Obama Not Keeping Campaign Promises

Peter Wehner does a masterful job of showing how vast the gulf is between Obama's words on the campaign trail and what he has done or not done with his actions not that he is in office. I couldn't say it any better so just hurry over there and read the whole thing.

Consider a partial list, starting with earmarks. During the campaign, Obama said, "the truth is, our earmark system -- what's called pork-barrel spending in Washington -- is fraught with abuse. It badly needs reform -- which is why I didn't request a single earmark last year, why I've released all my previous requests for the public to see, why I've pledged to slash earmarks by more than half when I am President of the United States." And as ABC's Jake Tapper pointed out, after John McCain picked Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, Obama criticized her for having been of two minds on earmarks. "When you have been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person," Obama said, "that is not change, come on. I mean, words mean something."

Yet yesterday, Obama signed rather than vetoed a massive, $410 billion omnibus spending bill -- which contained more than 8,500 earmarks. Adding chutzpah to his hypocrisy, Obama told reporters, "The future demands that we operate in a different way than we have in the past. So let there be no doubt: this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and demand." This is the fiscal version of St. Augustine's prayer, "Lord, make me chaste -- but not yet."

Jennifer Rubin then expands on this and as Jim Geraghty likes to say all of Obama's statements come with an expiration date, all of them.