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Obama's delusions of competence

Jack Kelly

By Jack Kelly

Published August 11, 2015

Obama's delusions of competence

Government works better now than probably it ever has," President Barack Obama told the Daily Show's Jon Stewart last month. A partial list:

Atrocious security at the Office of Personnel Management permitted the Chinese to acquire personal data on more than 21 million federal workers, most of them applicants for security clearances. The theft of background investigation data has created a massive threat to U.S. national security that will last for decades and cost billions to mitigate.

The Chinese didn't even need to hack into OPM's poorly secured database to get the info, because some Chinese nationals help manage it.

The private email server Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used, possibly illegally, to conduct official business, probably was hacked by hostile foreign intelligence services, said former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell.

Secrets from five U.S intelligence agencies were found in a random sample of just 40 of the roughly 33,000 emails Ms. Clinton turned over to the State Department, said inspectors general for the Intelligence Community and the State Department.

"It is more likely than not that information classified higher than secret is present in this collection," the IGs said. One wonders what secrets may have been in the emails Ms. Clinton hasn't turned over.

One central task of the Department of Homeland Security is to secure our borders. DHS isn't doing it. Illegal immigrants comprise 3 percent of the population and, by some counts, 30 percent of the federal prison population. We spent $1.87 billion to incarcerate violent illegal immigrant felons last year, according to freelance researcher Jay Bates.

Last year, DHS released into the general population 30,558 criminal aliens who among them had almost 80,000 convictions — including 250 homicides, 386 kidnappings, 373 sexual assaults, 994 aggravated assaults. Violent felons released by DHS in 2013 committed 1,000 additional crimes.

In security tests, the Transportation Security Administration missed 95 percent of bombs and weapons.

Dylann Roof was able to purchase the gun he used to murder nine people in a black church in Charleston, S.C., because the FBI failed to keep current the database of prohibited persons.

Dysfunction in the Secret Service is so great, "it really is a miracle that [President Obama] hasn't been assassinated," wrote author Ron Kessler.

A year ago, the nation was scandalized by reports of secret waiting lists at Veterans Affairs hospitals and of senior managers falsifying records to collect bonuses. Since then, wait times have increased by 50 percent. A third of the vets on the waiting lists have died awaiting care. VA Secretary Robert McDonald falsely claimed that 60 employees were fired as a result of the scandals.

After eating up $2.2 billion, as of February, the Healthcare.gov website still wasn't providing insurance companies with accurate information. In a "secret shopper test" conducted by the Government Accountability Office, 90 percent of false applications were accepted. All but one of 23 Obamacare nonprofit co-ops lost money last year.

Amtrak has the worst safety record of any railroad and somehow manages to lose $6.65 each time it sells a $9.50 hamburger.

David Wright spent most of his time as director of the agency in the Department of Health and Human Services that monitors scientific misconduct and wrote in a scathing resignation letter in March of "navigating the remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy." Tasks that took a couple of days when he was a university administrator required weeks or months, he said. His bosses cared more about looking good than performing the agency's mission.

The greatest threat to America is government dysfunction, according to Robert Gates, Mr. Obama's first secretary of defense. Americans agree. For the president to say government "works better now than probably it ever has" indicates he is delusional, dishonest or both. Which does much to explain why the government he heads is dysfunctional.

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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.

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