Transparency | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    I am beginning to wonder if I am the only person in the countryside who abhors having someone look me right in the eye and lie to me. I don't mean, I wonder if they are lying. I don't mean, I think they are lying. I KNOW THEY ARE LYING!!! In case there is any doubt, let me say it more clearly. When someone tells you they are going to do one thing and then do another, with no explanation of why the change, you have been lied to. Period.

    All one needs to do is listen carefully to what is said and then see what happens. "Carefully" is the operative word here. Failure to listen carefully allows the Anointed One to get away with what Thomas Sowell calls "Plausible Lies'.

    Unfortunately, that seems to be what we get from the President of the United States. I find it difficult to understand how it is that the man can sleep at night.

    For over four and a half years, we have been told over and over that this administration is transparent. Of course, we have not been treated to much of this claimed transparency until after the last election. But now we are. One week after another the Prez heads out of Washington in what seems like unending campaign speeches (at over $180,000 per flight hour of AF-1 - not to mention the cost of all the support activity entailed when he travels). And then adding insult to injury, at each one of these speech sites, we find him "backed up" by a group I suppose we are expected to believe is typical of the folks he claims he is trying to "take care of". He makes a speech about education and teachers and he is "backed up" by a group of teachers - carefully screened to ensure observable "diversity". He makes a speech about the military and he is surrounded by GIs (in full dress garb) - also carefully screened to ensure observable "diversity". He makes a speech about police and firefighters and there they are standing behind him in the uniforms (in the case of the police) and their "turnout gear"( in the case of the firefighters) both groups again carefully screened. Do you begin to see a pattern here?? The actual performance belies the words. The Prez' motivations seem to be becoming ever more transparent. He wants Nancy P. back in charge of the House after the mid-term election. If that happens, it'll be "Katie bar the door" as he pushes one after another of his pet projects through the Congress - virtually all to the disadvantage of the long suffering tax payers.

    It seems to me that what he is doing (or trying to do) is curry favor with the great middle class he so frequently claims to be interested in "protecting" and get them to support him in his opposition to the Congress. His continued campaigning is no more than another transparent effort to bypass Congress. Too bad so many folks are beginning to see through his misdirections.

    As an aside, it would seem that in his new "charm offensive" he is looking to "romance" some of the "back bench" Reps in an effort to charm them into going along with some of his programs. (More transparency??) There is no doubt that on the surface he is personable and talks a good story. Did anyone notice whether he had his ubiquitous Teleprompter(s) with him when he took the Reps out to dinner (On his dime, I heard reported)?? Hmmm...Apparently there was no tape made of the proceedings. I read where one of the staffers was quoted as saying that since it was a private meeting, recording it would not be appropriate. (It's too bad Mitt's "47% meeting" wasn't private...It coulda saved some embarrassment. ) We can only hope the Prez doesn't get away with wooing these mostly "back bench" folks over with his good sounding rhetoric. But I digress....

    So now here comes sequestration, and The Administration discontinues White House tours. It's just too bad about all those school kids and all the fund raising bake sales and car washes and the like they held to raise money to pay for the trip. Oh well, they aren't voters yet, so who cares?? I don't suppose it ever occurred to any of the Patricians in the White House that those kids' parents vote. How do you suppose they will feel about the way their kids have been treated?? And that's not all. The rest of the American people either do or should care; after all it's our house.

    So then what?? The public and the MSM, most of which is right there to support everything the Prez wants to do, begins to kick up a fuss about cancellation of the tours (a little). And then we are told, it wasn't the Prez who made that decision, it was the Secret Service. Whaaaat?? Does that sound like an admission that the Anointed One is not really in charge of our Government or even the White House?? (Easy enough to believe, but instead of the Secret Service I would have guessed it was Michelle in charge.)

    Everything the Anointed One has been doing, especially since the election, seems to be becoming increasingly transparent. Unfortunately, it is not the transparency he was talking about as a candidate. It is his personal and political motivation involved in virtually everything he does that seems to be increasingly transparent. Virtually everything seems to be skewed to his personal advantage or in favor of his politics, the taxpayer be damned.

    D'ya think??