In a recent speech, Vice President Joe Biden said, “That’s what we’re afraid of: I had a former employee call me earlier today inquiring about a job, and at the end of the conversation he gave me his phone number. I asked the former employee if this was a new cell phone number and he told me yes, this was his ‘Obama phone.’ I asked him what an ‘Obama phone’ was, and he went on to say that welfare recipients are now eligible to receive a free new phone and two approximately 70 minutes of free minutes every month.”

In response to Biden’s comment, one observer wrote, “I was a little skeptical, so I Googled it and, lo and behold, he was telling the truth. Taxpayer money is being redistributed to welfare recipients for free cell phones. This program was started earlier this year. Enough is enough — the ship is sinking and it’s sinking fast. The very foundations that this country was built on are being shaken. The age-old concepts of God, family and hard work have flown out the window and are being replaced with ‘Hope and Change’ and ‘Change we can believe in.’ You can click on the link to read more about the ‘Obama phone’ — just have a barf bag ready.”

President Barack Obama is a noted orator. However, from my perspective, it appears that he is only as good as the staging and teleprompters he uses, which have become part of his trademark.

As intelligent as he is reputed to be, one wonders just how smart he actually is if he can’t even talk extemporaneously to a classroom of sixth-graders without the usual props. You would think that as a father with young children he would be able to relate to his audience more on their level. But a recent photo of Obama in a Falls Church, Va., classroom shows him in a formal setting, standing on a platform, flanked by two teleprompters with what appears to be a bodyguard behind him. You can see a photo of this event on Jamie Jeffords’ blog, Eye of Polyphemus.

Jeffords noted: “I wish I could tell you that this (photo) is Photoshopped, but it is not. ... The president of the United States, whom progressives coo over for being so articulate, cannot ad lib for five minutes when talking to a bunch of sixth graders.” ‘Nuff said.

The Stansberry Report Online (April 20, 2006) observed: “Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 trillion barrels. On Aug. 8, 2005, President (George W.) Bush mandated its extraction. In 3½ years of high oil prices, none has been extracted. With this motherload of oil, why are we still fighting over offshore drilling?

“We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on Earth. Here are the official estimates:

» “Eight times as much oil as Saudi Arabia

» “18 times as much oil as Iraq

» “21 times as much oil as Kuwait

» “22 times as much oil as Iran

» “500 times as much oil as Yemen

“... and it’s all right here in the Western United States.

“How can this be? How can we not be extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy. Why?

“James Bartis, lead researcher with the study, says we’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East — more than 2 trillion barrels untapped. That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post. Don’t think OPEC will drop its price — even with this find? Think again! It’s all about the competitive marketplace — it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?”

CBS News reported (Jan. 25, 2010) that “at least 106 people from the House and Senate attended (the climate conference in Copenhagen) — spouses, a doctor, a protocol expert and even a photographer — at a cost of over $1 million, paid for with taxpayer dollars.” In addition, the president and his family also attended (and did a little shopping in Paris). What did they accomplish? Nothing! Well, perhaps not nothing. For one thing, a lot of people got a nice vacation out of it.

These are just a few of the seemingly endless number of examples of inexplicable and contradictory behavior by our leaders. As usual, it’s “do as I say, not as I do.”

The oft-quoted adage “Truth is stranger than fiction” continues to be valid. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

— Harris R. Sherline is a retired CPA and former chairman and CEO of Santa Ynez Valley Hospital who as lived in Santa Barbara County for more than 30 years. He stays active writing opinion columns and his blog, Opinionfest.com.