Almost 20 years ago, early in the Clinton-Rodham-Gore era, the late New York Times columnist William Safire charged that First Lady Hillary Clinton was so routinely dishonest in her reaction to the many scandal-"gates" of which she and Husband Bill were being accused as to merit the label of "congenital liar."

According to that highly acclaimed political affairs commentator and author of the Times "On Language" column, Hillary's tendency to spin, scam, deceive, and lie in her response to charges of impropriety and corruption (e.g., in Whitewater-gate, S&L-gate, Travel Office-gate, Cattle Futures-gate, Missing Files-gate, Hubble-gate, Vince Foster-gate, Lippo/China-gate, and many more) was so deeply rooted as to be in her genes.

Now that President Barack Obama is being accused of similar spins, scams, and cover-ups, the reaction of the White House, the left-wing Democrats, the establishment media, and most of academia is -- like then -- one of indignant outrage.  But are not Barack and Hillary joined at the hip in their Saul Alinsky ideologies, their Rules for Radicals tactics, and their current tar baby of the Benghazi cover-up? 

Back then, in a masterstroke of misdirection and disinformation worthy of Harry Houdini, Hillary loudly alleged (and a compliant left-wing media loudly amplified) a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against both herself and First Husband Bill -- with all of the blame going to the dastardly right-wing Republicans.

And so it will be again if the finger-pointing, blame-gaming "Progressives" (code-word for Socialists) are given free rein to demonize Barack Obama's critics and detractors, no matter how correct and justified the Tea Partiers and other Republicans are in their anti-Obamanism.

The Other Side of the Coin -- Proofs of a "Scamalot" Cover-Up

But this victimization need not be the case if Obama's critics have the good sense to charge -- in Hillary Clinton style -- a vast left-wing cover-up of not only the Benghazi and IRS scandals, but also many other BHO spins, scams, false denials, false promises, and programmatic abuses.

Now, in an exercise of "history repeats" and of appropriate legacy labels for these two less-than-truthful presidencies -- which happen to share the VIP persona of Hillary Clinton -- here is a critical look at some of the ignoble, deceitful, and scam-filled aspects of Obama's "Age of Scamalot" presidency.  

In terms of the latter label, this author's January 30, 2010 posting on the American Thinker -- "From Camelot to SCAMALOT" -- took the first step toward forever disconnecting Jack and Jackie Kennedy's legacy label from the always upbeat, smiling, and charming but so deeply deceitful presidency of Barack Obama.

Having completed four tortured years in office -- and now extending "Four More Years" into nearly a decade of redistribution, dependency, and egalitarian poverty -- it is a legacy label which should be as damaging to today's Obamanoid and Clintonian "Progressives" as the heroic-sounding "Camelot" label has been a political benefit for almost 50 years to the Kennedys and the Democrats as a whole.

So desperate are the Obamanoids to escape the dreaded "cover-up" label that they have concocted an endless list of euphemistic alternatives by which they and the media might paint a much less sinister picture of L'Affaire Benghazi -- e.g., a sideshow, a political carnival, no "there" there, old news, a witch hunt, a fleeting story, a Fox News story, a minor bump in the road, Speaker Boehner's fixation, a desperate right-wing distraction, radical partisanship, a GOP cut in funding, a tool for fundraising, ad infinitum.

But at the base of it all is the question: just who is this man of the vast left-wing cover-up?  Who is the man whose entire life history is either unknown or so highly spun as to dwarf even the Benghazi Talking Points fiasco?  (Author's note: A remarkable list of at least 35 separate offenses of cover-up, too lengthy for this posting, will soon be available as an appendix to this essay on my own TrueSpeak.org website.)

And is he even now covering up and scamming the breaking news (just as this article is being submitted for publication) about his April 31, 2010 White House meeting with National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelly -- the very day before NTEU leaders at the IRS initiated the illegal targeting of Tea Parties and other "conservative" and "Patriotic" applicants for tax-exempt status?

The Great Evil of False Words, Labels, and Narratives

So now, in this shameful "Age of Scamalot" and of vast left-wing cover-ups, let us recall what the great Chinese philosopher Confucius said 2,400 years ago when asked what would be his first action if he were placed in charge of the government of China:

It would certainly be to correct language. If language is not correct then what is said is not what is meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains undone. If this remains undone, then morals and acts deteriorate. If morals and acts deteriorate, justice will go astray. If justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence, there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.

And much closer to home and to the current political situation, that great American man of words, Mark Twain, once asserted that "[t]he difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."   If that be the case, let us hope that a thoughtful and proactive use of many truthful "lightning words" and a strict avoidance of the many cover-up narratives cited above will:

First, help to unmask both Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's insidious vast left-wing cover-up -- which stretches back several decades to their shared lockstep devotion to the "transitional Marxist" likes of Antonio Gramsci, Saul Alinsky and, alas, George "Soroctopus" Soros, and

Second, will enable all of us Americans to limit this ignoble "Age of Scamalot" and its OPRAH Land (Obama-Pelosi-Reid-and-Hillary Land) Plantation of dependency, egalitarian poverty, and indentured servitude to no more than the unfortunate "Four More Years" to which a slim majority of American voters have recently sentenced us all.

A D.C.-area attorney, writer and national security strategist, Jim Guirard was longtime chief of staff to former U.S. Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long.  His TrueSpeak.org website is devoted to truth in language and truth in history in public discourse.