"What did President Obama know and when did he know it?"

Is a trending question being parodied in Twitterverse. My sense is that it is not being asked with the specter of the original history behind that question, the scandal that led to the resignation of president Nixon. But more of an attempt, by way of insinuation, to describe the scenario we are currently in, with an already familiar background to many of us.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post elaborates...

For a smart man, President Obama professes to know very little about a great number of things going on in his administration.

On Sunday night, the Wall Street Journal reported that he didn’t learn until this summer that the National Security Agency had been bugging the phones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders for nearly five years.

That followed by a few days a claim by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that Obama didn’t know about problems with the HealthCare.gov Web site before the rest of the world learned of them after the Oct. 1 launch.

It stretches credulity to think that the United States was spying on world leaders without the president’s knowledge, or that he was blissfully unaware of huge technical problems that threatened to undermine his main legislative achievement. But on issues including the IRS targeting flap and the Justice Department’s use of subpoenas against reporters, White House officials have frequently given a variation on this theme.

Question: What did Obama know and when did he know it?

We may never know for sure. We could, however, put together clues from the time when Obama was not yet the President of the United States. Clues that may very well help us transition from insinuation and speculation to... if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Kerry Picket of Breitbart elaborates...

President Barack Obama made it no secret he was a proponent of a single payer health care system in America when he first came on to the national scene. However, he explained to his supporters over the years that a "potential transition" would be necessary to break away from the current system. 

Interestingly, as the implementation of the Obamacare exchanges face problems and millions begin to lose coverage from their private insurers, something President Obama promised would not happen, Democrats and their liberal allies are now beginning to suggest a single payer system as a solution to the rickety exchanges. 

Obama - Remarks to AFL - CIO

"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care plan. The United States of America--the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent--14 percent of its gross national product on health care and cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody and that's what Jim is talking about when he says, 'Everybody in. Nobody out.' A single payer health care credit--universal healthcare credit. That's what I'd like to see, but as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House and we've got to take back the Senate and we've got to take back the House."

Obama - Remarks - 8/4/07

"This is a two trillion dollar part of our economy and it is my belief that it's not just politically but economically it is better for us to start getting a system in place--a universal healthcare system signed into law by the end of my first term as president and build off that system to further to make it more rational..."
"By the way, Canada did not start immediately with a single payer system. They had a similar transition step. "

Obama- New Hampshire Public Radio 11/21/07

OBAMA: It's a transitional system building on the existing systems that we have.

HOST: Transitional to what?

OBAMA: Transitional, hopefully, because the system is currently a patchwork of inefficiency that over time I would want to see Medicaid, Medicare, the Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)--all those integrated more effectively.

Obama - Public Remarks 4/3/07

"Let's say that I proposed a plan that moved to a single payer system--Let's say Medicare plus. Essentially, everybody can buy Medicare, for example..."

"Transitioning a system is a very difficult and costly and lengthy enterprise. It's not like you can turn on a switch and you go from one system to another. So it's possible that up front, you wouldn't need not just-- you might need an additional ninety or a hundred billion dollars a year."

Obama - (SEIU Healthcare Forum) - 3/24/07

"But I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.." 

Obama - Public Remarks - 1/27/05

"There's no denying that part of the solution in the health care arena as we transition and deal with the legacy systems that we've inherited will probably require some additional money."

Video of these remarks at the link.