Tonight Barack Obama will give his inauguration speech in Washington DC. But what many Americans do not understand or even worst is that once he has completed this major step of confirmation the games will begin so-to-speak.

By games I mean the game of secrecy and lies. A tradition that has been part of the White House strategy of governance by former Presidents since the framers. Secrecy is the most useful tool a President has in his arsenal in his executive grab bag to run his office efficiently. Another most powerful tool is his use of the Executive Order.

Barack Obama will not be any different than other Presidents before him. I believe he will implement the use of secrecy to a much more effective degree than has been tried before. The American people on the other hand are as gullible today as they were during LBJ's and RMN's [Richard Milhous Nixon] Presidential watch. Both men lied to the American people multiple times during their administrations and practiced the art of Secrecy.

One website for the past couple of months www.change.gov has been instrumental in gathering information about the pulse of the American conscious. Not just what they feel about the failed Republican Administration under the George W. Bush II but about America's image worldwide. Bush managed to do a good job of tarnishing the respectable name this country had established since the cold war ended. Now we are worse off than ever before as a leader in human rights and equity not to mention trade.

I had the opportunity to send Obama some of my ideas on how to correct our failed state. I decided to simply reply with something along the lines of you're the commander and chief and you have the last word with any political issue put before you as representative of the American people and therefore nothing I can say could possibly have any bearing on your making decisions. I further added, the repercussions of any decisions on the part of your advisors and yourself rest totally on your shoulders alone.

I knew perfectly well that President Barack Obama owed allegiance solely to the US and not to the individual so-called voter. How could I possibly know all the details of the Afghan war, or the changes in decision making by OPEC, or what the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden were planning, or what Russia's plans were for expansion, or be able to predict all the externalities likely to occur applying Monetary or Keynesian policy to halt the contractionary recession we are drowning in. How would I know if Hamas is planning a counterassault on Israel because now they have the support of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and perhaps anti-Israeli factions in Egypt. How could I know all this to be true, hypothetically?

In essence, no one can not even the CIA. Or other EU intelligence agencies you would think should know. Game theory becomes an issue of sovereignty and dominance at this stage for any country aspiring to world recognition.

But for Americans to believe that the integrity of the White House means to disclose every detail of foreign policy by the President’s foreign relations committee, and the secretary of state is missing the whole point of the true integrity of that institution. When in fact integrity is sometimes an unworthy and unwanted philosophy on Capitol Hill.

There are security risk to consider. In such matters of importance lies are tools of sanctity when the management of strategic games that concern unilateral payoffs in foreign policy for the US are so high that silence is top secret and the threat of American lives are at stake.

Given these and other unforeseen consequences to any actions implemented by the incoming Obama administration the need for American input is more than likely ignored. Ignored because it is for the most part information or input without empirical grounds and maybe to far off the mark, at the present, to be warranted. Like a defense Attorney in a murder case defending his client on purely circumstantial evidence while the Prosecutor's case is argued grounded in eye witness accounts.

We as Americans do our jobs when we elect the party candidate to represent our interests while they campaign for the highest office in the land or a lower public position. Beyond that point we play a very minor role. Yet many Americans think, just because they voted for the candidate who winds up being elected President, that they have a right to occupy the oval office and sit in at the cabinet meetings along side the President and his advisors and expect to have their input considered.

This is insanity. There is a misunderstanding operating here. First, there is only one President at a time. Second, he [the President] is the representative of the political sentiment of the entire country including the political opposition even though they may not have voted for him. Third, his training in Washington, perhaps in both the Congress and Senate asserts that he has the experience and fortitude to do the job called for. Yet, not every President has attained the level of President by way of convention.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was one of the most thoroughly trained Presidents there every was. He started in the Congress, I am not sure if he was ever a page he may have been, and by convention moved to the Senate and then became Vice-President and inherited the office of the Presidency by unorthodox means. Nevertheless, it was his training by convention in the Congress and then the Senate that taught him what it would mean to serve in the Executive Branch.

LBJ had often used unethical means to get his way in politics. He learned fast starting out in Congress. A devout racist as a congressman in the beginning but by the time he'd reached the oval office his demeanor toward African Americans had changed. Worst still he inherited the war in Vietnam from the JFK administration.

Things can get so complicated in foreign policy, and they did for Johnson, that he resorted to using the liar's tool. What the American people thought they knew about the Vietnam war was nothing more to Johnson than immaturity. He sat atop the country and could plainly see over the necessary horizons, as a father does in the protection of his children, to what he thought he needed to do to protect us from the spread of Communism.

To lie is to deceive. To misinform someone of something. To lead them astray about some issue, regardless of its importance or pertinence to the individual or individuals. Though you may be protecting them from one set of consequences you may be setting them up for others, perhaps more detrimental than the first set. Nonetheless, LBJ, aspired to his own self interest convincing himself that he knew best what the American people needed and what means to use to that end.

President Barack Obama will face political hurdles of this sort for sure. With the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India a potential threat, plus the out of control economy, and the slow Hydrocarbon decadence of the global environment, he is destined to face challenges that are sure to impose strategies that will most definitely include the use of dishonesty and subsequently will be forced to lie to the American people unwillingly in the end. He will be dishonest no less than his predecessors. The character of the office almost assuredly demands it.

Channel 14 thinktv.org is very informative and offers an insight into the lives of others throughout the world. These people that produce these documentaries are called, 'Global trekkers', they seem to get secondhand experience into the internal socialization of their target country. I define their visits as secondhand because though they learn how human rights are respected or disrespected in the host country they are unlikely to see firsthand violence implemented by the government against its citizens readily. Such an opportunity could hurt tourism for the host country should they engage in such inappropriate acts overtly.

If these people were to try to offer to the President advice in matters of foreign policy they would be ignored. Ignored completely. Moreover when they normally return to the US from a foreign country such as Afghanistan they are usually debriefed. All that they saw and heard in the host country must be imparted to intelligence agencies, such as the CIA. Such information if deemed of high quality or of military significance, will be conveyed to the President and his Foreign Relations Committee.

The American people are being fooled into thinking that there is a true need for their input. That is a lie. Many politicians have gone to the American people for help, but it has always been to counterbalance some political attack by the opposition party. And even then all the details of the issue at hand were not disclosed to the public. Realize that before such an undertaking is committed the interested parties have debated what is relevant to public interest and what is not.

President Obama will do the same. He will close the door on the most delicate of issues that he decrees of national security to the American people. Then again he too is vulnerable to the liar's tool by his own advisors. As Chief Executive Officer he is head of the Pentagon. But though that is the case the liar's tool can be used by his most high ranking officials to blind him to the truth should they think it best to do so. Such a strategy occurred in the Johnson Administration to offer as an example.

What then will he do? How then will he assess his intelligence information? Who then in all likelihood will he trust? These are very good questions that only the President will be able to ultimately answer. The public has practically little or no say whatsoever in these matters once the door to the cabinet room is closed.

Michael Strautmanis, Nancy Sutley, Arne Duncan, Heather Higginbottom, Steven Chu, and Tom Dashle are politicking. Oh sure some ideas may be very helpful but Obama's Transition Team will reap the benefits from any intellectual property shared by citizens looking for recognition for whatever purpose.

Valerie Jarrett co-chair of the Transition Team and the aforementioned names have a very strong political stake or investment in their jobs. They want to move up or ultimately change social class. That is, to be governor, or Senator or maybe someday President. As of now they are in such positions of political recognition that several of the above mentioned opportunities are not unrealistic should they continue in politics.

President Obama is the President. It is now his job to use his prowess and intellectual fortitude to bring about the correct political change the American people elected him to do. We all know for a fact that ideas of citizens from the so-called middle class, the working class and the lower classes are not likely to mean a hill of beans in Washington. This is pipe-dreaming. What is left for anyone to do is wait. Most decisions made after the President’s inauguration today will not likely occur immediately. It will take considerable time to work if at all.

Finally many Americans in this country have to face facts they are for the most part foolish. Maybe smart when it comes to electing the right candidate to solve their socioeconomic problems but overall they are ignorant of Realpolitik, which is devoid of ideology and morals. America has only one President and he will do the deciding for us all. End of story.

Wesley McCants
http://www.globalbabbler.com (Editor/Web Administrator)