Pinocchio in the White House

“Lies, my child, can be recognized immediately, because there are two types: liars that have short legs and those that have long noses.” — Carlo Collodi*

Since the beginning of time, man’s word has been seen as something sacred, something that should always be adhered to because a person’s word is his honor. However, for some people, the word is as meaningful as sand blown by the wind. One of these people is the president of the United States, Barack Obama, who will definitely not appear in history as the first African American who came to power but instead as a perpetual liar. The latest in his long list has topped it all. In the heat of the emotional moment, he promised unconditional assistance to the suffering people of Haiti, yet less than two weeks have gone by and already the southern commander has put a halt to evacuations of the seriously injured to Miami hospitals because there is no one to pay for their care. The $100 million that he put up was spent on 20,000 soldiers and other contractors, 23 warships, 60 helicopters and 30 planes, as though Haiti were at war.

Following his staff-written speeches, which use the most sophisticated marketing tactics to confuse and seduce public opinion, Obama talks about peace like it is something supreme, while promoting war in the same breath. He starts up conversations with the Russians to reduce nuclear arms and simultaneously fast tracks a bill that increases the spending on nuclear arms by 10 percent. It’s the same with the Chinese. He promises them strategic cooperation, while simultaneously arming Taiwan for a future war against China. This Obama plays with the content and meaning of peace, manipulating democracy to meet his own needs as he did with Honduras. He promised his support to the legitimate president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed by a coup, while he was simultaneously helping Roberto Micheletti, the man leading the coup.

During the election campaign, the snake charmer seduced the Hispanics with promises of immigration reform. Now, despite his awareness of the millions of illegal immigrants who have disappeared, he ignores the subject in his speeches. There’s more and nobody knows if it’s due to lack of humanity, cynicism or ignorance. According to Gallup, 40 million Americans — one in eight — survive on food stamps and one in five of the population suffered from hunger the last year. However, Barack Obama gave trillions of dollars to Wall Street, allowing the bankers to distribute $146 billion in bonuses to 20,000 of their investors.

It doesn’t appear that he feels any remorse for his lies about “signs of economic recovery” when he doesn’t take into account that unemployment is reaching 18 percent, nor does he realize that 650,000 Americans have already officially entered into the category of those that “have given up looking for work” and the growing category of people for whom temporary work is becoming permanent. Obama urges austerity, but in Washington under his leadership, and in the middle of hunger and unemployment, there were around 170 parties in 2009, with some 50,000 people attending.

Pinocchio, your nose is growing.

*Editor’s note: Carlo Collodi is the author of The Adventures of Pinocchio.