Listening to Obama and his sycophants spout nonsense and lies day after day reminds us of the E.F. Hutton commercial from the 1970s, “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.”  The brokerage firm was successful because E.F. Hutton and his staff of investment advisors were experienced, competent financial experts. Obama and his corral of toadies, not so much. So why does anyone listen when they open their mouths?

Tomes will be written in the years after Obama leaves office detailing his faux promises, lies, and gaffes. They are too voluminous to list here but include dishonest pronouncements regarding

• healthcare (if you like your insurance, you can keep it, Obamacare will lower healthcare premiums and costs)
• national security (al Qaeda is on its way to defeat, ISIS is a jayvee team, the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate, Iran is a reliable negotiating partner, “Islam is a religion that preaches peace,” “ISIL is not Islamic”)  
• race relations (“America’s racial past still casts it’s long shadow,” “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” the Cambridge police “acted stupidly”).

Many of Obama’s adoring fans have woken up to the catastrophe they helped create by voting for him -- twice. They ignored the fact that a man who thinks that the U.S. is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world” with 57 states and that Hawaii is in Asia, and who had a postage stamp-sized resume, would not know a lot about the world, economics, history, foreign policy, and healthcare. 

Obama’s electoral successes over the Clinton machine and his hapless Republican opponents were credited to his ability to assemble a crackerjack campaign team. This purported ability to pick the right people for the right positions would transfer to the Oval Office -- or so some thought.  In fact, while his first-term choices were heralded as akin to Lincoln’s Team of Rivals they were mostly just campaign props who may have had some marquee value to reassure voters of Obama’s judgment. Only the chosen few were instrumental in making decisions.

Voters mistakenly expected Obama to surround himself with people of expertise who would fill in where his skills and knowledge fell short because his predecessors had done so. One may disagree with George W. Bush’s policies, but he hired qualified, experienced officials (Cheney, Powell, Rice, Paulson, Rumsfeld, Gates, Ashcroft, Mukasey). Clinton, Bush I, and Reagan also hired serious-minded individuals to fill positions of great import who resolutely wielded their power.

Obama has surrounded himself with like-minded ideologues with an agenda that ignores America’s history and the will of the electorate. The vast majority of his staff is either inexperienced, ignorant, or a combination of both. The few individuals who were competent either left in frustration (Gates and Summers) or were forced out (Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn and other military commanders). His Team of Rivals spiraled down to the lowest common denominator to become his Team of Idolizers, as even NYT columnist and Obama supporter Roger Cohen wrote; or, in reality, a Team of Twits.

Obama’s administration is comprised of Generation X’ers who tweet, use childish language, act like valley girl airheads, and consistently lie to the American people. His more experienced staff have proven records of incompetence and poor decision-making skills (Biden who, in the words of Obama’s own defense secretary, Robert Gates, has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades” and John Kerry, who has long had a soft spot for Bashar Assad). 

Here is a more in-depth analysis of some of Obama’s more influential staff and advisors and the idiocy that emanates from hiring people like this:

Joe Biden

The groper-in-chief who would be attacked in mainstream media if the latter did not have the same lack of principles as the former could just as easily be labeled a clown. Uncle Joe is a gaffe machine without an off switch. 

Biden perhaps fails to see the irony when he makes moronic comments such as global warming skepticism is “close to mindless… like denying gravity” and continues with a straight face imparting the wisdom that “reality has a way of intruding.” Biden’s reality is, in a word, delusional.

The further irony is that Obama chose Biden for his foreign policy credentials. This is the man who, in deciding how America should respond in the aftermath of 9/11, stated, “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran.” Surprise! His boss is now helping this terrorist-sponsoring regime go nuclear!

The number of racist comments that have left his lips is the subject of much commentary. When Obama was still a candidate Biden stated that he was the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Biden also claims to understand the plight of Somalis because he rides in the backseat of their taxis and that you need an Indian accent in order to enter a 7-Eleven or Dunkin Donuts.

Biden has always had a reputation for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But this is the man who is one heartbeat away from the presidency. A president who takes his job seriously makes sure someone capable can step into the Oval Office. Obama failed that test understanding that he was hiring a court jester rather than a serious thinker when he stated, “How many times is Biden going to say something stupid.”

John Kerry

One would think that Kerry’s record of undermining U.S. foreign policy (meeting with the Viet Cong in violation of U.S. law in 1970, meeting with Nicaragua’s Communist leader, Daniel Ortega, during Reagan’s efforts to defeat Communism, hobnobbing with Syria’s Assad while GWB fought the war on terror) would have rendered him unfit to serve.  Obama, however, is not known for his patriotic bona fides. 

Thus the American people are stuck with a Secretary of State who, aside from his fixation on negotiating with Assad, currently has two obsessions:  forcing Israel to sign a peace agreement with Palestinian leaders whose only goal is her destruction and tackling what he calls “the biggest challenge of all that we face right now.” No, it is not Iran, ISIS, Russia, North Korea, or China. In the less than brilliant mind of Kerry, the world is “on a course leading to tragedy” for its failure to adequately fight climate change -– a threat requiring the immediacy of combatting ISIS and Ebola and just as large a danger as terrorism, poverty, and WMDs.

Obama, who declared, “No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” struck gold when he anointed Chicken Little to traverse the globe spouting the nonsense that we thought was relegated to the far left loons running Greenpeace. Insanely, we have Kerry sermonizing that God’s commandments include protecting Muslims from this nonexistent threat. Sounds about right for an administration that seems almost godless in act and deed.

Ben Rhodes

A key player in formulating foreign policy, he naturally has no experience in foreign policy (or national security). Instead he is a failed short-story writer with a degree in fiction from NYU. Not long before becoming Obama’s mastermind of foreign policy,

Rhodes was one of the obscure guys who wrote Obama’s campaign speeches in Starbucks and played video games into the early morning hours. Now he attends national security meetings and takes writer’s refuge in a secret office on the third floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

He does have one attribute shared by many Obama appointees -- relatives in high places in the media world (his brother is president of CBS News). Rhodes has been implicated in the Benghazi cover-up, wrote Obama’s fiction-filled Cairo speech, and presided over other foreign policy failures.

Al Sharpton

Sharpton is Obama’s point man on race. This makes eminent sense since he is a racist. He is also an anti-Semite (and tax cheat, race hustler, deadbeat and shakedown artist). While leaders of American allies are snubbed by the White House, the red carpet is rolled out for Sharpton -- literally -- as he has visited the White House at least 72 times and been a guest at rare official state dinners. One wonders what foreign leaders make of the Rev who can barely string an intelligent sentence together, repeatedly mangling the English language -- even when he is fed his lines by a teleprompter. His show may be a failure on MSNBC but he is a hit on YouTube where clips of his mangling are on display here, here, here, and here.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

DWS was handpicked by Obama to be in charge of the Democratic National Committee. For this, America should be thankful, since she led the Democrats to a historic shattering defeat in 2014.  She is also a never-ending source of delight for Obama critics.

Among other sources of amusement she accused Republicans who had criticized auto company bailouts of wanting to destroy the American auto industry so we could just drive around in “foreign cars.” Note to DWS: If you preach “Buy American” you will be called a hypocrite when you drive an Infiniti with vanity plates containing your initials.

DWS also accused Wisconsin’s Governor of being anti-woman, stating, "Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. I know that is reality." She added, "What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back.”

Running a close second to Biden for gaffes, DWS’s most honest howler is probably this doozy (although this one is classic):

[Republicans] will be voting for the first time in American history to sue the President of the United States for doing his job. And doing his job actually less often, and a rate that is lower than any President since Grover Cleveland.

James Clapper

The Director of National Intelligence (the group that collects and distills intelligence from all of America’s intelligence agencies) declared that the Muslim Brotherhood is “mostly secular” and “eschews violence.” He recently followed up that delusion with the pronouncement that the 40 Americans returning from jihad in Syria “are not a threat to the U.S.” Yet, perhaps Clapper’s most dangerous decision to date came with the announcement that Iran and its proxy Hizb’allah have been removed from the terrorism threats list despite DNI’s official assessment that Iran’s intentions and capabilities do in fact pose a serious threat to the U.S. Feel safe?

Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau

Feigning ignorance (admittedly not a hard task for Obama appointees), Obama’s car driver turned National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor, famously dismissed a question about Obama’s role in the Benghazi disaster by responding “Hey dude, that was two years ago.” One photo says it all about the callowness, rudeness and, yes, misogyny of Obama’s crew of frat boys:

“Fave” in the photo was Obama’s speechwriter, Jon Favreau (for a time, the highest paid staffer in the White House). Here he is celebrating after the primary victory over Hillary Clinton:

Callow, immature, sophomoric and misogynistic – and yet highly esteemed by Obama.

Jen Psaki and Marie Harf

Obama appointed campaign hack Jen Psaki as State Department spokesperson. Foreign policy experts were dismayed because such an inexperienced person could cause harm to America’s image overseas. That was therefore an easy choice for Obama. Psaki quickly became a laughingstock thanks to her absurd tweets, hashtags, and selfies. Here is her take on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki indicates her support for Ukraine in a Twitter

Those tweets will surely help defeat Putin (about as much as Michelle’s tweet to #bringbackourgirls helped the Nigerian students kidnapped by Boko Haram). David Rutz has compiled some of her greatest hits in an amusing video.

When Bill O’Reilly described Psaki as being out of her depth, her deputy, Marie Harf, went on the attack, claiming O’Reilly lacked “intelligence and class.” She also tweeted out a storm to defend Psaki from criticism leading to a tweet battle that she laughingly lost. Would that someone in the media ask Obama why he’s embarrassed by senators informing Iran of American law and not the twits he has appointed to key positions. Frat row was just expanded to include sororities. That’s one way to fight the faux war on women.

When Harf blamed Islamic terrorism on a lack of jobs, she was immediately mocked by people scanning the spectrum including columnists George Will (it’s “surreal”) and Kimberly Strassel and exemplified in this cartoon:

As one of the authors of this column wrote last year, Obama has assembled a Juvenile Communications Team.

Alas, the list of Obama appointees and advisors who fill the description of a tweeting twit is endless and includes such “luminaries” as David Axelrod (who was obliterated on twitter for his tweets after Netanyahu’s speech), Jonathan "Americans are stupid" Gruber, Kathleen “Americans are too stupid to understand insurance” Sebelius, Eric (Americans are racist) Holder, and how could we forget Valerie Jarrett, the slumlord with absolutely no national political experience turned brains behind the Obama administration (aka The Worst White House Aide), who explained, “I just want to do my job and part of my job for the president is to be his friend"?

And, finally, there is the Twit-in-Chief who is responsible for all the twits above… and far worse, given the damage inflicted upon America and the rest of the world during his tenure (with 21 months to go), mugging his way through the presidency -- happy to have fundamentally transformed America and the rest of the world to boot, Obama The Clown.

It is difficult to not conclude that Obama is commanding a ship of fools -- an inane crew of moronic self-entitled, egocentric, ideologically driven but ignorantly motivated morons who blabber on in a self-indulgent fashion borne of their allegiance to Obama, not country. Israel is a problem because her survival is threatened by Obama’s drive to make history with Iran? Quash her like a gnat. ISIS is flourishing in the Levant? Lie to the American people about the threat it poses. Climate data does not support the progressive narrative? Send out the troops to make stuff up.

The inmates are surely running the asylum. And that might be fine were we not confronting imminent dangers and enemies who wish to destroy us.  Obama and his staff of twits (who are of the same ideological bent that has resulted in the blind leading the blind down a quixotic and dangerous path) are the only people who take him seriously. So when he makes false promises that he will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, the world should stop listening. Certainly the Israelis, Saudis, Egyptians, Emirates, and even the Iranians themselves ignore him. The American people should as well.