By Mary Jo Dilling

As I reflected on President Obama’s address to Congress on Sept. 9^th, an old adage came to mind.  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  This saying may be trite and worn, but as with most old adages, it is grounded in truth or it would not have survived.  I then asked myself the same question that I have frequently thought about since Barack Obama first inserted himself into the public consciousness.  What are his intentions?  Obviously, because he won the election, the majority of people believed his “Hope and Change” meant prosperity and security for all Americans, but especially for the downtrodden and unfortunate.  They believed him when he said he was going to conduct government business in a new “open and transparent” manner.  But it didn’t take long for the wheels to fall off that bus.

One of the “open and transparent” intentions was that Congressional bills would be posted online for at least five days, so that people could study them and have opportunities to contact their Representatives and Senators before votes were cast.  Instead, H.R. 2454, the Cap-and-Trade Bill, was brought to the floor for a final vote with a 310-page amendment added at 3:47 that morning, with no practical opportunity for public scrutiny of the amendment language.  Actually, there was a brief airing.  Rep. John Boehner used his floor time to read passages from the added pages.  No realistic online posting; Cap-and-Trade passed by a slim margin; one intention; different outcome.

Another intention is failing to reach its logical outcome.  As the health care reform debate rages on, we are seeing the same old partisan politics, but with more intensity, perhaps because private citizens have entered the fray.  The Capitol Hill crowd is used to fighting its battles among its own members, with little intrusion from only the most avid political watchers.  There were the days when the Press, impartially conducting its appropriate function, presented overviews of pending legislation to the public.  But this function is now missing from the mainstream media outlets.  President Obama pledged during his campaign that he would work with both parties to solve America’s problems.  He reiterated this pledge in his Sept. 9^th Health Care Reform address, saying he would “continue to be open to all suggestions.”  What has been the outcome of this intention?  The Republicans proposed a meeting with the President last May to discuss their ideas for health care reform.  That meeting never happened.  Furthermore, over 800 pieces of legislation and amendments offered by Republicans during the last five months were rejected.  Again, the outcome did not fulfill the intention.

Consider Obama’s campaign rhetoric regarding lobbyists in the White House.  In Nov. 2007 Obama declared that lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House.”  He later changed his message to a more nebulous declaration that lobbyists “won’t dominate” the White House.  In the week following the Inauguration, the Administration hired at least a dozen former lobbyists to high profile, including cabinet, positions.  His aides never challenged this assertion, but attempted to downplay the hiring as comprising only a fraction of the more than 8000 employees who would be hired by the new Administration.  This scenario exemplifies much of Obama’s mindset and method of operation.  He states his intention, realizes he cannot live up to it, modifies the intention, still fails to fulfill it, and follows up with excuses for the less than intended outcome.

With regard to the posting of legislation online, we were told that the grave importance of the Cap-and-Trade legislation necessitated speedy action, allowing no meaningful time for posting the lengthy amendment.  Removing the spin, the reality is that Obama and his Democrat-controlled House of Representatives needed to push through this legislation quickly, before citizens had time to react and even before most Congressmen had any opportunity to read it.  Probably, most Congressmen didn’t even read the bill itself before voting on it.  Regarding the intention of continuing to consider all health care reform suggestions, Obama employed another favorite Democrat technique.  Stay on message and keep repeating the same spin.  They believe that if the people hear the lie often enough, they will accept it as truth.  Gee, I know I read that somewhere before.  Oh yes, I remember now.  It was in Orwell’s 1984.  Again, the stated intention didn’t make it to a congruent outcome.  And finally, with respect to lobbyists in the White House, intention was tweaked and just downright ignored.  But the Administration counts on the rapid movement of the news cycle and limited exposure by a negligent Press, so very few people even think anymore about the outcome of that intention.

President Obama has many good intentions.  The three illustrated here are embraced by most Americans.  But I have to question the failure to achieve outcomes consistent with Americans’ understanding of these intentions.  How could such a politically skillful man fail to achieve his stated intentions?  Could it be that he was caught up in his own campaign rhetoric and truly believed that he could achieve these goals?  Or perhaps, as with many of his campaign promises, were they formulated to appeal to the best instincts of America, with no intention of fulfillment?   Either way, how did our nation manage to elect a President who, either does not have a grasp of political reality (I really doubt that.), or conducted the most skillful Presidential campaign of hidden agenda in American history?

The Far Left, of which I firmly believe the President is a member, has for so long wanted its day in the sun.  These Radicals know the country is center right and that they could never dream of taking the White House without carefully hiding their desire for a massive, socialist Federal government.  They saw in Barack Obama a silver-tongued answer to their dreams.  By carefully crafting his message within the “Hope and Change” mantra, the Radicals knew they could draw a large block of Americans, dissatisfied with the behavior of Congress and the Administration in recent years.  They knew these Americans were susceptible to the message and they, along with the Press, would not look too deeply into Obama’s agenda or background.  As Americans who care deeply about safeguarding our freedom, we must do everything in our power to stay off of that “road to hell” and carefully scrutinize its pavement of “good intentions.”  We must always be diligent in asking ourselves, “Is  the outcome consistent with the intention?”