President Obama stepped into the lions den today during a Republican retreat and came out virtually unscathed.

It was the first time during the first year of his presidency that he truly showed the transparency he promised during his campaign. There was a speech by the president followed by questions and answers. It was contentious, defensive and chastising.

To some degree it was a mini debate, and that’s alright because debates are revealing.

The public wants to know who he is after two years of campaigning and one year as president – and he helped that cause today.

I say this sincerely because such extemporaneous presentations without the teleprompter reveals the inner feelings, the agenda and the ulterior motives and prevents the control that most administrations seek especially when he revealed the  following today about politicians, in his prepared remarks:

“I’m not a pundit.  I’m just a President, so take it for what it’s worth.  But I don’t believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security.  They want us to focus on their job security.  I don’t think they want more gridlock.  I don’t think they want more partisanship.  I don’t think they want more obstruction.  They didn’t send us to Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see who comes out alive.  That’s not what they want.  They sent us to Washington to work together, to get things done, and to solve the problems that they’re grappling with every single day.”

I believe the statement to be right on.  However, that statement does not reflect his actions during his first year in office when the focus was on health care reform and cap and trade and the opposition party was excluded from the discussions.  Yes, one might say that is not totally true — but that is what the public saw when the Dems locked the door and C-Span was not allowed to show the people the transparency he promised.  Perception is reality.

The people are getting used to hearing him say something and meaning something else

Oh yes, there was the recovery act, the so called stimulus that he  tried to portray as working for jobs when the people know it didn’t.  Perhaps there was temporary economic recovery and the quoting of economists as saying jobs lag behind an economic recovery.  Personally, I think a second economic down turn is on the horizon.  The job situation in America is far worse than the 10.2 percent level that the government portrays and the 8 percent Obama promised.

I give him credit for not only appearing before the Republican retreat, but for requesting that it be televised – that’s transparency.

But in all honesty it does remind me a bit of what I read in Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals’ about when one’s back is to the wall, step on the accelerator pedal.

Democratic Gubernatorial losses in the states of Virginia and New Jersey and a Senatorial loss in the Dem stronghold of Massachusetts causes one to step on the accelerator pedal.

But don’t get me wrong about his appearance at the GOP session and allow it to be exposed to the people.  That is good.

There was one point during the President’s discussion that he said “I am not an Ideologue.”  Mr. President this is not what most believe, and you for one wouldn’t raise the issue and be defensive about it if it were not the perception.  There is a tendency in this administration to blame the perception of the people on the messenger, while not examining the actions of the White House.  No president before has appeared more than Obama has before the American people and no president has controlled the media to the degree he has.

Another revealing example in the presentation today dealt with health care.  Obama said, “But if you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.  No, I mean, that’s how you guys – that’s how you guys presented it.”

Well really,  it was he that spoke on health care 49 times to the American people in one year, not to mention the number of times his disciples delivered the party line along with the left wing media and now it’s we the people that got it all wrong?

Secondly, during today’s presentation he was asked if he would consider supporting across-the-board tax relief, as President Kennedy did?

The best he could say was that he wouldn’t agree to a tax cut for Warren Buffet or an across-the-board tax cut for the banking industry right now.

Interesting how he keeps beating up on the banking industry that has paid the government back in spades, but not say anything about his party’s advocacy for housing for all, creating the likes of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG and fostering banks to give mortgages to all and supporting the community organizing group ACORN who proved to be an advocacy organization for individuals that couldn’t afford to own their own home.

Mr. President my perception is that you see yourself as one of the educated elite, a group in this country that has always existed and has sought the power that you and they believed was a right.  The likes of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt comes to mind.  You deliver rhetoric that appeals to the middle class with promises that none of you have ever been able to deliver, often saying one thing and meaning another.  You do this for votes and yes, for job security.

A freshman Congressman Chaffetz from Utah confronted the president with the question of lobbyists. “You said you weren’t going to allow lobbyists in the senior-most positions within your administration, and you did.”

Obama not only allowed them into his administration but welcomed them into the White House – Union lobbyists, Pharmaceutical lobbyists, Insurance lobbyists, Banking lobbyists, AARP lobbyists, AMA lobbyists all to make a deal.  But the administration shut out the opposition party when it came to health care.

And when Congressman Ryan of Wisconsin said the spending bills that he signed into law, amounted to an increase of domestic discretionary spending of 84% the president did a quick ‘push back’, trying to deny the numbers but quickly not wanting to get into a debate on the numbers because he was obviously wrong. Instead he said, “We’ll have a longer debate on the budget numbers, all right?”

You see transparency is very revealing and very educational.  The voters should be educated on the issues before they vote.

Obama says he’s not  an ‘Ideologue’ or a ‘Bolshevik’; however, I believe he admits to being a ‘Progressive’ – it seems to me that the two previous words are incorporated into progressiveness.

I firmly believe that his first step in transparency was a good thing and I truly hope he will continue this bi-partisan dialogue, because it is very revealing to the educated while deleting the word elite.

And, to make a play on his very own very words, “I’m not a President, I’m just a pundit, so take it for what it’s worth.”