Hope, Change & Sleaze

I'm certainly not the only one critical of the Obama Administration's lack of adherence to their stated campaign principles of "Hope & Change".

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, cuts through the mainstream media haze surrounding the Obama Administration's "Chicago Style" jobs-for-political-favors scandal, and brings a "transparency" to the story not available from the Obama White House itself:

Hope, Change & Sleaze

Chicago: The vacation of choice for Presidents everywhere!

As the furor over Arizona's Immigration law continues, President Barack Obama once again showed his incredible lack of understanding of the American people by ordering 1200 members of the National Guard to "support positions" at the southern U.S. border, where they will not actually be involved in the physical duties of helping to stop drug trafficking or illegal immigration. Then he takes off to Chicago on vacation, at the same time promising to skip the traditional Veteran's Day Memorial Service at Arlington National Cemetary, and ducking out on any leadership responsibility involving the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

I mean, how many Presidential duties can this guy shirk at one time?

Or is there a bigger issue at hand? Consider: Is Barack Obama already so completely overwhelmed by his duties as President, that he's simply given up?

Perhaps being an obscure U.S. Senator from Illinois is looking pretty good to him right now. When know one knew who he was, no one was critical of him. He could could give speeches and get applause, he could travel from Illinois to Washington, D.C. and back, do nothing of real importance, and tell everyone what a fine job he was doing, and no one would question him. Because for the most part, the world didn't care.

Not any more. Now Barack Obama is playing on the world stage, as the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, and people are watching his every move. His ideologically hard left, big government stance on nearly every issue has proven to be stubbornly ineffective across a surprisingly wide range of situations. From unemployment, to the economy, to Afghanistan, to terrorism, to the border, to the oil spill in the gulf, Barack Obama just doesn't seem to know the right thing to do. Over and over again the Obama administration has taken wildly unpopular (if not downright reckless or unconstitutional) stances on issues from health care, to Guantanamo, to criminally trying foreign terrorists on U.S. soil, to bailouts and government takeovers of the auto industry, banking, and other private enterprises, to cap and trade legislation that's guaranteed to increase energy prices, to inaction on the border and in the Gulf of Mexico, to financial legislation, etc. etc.

Obama just stubbornly and blindly continues to blunder forth, despite the fact that it should be obvious to him by now that his perceived "mandate for change" wasn't nearly what he thought it was. It's easy, during a political campaign, to promise everyone that you are Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy all rolled into one. It's infinitely tougher to actually deliver a working governing strategy when you are, in fact, in no way like either of them. It's all gotta wear on a guy. Heck, when James Carville starts yelling at you like you're George W. Bush, it must be quite a blow to the ego!

And those falling approval ratings must be tough to digest for someone who's never, in his life, had to suffer the pains of harsh criticism.

So when the going gets tough, the tough.....go on vacation!

Joe Sestak and Chicago politics on a National scale.

Arlen Specter, the party-switching long term Pennsylvania Senator who's been on the national stage ever since he was a young attorney involved with the Warren Commission investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, was soundly beaten politically by newcomer Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania Senate Primary last week, and word quickly began to spread concerning the Obama administration's handling of the Specter campaign.

There was no doubt that Obama had been supporting, to a point, Specter's candidacy after Senator Specter switched from Republican to Democrat last year and provided several key votes on Obama's legislative agenda, including socialized health care.  However, when Specter looked to be hopelessly losing his first campaign as a Democrat, President Obama was suddenly nowhere to be found.

Joe Sestak, who ran on an anti-incumbent platform, and rightly pointed out Arlen Specter's attempted opportunism, is now coming under the media spotlight himself since he candidly admitted that the Obama administration offered him a job, perhaps in an attempt to induce (read: bribe) Sestak to abandon his bid for a seat in Washington, D.C., representing Pennsylvania.

Now Joe Sestak has clammed up, and isn't offering any details concerning the job offer.  The White House is perhaps wisely not denying Sestak's claim, but will offer no other details either.

Like all of Obama's previous political malfeasance, from reportedly beginning his political career in the company of domestic terrorist William Ayers, to sitting in anti-American Pastor Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years, to his connections to land deals with felon Tony Rezco, to the bruhaha with ousted Governor of Illiniois Rod Blagojevich and the filling of the senate seat left open by Barack Obama when he became President, apparently, Obama and his handlers are sticking to the tried and true method they always used in the past:  Ignore, and a willing media will eventually drop the subject, and we can all forget about it.

It's going to be up to us, the people, to keep the pressure on to get to the bottom of the matter.  If the Obama administration truly offered Sestak a job to keep him from running for Senate, a Federal felony may have been committed, based on bribery alone.  Already, Obama's apologists are making the rounds on national T.V., asserting that this situation is simply another in a series of "no big deals" surrounding President Obama and the people around him.  Perhaps on the grand scale of things, this particular incident could be considered "no big deal", but how many laws are to be broken before anyone is called to account for them?  How many unresolved questions will surround Barack Obama before he pays a price for his past actions?  Several U.S. Congressmen, of both parties, are calling for a Federal investigation into the matter.

I'm old enough to remember President Ronald Reagan being considered the "Teflon president", because of all of the media-driven scandals that surrounded him, nothing could be stuck on Reagan himself.  President Obama is truly outdoing Reagan by miles, and deserves to have the mantle of "Teflon president" handed over to him.

Perhaps the people of the United States are willing to accept Chicago-Style politics on a national level, just as many folks appear to accept Obama's big-government socialist agenda.  If we wish to ignore Federal law, then we can only blame ourselves if we become a truly lawless nation, and our politicians continue to play "fast and loose" with our trust.

I'm betting, that with the national mood being what it is, the people are quite close to rejecting Obama's style of "machine politics", where power, for power's sake, appears to be the current National Motto.