cited executive privilege to deny Congress Fast and Furious files and the move was rejected by a federal judge.
Even when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress about when he first knew of the program.
Even when Holder became the first attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress.
I chuckled at the media indignation and outrage when CNN reporter Jim Acosta was denied media credentials after a confrontational exchange with President Trump.
Did members of the press pool forget what happened to them during the previous administration?
Obama tried to crack down on leaks by unleashing the Justice Department on the Associated Press.
Published reports at the time indicated 20 cellphone and home phone lines were tapped and as many as 100 staffers who worked for the AP were under surveillance.
The Obama Justice Department spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen. They tracked him, looked at his emails and gathered his telephone records.
None of this, of course, rose to the level of “scandal” necessary for intense media scrutiny.
And then there was the Internal Revenue Service under Obama, which targeted conservative groups before elections.
Or Director of National Intelligence James Clapper misleading Congress about spying on American citizens and “unmaskings.”
Or the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issuing an apology to leaders of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, conceding that CIA?employees spied on committee staff. This reversed months of public denials in which officials said there was never any spying.
Then there was Benghazi.
That’s the terror attack in which four Americans were killed – including Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens.
The administration knew it was a coordinated terrorist attack, yet lied to the American people by saying it was a spontaneous reaction to an amateurish anti-Islamic video.
Did I mention Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton’s emails?
I could go on, but space is limited.
President Obama likes to say his administration was “scandal free.” I would describe it more as “scrutiny free.” There was plenty of scandal. Just very little scrutiny.
Today, every Trump tweet is scrutinized more intensely by the media than any of the aforementioned Obama improprieties.
President Obama was a polite, progressive, well-spoken guy who meant well. The media loved him. He and his party never paid a political price for any of their scandals.
Until the 2016 election, that is, when skeptical voters decided they’d had enough and elected Donald Trump.
News Views, a column of local opinion, appears each Saturday in the Times-Union.
Latest News
E-Editions
It was moving to watch the funeral service of President George H.W. Bush.
Regardless of your politics, you had to respect the man. He was a skilled leader. He knew how to get the most from the people in his adminstration. He took time to get to know them. They all admired him and would move mountains for him.
This is a stark contrast from the current occupant of the White House, who tends to lead by bludgeon and exaggeration and might as well install a revolving door in the West Wing.
So I was wondering.
How did we get here? How did this country get to the point where we elected Donald Trump as our president?
I think a lot of it has to do with the way the electorate was treated by the previous administration.
Prior to last month’s midterm election, President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail and made lots of comments about how awful President Trump is.
Obama decried “cynicism” as the “greatest threat to our democracy,” and he said the country needs to restore honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government.”
Certainly, Trump deserves heaps of criticism, but didn’t Obama give Americans plenty to be cynical about?
Remember when the architect of Obamacare basically said the Obama administration counted on the “stupidity” of voters to get the bill passed?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Jonathan Gruber said the law passed because most lawmakers and voters didn’t know how it worked.
"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass."
He said voters would have rejected Obamacare if they understood the penalties.
"If CBO scored the (individual) mandate as taxes, the bill dies. If you had a law that made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people are going to get subsidies, it would not have passed.”
Never mind the “like your doctor, keep your doctor" lie that Obama used to help pass the bill.
Never mind we were told that, while we would be subject to a penalty if we didn’t buy insurance, employers would be forced to provide it for their employees or face penalties themselves.
Never mind businesses were given a waiver from the mandate right before the 2015 election.
Never mind we were told that those without insurance would be able to buy it at a much lower cost than ever before.
Never mind we were told there would be a really slick website where all this would happen.
Basically, nothing about Obamacare worked like it was supposed to.
How could Americans not be cynical?
Remember when Nadir Soofi was shot to death during a terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, at a Draw Muhammed contest?
Well, five years before that Soofi walked into Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Phoenix to buy the 9-millimeter pistol he used in the attack.
Soofi, of course, didn’t know the gunshop was part of the federal sting known as “Fast And Furious.”
The secret plan by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was to allow the gunshop to sell illegal weapons to criminals. Then the feds would track the guns in order to locate drug cartels and smuggling networks.
Problem is, the feds lost track of most of the guns – a couple thousand of them.
This – of course, how could it not – led to the death of a border agent named Brian Terry, along with dozens of Mexicans and the arming of Soofi, the Texas terrorist.
Oddly, the media never really cared too much about Fast and Furious, even when the administration refused to cooperate with investigators.
Even when Obama cited executive privilege to deny Congress Fast and Furious files and the move was rejected by a federal judge.
Even when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress about when he first knew of the program.
Even when Holder became the first attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress.
I chuckled at the media indignation and outrage when CNN reporter Jim Acosta was denied media credentials after a confrontational exchange with President Trump.
Did members of the press pool forget what happened to them during the previous administration?
Obama tried to crack down on leaks by unleashing the Justice Department on the Associated Press.
Published reports at the time indicated 20 cellphone and home phone lines were tapped and as many as 100 staffers who worked for the AP were under surveillance.
The Obama Justice Department spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen. They tracked him, looked at his emails and gathered his telephone records.
None of this, of course, rose to the level of “scandal” necessary for intense media scrutiny.
And then there was the Internal Revenue Service under Obama, which targeted conservative groups before elections.
Or Director of National Intelligence James Clapper misleading Congress about spying on American citizens and “unmaskings.”
Or the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issuing an apology to leaders of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, conceding that CIA?employees spied on committee staff. This reversed months of public denials in which officials said there was never any spying.
Then there was Benghazi.
That’s the terror attack in which four Americans were killed – including Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens.
The administration knew it was a coordinated terrorist attack, yet lied to the American people by saying it was a spontaneous reaction to an amateurish anti-Islamic video.
Did I mention Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton’s emails?
I could go on, but space is limited.
President Obama likes to say his administration was “scandal free.” I would describe it more as “scrutiny free.” There was plenty of scandal. Just very little scrutiny.
Today, every Trump tweet is scrutinized more intensely by the media than any of the aforementioned Obama improprieties.
President Obama was a polite, progressive, well-spoken guy who meant well. The media loved him. He and his party never paid a political price for any of their scandals.
Until the 2016 election, that is, when skeptical voters decided they’d had enough and elected Donald Trump.
News Views, a column of local opinion, appears each Saturday in the Times-Union.
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092