We're facing a crisis in America.  It's a crisis in un-leadership, and it's a crisis in un-integrity.  Leading from the top, the president of these Un-United States has been lying to the American public since before he won the Democratic nomination for the nation's highest office--more than four years ago. 

That comes as no surprise to anyone who understands the phrase, "Chicago-Style Politics."  Mayor Richard J. Daley invented the concept of dirty politics with a distinctly midwestern twang years before Obama ever dreamed of perfecting the technique--which, by the way, he hasn't yet come close to mastering.  Instead, he relies upon the principles of lying in office, lying to his constituents, lying to the press, and lying to himself just the way Dad Daley did.  But Daley was a shrewd, crafty, seasoned veteran of the political trenches, while Obama is a saddened hack. 

Not that we should ever have expected much more than lies from the president's lips.  He has no principles.  While rallying the American people around the concepts of a new way of doing business in Washington, bringing transparency to the Oval Office, and uniting the nation, he set out from Day One to do business as usual, hide things that no one ever thought of keeping from the American public before, and driving a wedge between every major voting block he has ever courted.  You see, the president still believes, if only in his imagination, that he can somehow manage to win them back, the men, women, politicians, college students, black minorities, Hispanic minorities, union workers, moral majority, illegal immigrants, unemployed, underemployed, mainstream press, wealthy, environmentalists, feminists, and if he ever learns to think outside the box, creative writers.  Novelists whom he could have sniping at one another in a heartbeat.  And in print, no less, for everyone to see! 

Unfortunately, even those of us well versed in Chicago-Style Politics, those of us who before 2008 predicted through Obama's rhetoric and actions that he would be the worst president in American history, failed to see one thing coming: his influence on morality.

And not at all for the better.

The scandals surrounding the White House are the worst this reporter has seen.  The Solyndra back-door funding deal, the secret service pimp squad, the tax evasion of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the Fast and Furious gun-walking coverup, the millions of dollars in unethical and illegal campaign donations, the repeated lies about the administration's increase in oil-drilling permits, the million-dollar GSA boondoggle, Obama's "green energy" cronyism, the administration's continuing show of ignorance and arrogance toward the U.S. Constitution, and more.  Each and every one of them helps undermine the fabric that used to be America.

Ridiculous, you say?  Think about it.  Think about your own children and how they have strayed over the past four years from telling the truth, volunteering to help others in distress, giving up short-term pleasures for long-term accomplishments.  Think about your neighbors and how they once supported one another and now ask instead, "What's in it for me?"  Think about your distant relatives, your teachers, your employer, your fellow employees, and tell me you find them as a whole to have higher morals, greater integrity, and a broader understanding of what--for lack of a better phrase--we'll call Christian values than they had four years ago.

And then go one step further and ask it of yourself.  Have you changed for the better in the last four years?  Or for the worse?  Are you part of a greater moral whole--or are you part of the administration's Culture of Denial?  How can we expect those people around us to overflow with positive ideals when every day of our lives we're bombarded with lies, cover-ups, and cold-hearted collusion from the political machine?  Not from the Daley Machine this time, but from the Obama Machine.

It's a sad state of affairs that bodes ill for America's future, her people's future.  Until we begin holding our elected officials responsible, until we start demanding that they stop cheating, lying, misleading, deceiving, and stealing from us, we're doomed to a dark, dark future bound by moral turpitude and lacking those character traits that once helped form the greatest nation on earth.

So what do we do?  How do we reverse things?

There's an election in seven months.  Cast your vote wisely.  Don't back down for expediency's sake.  Don't back off.  Don't look the other way.  If they're doing it wrong, ignoring the will of the people, and covering up their every dirty deed, vote them out of office, throw them out of office.  Get them out once and for all.

Democrat or Republican.  Liberal or Conservative.

It's only right.  It's only fair.  It's only America's future depending upon it. 

And I…am D. J. Herda.

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D. J. Herda is President of the American Society of Authors and Writers (http://amsaw.org), an organization made up of authors, writers, editors, publishers, agents, directors, producers, and other media professionals who rely upon the printed word in the creation of quality literature and entertainment.  He is a member of the Author's Guild, a former member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and a former member of the National Press Club.  He has published more than 80 books and several hundred thousand articles, short stories, columns, interviews, plays, and scripts.