Hinderaker Calls Obama's Lie

John Hinderaker’s post titled, “Barack Speaks”, on the blog Power Line claims that Obama lied during his address to the nation. Obama said in his address Tuesday night that we cannot have a budget that “continues the very same policies that have led us to a narrow prosperity and massive debt.” Hinderaker calls this statement a, “bald-faced lie”. To support his claim, Hinderaker presents a table, which is not cited but uses data from CBO, which shows the budget deficit since 2000 and through Obama’s longest possible term (2019). The table is a visual representative of the immense amount of spending Obama has planned. The projected debt during his term is higher than any of the years prior.

Hinderaker is a lawyer with an impressive resume. Graduated from Harvard Law, he has 15 years experience in the field and was named Minnesota’s Super Lawyer of the Year for 2005. He is a member of the Claremont Institute and has had articles published in esteemed newspapers across the country. Given these impressive achievements, he was quite qualified and informed enough to present a credit worthy argument on Obama’s speech.

The blog is aimed to a broad audience, basically any American interested in politics. It discredits Obama, so definitely is right leaning. Some of the language is even quite harsh, so Hinderaker is not afraid of making accusations, yet has logic and primary sources to back his arguments.

Hinderaker expertly uses a table and excerpts from Obama’s speech to make his argument sound. The logic makes sense, and the table is a powerful visual reference to his claim. One must be wary though concerning the excerpts from Obama’s speech. Who knows what the President said before and after these quotes; perhaps he qualified himself or made the point more clear. Before taking this post at its word, one should read the transcript or listen to a recording of Obama’s entire speech to check for further explanations on the subject.