No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States.
-- George Washington
A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.
The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.
Critics on Capitol Hill and online responded with outrage at the reports that Obama had gone behind their backs and sold the reform movement short. Furthermore, the deal seemed to be a betrayal of several promises made by then-Sen. Obama during the presidential campaign, among them that he would use the power of government to drive down the costs of drugs to Medicare and that negotiations would be conducted in the open.
Obama told Jay Leno he was surprised that those greedy AIG executives who helped lead the country into financial ruin were in line to receive $165 million in bonuses paid for by bailout cash authorized by his administration.
"Stunned, stunned is the word," said Obama.
Stunned?
It turns out that his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner—who didn't pay all of his federal taxes but was still deemed worthy by Obama of collecting yours—knew all about the AIG bonuses weeks ago.
That was long before Washington Democrats began shrieking in pretend outrage over the bonuses, as if they didn't vote for them, sort of like Chicago aldermen shrieking about corruption from the 5th Floor.
It's like Mayor Richard Daley saying, "Gee, I dunno" when news breaks that his nephews are in another multimillion-dollar government deal. Or that time that Daley gave $100 million in affirmative action contracts to men he knows well, yet was stunned to learn later that they were white guys, not black females.
These days, the Washington Way is looking just like the Chicago Way. Those of us from Illinois can see it, what with City Hall guys pulling White House strings.
Then again, we're not surprised because we don't get the high-grade Hopium out here in the Midwest. The good stuff must be reserved for the Beltway media establishment, since they're the ones feeling tingles running up their legs.
One month in and his approval rating went from 68% to 63%. Jimmy Carter had the highest approval rating at this point, at 71%. Of course, at 55%, Reagan's approval was the lowest since Nixon, so the title of this post could just as easily been Obama More Popular Than Reagan. Which is an interesting commentary on the power of presentation.
The interesting data here though is the disapproval rating. Obama's went from 12% to 24% in a month. The average rating since Nixon is only 16%, which at first glance would seem to make Obama's quite high. However, it is actually right in line with the disapproval ratings of Bush and Clinton, there's being 21% and 29% respectively.
There's likely some commentary there about our political discourse of the last 16 years.
The Chicago Way is a road the Beltway media establishment dare not travel. It must frighten them. It conflicts with their fairy tale about Obama as reformer, and they're much too busy rummaging through garbage cans in Alaska to bother about Chicago's political alleys.
But any child in Illinois knows the Chicago Way leads through the most politically corrupt city in America, in a politically corrupt state, where muscle trumps reason, where Democratic warlords brazenly promote their offspring into public office, where even souls are offered up for sale.
The national media have never wanted to understand, much less expose, political corruption here, or examine how Obama prospered under the Daley machine's guidance. A trip down the Chicago Way would force them to re-examine their ridiculous narrative that sets Obama as a political reformer riding a white horse, or is that a winged unicorn?
Governor Sarah Palin's nomination as Senator McCain's vice president has gotten the liberal blogosphere in an uproar. The very first talking point I saw was that Gov. Palin's nomination takes away Sen. McCain's ability to use Sen. Obama's inexperience against him in the campaign. To which I say, hogwash.
First, that liberal bloggers claim this reveals that they know this is a major weakness of their candidate. The fact that Obama picked Senator Joe Biden as his running mate reveals that he knows this as well.
Second, Palin's pick in no way means that McCain can't use Obama's inexperience in the campaign. Obama's responses to the Palin nomination reveal exactly why.
This is his response immediately following the announcement:
"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."
Mr. Community Organizer will be sure to highlight Governor Palin's experience as a small town mayor while conveniently forgetting her other experience (you know, like being a governor), but all it does is serve to keep the inexperience topic in the headlines.
And it ensures that Obama will continue to have to field reporters' questions regarding his own inexperience. For instance, CNN asked him about his experience vs Gov. Palin's and this is what he said,
"My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,"
So Obama thinks that running a campaign for president qualifies one to be president. Ok then.
Again, all Obama's attacks on Palin do is serve to highlight the fact that the man running for president barely has the experience of the vice president he is attacking.
But does this create problems with McCain's ability to showcase Obama's inexperience to be president? The beauty of this pick is that McCain doesn't have to be the one to do it.
Let his running mate Joe Biden do it for him:
Or have Hillary Clinton do it:
Or Bill Clinton:
Or Hillary, Bill, Biden, Dodd, and even Obama himself:
"Lincoln, facing probably defeat in the election, called together his cabinet and handed them a sealed memorandum, which he directed that they should sign as witnesses, so that when, after the election, the document was opened, they would know that this was what Lincoln had written at that time.
...because McClellan was running with the pledge to let the South have its victory in the Civil War after all, the Confederacy based all its hopes on prolonging the war long enough for McClellan to become president."
"This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probably [sic] that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the Government President elect, as to save the Union between the Election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards."
Card argues here that enemies of the United States listen to public opinion and presidential candidates and adjust war strategy accordingly - namely, they try to hold out long enough for the American public, and by extension American politicians, to tire of the effort and quit. What the Democratic Party has done the last five years is undermine the war effort. Which shouldn't be surprising, since that's the express purpose of their protests and non-binding resolutions and campaign stump speeches. They want to leave Iraq, so of course those groups fighting for control of that country need only wait long enough for US policy to change with the new prevailing winds.
"The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.
Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"
Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."
Barack Obama is a very interesting candidate for president. He handily won Utah's primary, and with conservatives none too pleased with the remaining Republican candidates, many have expressed willingness to turn Utah blue.
He is a great speaker. His inspiring manner, his "Audacity of Hope", and his youth have all combined to make him a very strong challenger to Hillary Clinton's "inevitable" campaign.
Even Senator Ted Kennedy endorsed him. Not only endorsed him, but did so emphatically while comparing him to JFK. He is inspiring like Kennedy, appeals to young and old alike like Kennedy, and..... is a Democrat like Kennedy.
Except that he really isn't.
Democrats of Kennedy's day would have supported the war in Iraq.
JFK spoke out about the United State's new, changing role in world politics. He told us to face reality when dealing with foreign countries, and that it would require us to be involved with leaders we may not like, with governments we might not agree with, in conflicts that might seem never-ending.
Senator Joseph Lieberman continued this Democratic tradition, and was thrown out of the party for his efforts. Were Senator Obama to truly follow in JFK's footsteps, he'd get thrown out too.
So before we anoint him as the "Camelot Redux", let us, as President Kennedy said, face reality and realize that the Democratic Party ain't what it used to be.
