We all know that politicians lie. Maybe all politicians, or maybe not. But I think we’re on safe ground in saying that most do.

They typically lie about any number of things, exaggerating their accomplishments and minimizing their flaws. The degree to which they are sexually faithful to a spouse would be a favorite arena for mendacity. They might lie about their financial dealings. You know, the usual.

They also might “flip flop” on issues. You don’t hear that term too much these days, but it used to be a big deal – for example, during Kerry’s presidential run.

But it wasn’t until Obama’s candidacy that I noticed a person running for US high office who didn’t just flip-flop but lied about his basic political orientation. He was and remains a dedicated leftist, but he covered that up to a great extent when he was running for office in 2008. He ran as more of a centrist and as a racial healer, but he was neither. With the help of a fawning and compliant press, hints that he was actually a leftist (Ayers and Wright and Alinsky connections, for example, or what “community organizer” actually meant) were covered up or explained in the most benign terms possible.

I wrote about it at the time: for example, here. There were certainly strong hints; what does “fundamentally transform” mean?

Being on the left doesn’t mean you must lie about who you are and what you intend to do. For example, it seems to me that Bernie Sanders has been fairly upfront about his leftist orientation and intentions. But Sanders became a senator by running in Vermont, where such positions didn’t really hurt him, and by the time he ran for national office he couldn’t have covered his history up if he’d tried. Obama had less of a track record, although it was there for those who really looked.

In this post from 2013 I quoted David Horowitz on the subject:

There is a marked difference between the radicals of the Sixties and the radical movement Obama is part of. In the Sixties, as radicals we said what we thought and blurted out what we wanted. We wanted a revolution, and we wanted it now. It was actually very decent of us to warn others as to what we intended. But because we blurted out our goal, we didn’t get very far. Americans were onto us. Those who remained on the left when the Sixties were over, learned from their experience. They learned to lie. The strategy of the lie is progressives’ new gospel. It is what the progressive bible – Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – is all about. Alinsky is the acknowledged political mentor to Obama and Hillary, to the service and teacher unions, and to the progressive rank and file. Alinsky understood the mistake Sixties’ radicals had made. His message to this generation is easily summed up: Don’t telegraph your goals; infiltrate their institutions and subvert them; moral principles are disposable fictions; the end justifies the means; and never forget that your political goal is always power.

An SDS radical wrote in the Sixties: “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” The Alinsky version is this: The issue is never the issue; the issue is always power: How to wring power out of the democratic process, how turn the process into an instrument of progressive control. How to use it to fundamentally transform the United States of America – which is exactly what Barack Obama warned he would do on the eve of his election.

Horowitz knew whereof he spoke, having been a 1960s radical who later turned to the right. But most people in the US didn’t know what Horowitz knew, and they were fooled by Obama – just as they recently were fooled by Abigail Spanberger. The latter phenomenon is what has gotten me to reminisce about the topic:

It works.

NOTE: The Ayatollah Khomenei was not a leftist, but he operated like one in this sense. I wrote this 2016 post on the subject. An excerpt:

Just as an example, in November of 1978 [Khomeini] said, “Personal desire, age, and my health do not allow me to personally have a role in running the country after the fall of the current system.” Then on his return to Iran about a year later: “I will strike with my fists at the mouths of this government. From now on it is I who will name the government.”

Here’s another later quote:

“Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us?…Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors!”