It comes as no surprise today that Obama's defenders are sparing no invective for Fox News in the wake of that survey. But it was the president, not Fox News, who repeatedly and knowingly misled the American people with two infamous Obamacare lies: “You can keep your health insurance if you like it. Period. You can keep your doctor. Period.” For better or worse, Obama will forever be known as the president who chose repeatedly to propagate two falsehoods. Those two lies were profoundly significant because they were designed to hide the truth about how Obamacare would affect the daily lives and health of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Excellent editorial in today's Washington Examine r about presidential lying. Specifically, why so many Americans - 61% according to a Fox News poll - think that the president lies "most of the time" and "some of the time."

Since it became painfully clear in 2013 that Obama had lied about Obamacare since 2009, it has been increasingly difficult for many Americans to continue accepting at face value his statements on other major public issues. In both the Benghazi and IRS scandals, for example, Obama claimed to have known nothing about them until they were reported in the national media. But if that were true, why has the president's attorney general and so many other of his most prominent appointees withheld thousands of documents subpoenaed by Congress and requested by journalists under the Freedom of Information Act? Are there passages in those withheld documents that make it clear Obama knew much more than he has admitted? Such questions go to the heart of the issue of the president's probity. If he lied about keeping health insurance plans and doctors, why should fellow citizens believe his claim that nothing else could have been done to save four Americans in Benghazi, or that there isn't "a smidgen of corruption" at the IRS? That is Obama's legacy and his burden.

All presidents lie to some extent - except the difference between other chief executives and Obama is, for example, when a president claims a law he wants passed is "for the children," most of us roll our eyes and know what he's really saying - some interest group wants this legislation and I need their votes. This is a lie of omission and most of us are fully aware of the truth.

But when Obama looked the American people in the eye and claimed you could keep your insurance and your doctor under Obamacare, this was a subterfuge told because the truth would have scuttled the bill. We had no reason to doubt the president when he made those statements, although many Republicans pointed out the discepancy between what was in the bill and the president's words. It was a lie told to deliberately decieve - a conscious effort to hide the truth until after the bill was passed.

It doesn't get any worse than that for a president.