Our Weekly White House Report Card finds grader Jed Babbin calling three strikes against President Obama, one on Obamacare and two from the evolving Wikileaks scandal.
Jed Babbin
Just in time for the election, amid waves of major insurance companies quitting the Obamacare markets, people are being notified of yet another massive hike of Obamacare premiums. Next year, for those who are paying without the subsidies being handed out to protected classes, Obamacare premiums will rise on average 25 percent in 2017 and as much as 80 percent in some states. In 2009, while pushing for Obamacare, Obama told us that if we liked our doctors we could keep our doctors and if we liked our healthcare plan we could keep that too. Both statements were lies. Now he said that Americans will be pleasantly surprised about their healthcare costs next year. How can he say that with a straight face?
One of the Wikileaks revelations — part of the dump of John Podesta emails — are emails, dated last year, reflecting on the Defense Policy Board’s objections to senior White House officials barring the Navy from conducting freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea. Those exercises, in which U.S. Navy ships would have sailed through waters the Chinese are seeking to control, would have demonstrated American resolve that the areas were still open seas. The White House action negated that resolve and caved in to Chinese aggression.
Another part of the Wikileaks document dump revealed that President Obama knew about Hillary Clinton’s private email system years ago and that Hillary’s staff wanted to “clean up” the problem created when Obama denied knowing about it. Obama claimed he found out about it from the media. This was the eighth time Obama has disclaimed knowledge of government action before he heard it through the media. The list of other Obama claims of ignorance (and innocence) date back to 2011 and the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal and includes other scandals ranging from the NSA spying on foreign leaders to the Petraeus sex scandal and the IRS targeting of conservative groups.
How can a president who claims to be the smartest, best informed chief executive be ignorant of some of the most important events during his tenure in office?
Grade D minus
Jed Babbin is an Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him @jedbabbin
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
