I Will Say Anything I Want To Get Elected and Once Elected I Will Then Do Anything I Want

When voting someone into a political office voters really do expect them to keep their word. We realize not every promise can be maintained, but the majority of it should be. This goes for all elected officials and no more is this true than in the White House. For if those elected to the highest office in the land are not trustworthy and shun what they claim is important to the country, then what good are they? If the person that represents all of us and our collective ethic cannot be trusted with what he or she says, then what use is he or she? People like that flop around from side to side with no center like fish out of water. If they aren't the person we elected, then which person are they?

Our current president, thus far has turned out to be a man with a penchant for at times being untruthful and seemingly saying whatever to get into office. And that's unfortunate, but a reality about President Barack Obama at least to this point. The more he has had opportunities to do what he said he would and be the man he said he would, the more often he just let us down. He was unable to keep to his word, and though he has had serious problems with an uncooperative Republican party, unlike many presidents before him he had a window of time when he had the possibility of keeping his word handed to him on a silver platter.

He was given a super majority to work with, not on a whim, or because collectively the nation suddenly said, “oh what the heck let's splurge on Democrats this season.” We were watching our economy, handled by a president from a family worth many millions of dollars and an vice president worth almost one hundred million dollars, collapse, we were watching two wars continuing - the durations of which we all felt uncomfortable about with one being an admitted mistake - and our civil liberties were being rolled back as if the constitution meant nothing.

So along comes this candidate that said all the right things. And at this point the only problem with that is we believed him. He turned out to be a man that cannot honor his promises nor oaths. He made promises to us all that were different from those of not only his Republican opponents, but of his Democratic opponents in the primaries also. Apparently voters don't mean that much to him once they've voted.

For instance, he talked about how Americans in his view should not be able to be held indefinitely. That is not foreign combatants etc, right now I just mean American citizens. He said many things previous to being elected regarding this constitutional right of all American citizens according to the US Constitution.

As was pointed out on the Daily Show on December 7 president Obama said in a speech in June of 2007 while campaigning, “We're not a nation that locks people up without telling them why they're there or what they're charged with.” In October of 2007 he said “We're not a nation that locks people up without charging them.” (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-december-7-2011/arrested-developme...) However just this past week President Obama threatened to veto a bill that would restrict the ability to hold Americans without trial, something he himself said he was opposed to and that is unconstitutional according to the Fifth Amendment which states no person, “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am5.html)

He also talked about no bid contracts. At the time he ran for president Americans were tired of the corruption and carelessly clumsy lies that came out of the Bush administration. One of those areas of obvious corruption was the no bid contract handed to Halliburton, the company the vice president was CEO of up until just months before taking office. About this as a candidate the president said, “So far, Congress has given the Administration unprecedented flexibility in determining how to spend more than $20 billion dollars in Iraq. But instead of effectively targeting this aid, we have seen some of the largest waste, fraud, and abuse of foreign aid in American history. Today, the Iraqi landscape is littered with ill-conceived, half-finished projects that have done almost nothing to help the Iraqi people or stabilize the country.

“This must end in the next session of Congress, when we reassert our authority to oversee the management of this war. This means no more bloated no-bid contracts that cost the taxpayers millions in overhead and administrative expenses….” (http://obamaspeeches.com/094-A-Way-Forward-in-Iraq-Obama-Speech.htm)

As FOX News pointed out, “As a candidate for president in 2008, then-Sen. Obama frequently derided the Bush administration for the awarding of federal contracts without competitive bidding. 'I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all,' the senator told a Grand Rapids audience on Oct. 2. 'The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton and the like will be over when I'm in the White House.'

“Those remarks echoed an earlier occasion, during a candidates' debate in Austin, Texas on Feb. 21, when Mr. Obama vowed to upgrade the government's online databases listing federal contracts. 'If (the American people) see a bridge to nowhere being built, they know where it's going and who sponsored it,' he said to audience laughter, 'and if they see a no-bid contract going to Halliburton, they can check that out too.'” (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/25/obama-administration-steers-l...)

Yet in 2010 he gave a no-bid contract out to the very same company he criticized the Bush administration handing over no bid contracts to. “KBR Inc. [aka Halliburton] was selected for a no-bid contract worth as much as $568 million through 2011 for military support services in Iraq, the Army said.The Army announced its decision yesterday only hours after the Justice Department said it will pursue a lawsuit accusing the Houston-based company of taking kickbacks from two subcontractors on Iraq-related work. The Army also awarded the work to KBR over objections from members of Congress, who have pushed the Pentagon to seek bids for further logistics contracts.” (http://lonelyconservative.com/2010/05/remember-when-halliburton-was-a-di...)

And now, members of his own party are launching an investigation into a no bid contract he awarded to one of his campaign supporters. ABC reports, “A top Senate Democrat has an investigation into the Obama administration’s awarding a $433 million no-bid contract to the maker of an experimental smallpox vaccine.

“Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., says the five-year contract from the Department of Health and Human Services to Siga Technologies – a New York company run by a major Democratic donor — raises questions about a conflict of interest and the potential waste of precious taxpayer funds. In a letter to HHS inspector general Daniel Levinson on Monday, McCaskill expressed worry over the hefty price of the drug (reportedly $255 per dose) because the company had not been not forced to compete for the contract. She also noted that the drug itself, known as ST-246, may not be effective since it has a short shelf-life and hasn’t been tested on humans.” (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/senate-democrat-seeks-inves...)

Right now according to CBS, “Just 41 percent of Americans think Mr. Obama has performed his job well enough to be elected to a second term, whereas 54 percent don't think so.” (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57340576-503544/grim-economic-out...) It's no wonder. There are so many main promises he not only refused to act on when he had the chance, but that he has either totally waffled on or has just turned around and become the kind of person he criticized most in 2008 on those issues he now supports.

He said, “I didn't overpromise. [...] Reversing structural problems in our economy that have been building up for two decades -- that was gonna take time. It was gonna take more than a year. It was gonna take more than two years. It was gonna take more than one term. Probably takes more than one president.” (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57340578/obama-on-the-economy-i-di...) But nobody was stopping him from abiding by his promise of sticking to the Bush withdrawal timeline instead of trying to extend the war, which thankfully he was a failure at. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/obama-a-dishonest-wi...) Nobody was stopping him from making good on his promise not to award no-bid contracts. Republicans had nothing to do with those things at all.

Americans are wondering about that guy they voted for in 2008. They are wondering who this new person is that resembles him only in looks now occupying the White House and what he did with Barack Obama. The person the majority of Americans voted for in 2008 is no longer around as if George W Bush put on an Obama suit and passed laws and is now out on the campaign trail saying whatever he thinks will get him re-elected. It's sad to see. Maybe in the short time between now and the 2012 elections we'll see the real Barack Obama stand up and fight for something besides his power.

To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.