My Greatest Fear: Unmasking My Facade

Reluctantly, I can accept President Trump's reversing my regulatory imprint. I can even accept his ramping up America's military might. 

But I cannot accept ─ and even fear ─ my unmasking.

I am troubled by the eventual unmasking of what I did and inspired.

I do not want to be Richard Nixon reincarnate. Nixon is remembered most with his insistent "I am not a crook" defense. (1973)

Or be seen as a Bill Clinton with his deceptive, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." (2006)

And now, it's my turn - perhaps with "I'm not a liar" or one of the possibles I've listed below.

I've been lucky so far with my team falling on the sword for me. I've only had to take the lead on a few occasions and the results were embarrassing.

Let's look at the record and you can see what really bothers me.

Lie of the Year
I was caught in a lie when I said that you can keep your doctor if you wanted in my Affordable Care Act.
Jonathan Gruber, the architect of the ACA, kind of fell on the sword for me when he said it would pass because the American public was too stupid and that we could avoid transparency. That's his bad, not mine.

Still, I got stuck with the lie of the year in 2013.

The Lie about Benghazi
I spoke at the United Nations and said the attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was the result of a disgusting anti-Muslim video. I did not mention a planned terrorist attack. That, of course, is not true. 

Hillary gave me away when her emails were released. Her call to Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil: “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack — not a protest.”

Susan Rice fell on the sword for me on several Sunday morning talk shows saying it was about the anti-Muslim video. Ben Rhodes, her assistant, crafted an excellent campaign of misdirection in how we should manipulate the public.

We were just entering the 2012 Presidential campaign. We all needed to lie about what happened in Benghazi. We were fortunate that Mitt Romney caved and did not pursue our Benghazi failure and cover-up.

The Not-a-Smidgen-of-Corruption Lie: Politicizing the IRS
Lies take on many forms. The better ones use the hand of others. It has a nice sound in Spanish ─ la mano ajena. Lois Lerner did amazing things at the IRS to go after the Tea Party non-profits, to hold up their certifications as tax exempt. She stonewalled Congress and then retired. If she'd gotten convicted, I would have pardoned her. That was not breaking the law, but righteous partisanship. 

I did my best when I defended her and said there was not a smidgen of corruption to what she was doing. My winning smile beguiled the news media and my loyal following. What a royal lie.

Unmasking Americans
I was careless when my team went after the news media - there was that reporter James Rosen and the Associated Press. 

I was much better by using the National Security Advisor to pretend there was a security threat so we could see behind the closed privacy doors. Of course, these peaks into the Trump campaign went beyond the normal justification of checking out security threats.

I'll say the same things that Rice is saying ─ it wasn't political, it was just a normal investigation. Since my sycophants don't read the Wall Street Journal, they won't realize that advisors like John Bolton in the Bush State Department was tasked to investigate, but Rice was not. Hers was extracurricular. But who's to know? And then there was my Executive Order 12333 to disseminate gossip throughout the intel community. Pretty brilliant.

The Long View of History

There are many more lies I told, but these are the ones that are likely to get me remembered as a Nixonian President.

Truth is, I am not a liar ─ which is what they'll say at my presidential center in Chicago. That will be the empire to my legacy.

Maybe Susan Rice or Lois Lerner lied, but not me. Maybe Ben Rhodes or Harry Reid lied, but not me.

Fortunately, most Americans are not well informed. There was a telling campus report where things I did were attributed to Trump by the interviewer. The students criticized my actions simply because they thought they were Trump's. How little they pay attention. The major news media is my best salvation -- they'll keep up my facade and hide the deception within. Scandal free and a rising star.

My Legacy Comes Undone: The Scandals, The Mistake in Governing by Pen and Phone, Israel and Climate Change

I've lost the motivation to finish my legacy. I'm done and my presidency is coming apart. But I owe you a few words .  .  .

This is not my favorite portrait, but this is how I feel about legacy

There's much anguish in the land since the surprise victory of Donald Trump. Well, at least, in the hearts of many. I will admit, though, that flyover land is enjoying this moment.

But what about me? What about my legacy? That is the question.

It's time I looked in the mirror and spoke truth to power.

About the Scandals
My confidante and White House aide, Valerie Jarrett, was very kind to say that there were no scandals that marked my eight years in the White House.  But that isn't quite true. There've been many scandals and I want to tell it all. Maybe I've forgotten a few, but here's my own list of scandals.

• Fast and Furious - with guns walked across the border into Mexico ending with the killing of our own

• IRS targeting of Tea Party and Conservative groups - yes, there was more than a smidgen of proof

• The anti-Muslim video that was not the cause of the Benghazi affair - we tried to blame it on Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the filmmaker and we put him in jail, but he was only our fall guy. And, no, I can't tell you where I was while the Benghazi special mission compound was under attack by terrorists. That may be the biggest scandal of all.
• The fix was in not to charge Hillary for her extreme negligence in using a private server against government regulations and without real protection against hacking. At least I used a fake name when I emailed with her.
• Exchanging five bad dudes - the Taliban Five - from Guantanamo for Bowe Bergdahl, who his fellow soldiers said he was a deserter.  We released five top enemy combatants to Doha, Qatar, but who knows where they'll be in a year or two. Keep an eye out for Abdul Haq Wasiq, Norullah Noori, Mohammad Fazl, Khairullah Khairkhwa, Mohammad Nabi Omari.
• Failure to take action on the red line in Syria and the green revolution in Iran. I talked loud, but I did nothing. The failure to honor my red line ended up in the Aleppo tragedy. I gave $400 million to the Iran mullahs as a bribe to get our soldiers out of captivity. And then I returned $150 billion to those same mullahs who will now give large chunks of that money to continue their funding of Middle East terrorist groups.
• The ability to manipulate the electorate came easy when you have articulate gurus, like Jonathan Gruber. He made it easy for me to say that Americans would keep their health care insurance and their doctors if they wanted. It was never so. 

and the list goes on and on .  .  . 


About the Mistake in Governing by Pen and Phone
We all know that I had both the House and the Senate in 2009 and we were able to muscle through the Affordable Care Act - my own Obamacare - and then Dodd-Frank. Health care and consumer care. And somehow our control evaporated and as everyone knows, I turned to the power of the pen and the phone. It felt great. But I failed to appreciate that I was building my castles on sand. I thought Hillary would be there and she'd let them stand. So much of my legacy rested on her success.

And now, Mr. Trump and Congress will undo a major part of my legacy. So many regulations and executive orders will just fly away.

Israel - a lost cause, again
Some see me favoring the Palestinians over Israel. But it's not true. I gave Israel billions in defense and the Iron Dome missile protection system.  But when it comes to legal status and boundaries, I felt compelled to engineer the passage of UN Resolution 2334, allowing nations to boycott and sanction Israel for its settlement policy. Israel does not fully understand what is good for it. John Kerry and I just helped the peace process along. If only Israel complied with my plan, the Palestinians would grant Israel lasting peace and perhaps there would be less of a reason for war in the Middle East. Of course, history may prove me wrong - the 1967 boundaries are the red lines that Israel must recognize as the starting point for considering a Palestinian state.

Climate Change is really real
There is only so much I can do to reshape the world. Soon even climate change will out run terrorism and war as the greatest danger to the planet. People make fun of those children stories, like Chicken Little running around, saying that the sky is falling. Well, the sky is falling. 

Even if President Donald Trump's pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency has to follow existing regulations, the new version of the EPA will invent a science where CO2 is beneficial to the environment instead of being a danger. How can one rationally say that more CO2 will make the planet greener?!

A final comment
I will end this brief reflection on my legacy. I will ponder my rise to the pinnacle of power and my descent into the abyss. Perhaps, some day I will rise again. Maybe as a Supreme Court Justice, maybe as a future United Nations Secretary-General. There's so much good I can achieve and I've learned much as President of the United States.

Derelection of duty: Mine and Hillary's

Can I speak the truth? Yes.
Let's talk about dereliction of duty. 
My own. And Hillary's.

We were there in the Situation Room for the killing of Osama ben Laden. We skipped out on the Benghazi debacle. Hard to repeat this often enough.  One of the mystery pieces to my legacy.

The fix is in for Hillary

You might wonder why I saved Hillary Clinton from her own intentional misdeeds. Who else will cover for me?

You know that I don't need to make secret phone calls or send emails (would never do that!) to persuade those in my administration.  Sometimes I just announce it on TV.  They get the message.  Smart way of beating the conspiracy charge.

Remember Tom Wheeler at the FCC and my hint to pass net neutrality?

Or I get someone like Ben Rhodes to dupe the media - like on the Iran deal.

Unfortunately, some of my agencies aren't quite as adept in hiding their alliances with my progressive lobbyists. The EPA and the IRS were caught at this collusion.

Or I appoint a regulator, like Mel Watt, to loosen up financing requirements even if it creates another housing bubble and crisis down the road. 

So, what about Hillary?  And the fix?

I gave Slick Willie the green light to meet secretly with Loretta Lynch. I got Comey to impose an extra layer of secrecy to keep-FBI personnel-mouths shut. 

All I needed to do was to say on national TV that she was merely careless. 

Not so bad an excuse even if foreign hackers got into her private server.

At least, Hillary will keep my legend alive. That's a legacy to be proud of.  

Postscript:  How could I have known that Donald Trump would have won the presidency? I fear for my legacy in word and deed.  May 4, 2017.

Being a national leader: the art of deception and power

In a separate blog, I confessed that my international leadership lacked the brash application of power that some of my predecessors used ─ like Truman, JFK, Reagan and others. 

However, as a national leader, my role is far more aggressive and manipulative.  Let me explain the why and wherefore of this difference in leadership.

Simply stated, it's the progressive needle ─ what we need to inject into America to make it fair and equal. You know all the slogan-think of progressivism ─ Bernie Sanders hits all the right notes:
• income inequality is the great moral issue of our time 
• fight for a living wage 
• government healthcare for all
• rich must pay fair taxes
• free college for all 
• change to alternative energy from carbon-based energy

But what are the ways to get all these things? 
Here's where deception, manipulation and raw power play an important part of making a progressive society.

Let's consider the IRS hit list of conservative non-profit organizations. It was inspirational. Lois Lerner did admirable work at the IRS before she was forced to resign.

She read my mind and ran with it. She targeted conservative advocacy groups after the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and then stonewalled Congress.

I told FOX that they’ll never find a smidgen of evidence – ha, her computer crashed and the emails vanished. Amazing woman. Got a good pension too. If they ever come after her, I’ll give her a pardon.

 

Then there was the Department of Justice stonewalling and lying to Judge Andrew Hanen, Southern District of Texas, about whether the administration was processing illegal aliens into the U.S. Of course, we were lying. All the court did was demand ethics training. A small price to pay. 

 

One of the better lies was having my deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, lie to Congress about the Iran nuclear deal.  Ha, we pulled a fast one on Congress on that. 

 

Of course, passing the Affordable Care Act was a masterful exercise in lying to the public and then getting the legislation passed without a single vote from the opposing party ─ a first in American history.  

 

I could go on about how I mastered deception, manipulation and used power and I expect that Hillary Clinton will follow my example in applying the progressive needle to the American body politic.

Being an international leader: surrendering as a step towards peace

Some might say that my model of leadership is flawed. Not that I’m not good at manipulating the media, the public and even friends. But some, like Dr. Cornell West, think that I lack a backbone. 

There may be some truth to this perception in my role as an international leader.  But this needs some explanation since this is counterintuitive.



I am able, in a limited way, to mirror Machiavelli’s and Sun Tzu's Art of War. I've used drones to kill lots of scoundrels, but I haven't backed up my drawing a red line against Syria's Assad using chemical weapons on his own population, or opposing Russia's invasion of Crimea, or only putting in a minimal number of ground troops to defeat ISIL, and the like.

I'm even giving up control of the internet and allowing in authoritarian governments to share control of the web – even if they plan on abusing their own people.

But there's a reason for my tepid approach to imposing American standards of behavior on other countries and other cultures. 

Machiavelli and Sun Tzu lived at a less complicated time – less technology of war, no nuclear weapons, no internet, no mass transportation, no problem with human caused global warming. 

Here's the way I came to my way of seeing my role of international leadership:  It is important to give in and surrender in order to get peace. Surrendering is a way to inner peace; and it ultimately is the same way towards peace with others. It may only be a baby step towards peace, but that is far better than puffing up and beating my chest in an attempt to stare down warmongers.

To reiterate, I never wanted to be a war president. I’d rather lead from behind that confront someone like Putin. I have no problem confronting a Republican or someone from FOX news, but not someone who might make me use more than a drone or two.

Is this a terrible admission? 

I don’t think so and here’s why. The U.S. can afford to lose some international power. The next president can make up for that. 

My approach to national leadership is, of course, is very different.