Go back to the beginning!

“I am waiting for you, Vizzini. You told me to go back to the beginning. So I have. This is where I am, and this is where I’ll stay. I will not be moved.”

Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, waits in the Thieves' Forest for a new set of instructions because the plan he was part of has fallen apart and that was the instruction if the plan fell apart.

That's not a bad idea.  Let's go back to the beginning of the Obama administration and take a look at what the common thread was, early on in the administration.  From Timothy Geithner, to Bill Richardson to a number of others, there were concerns out of the gate that the president was not vetting his appointees very well.  In fact, it was downright bad.  At that point it should have been clear - the administration was being formed based on ideology and not competence.

A lecture from Pravda on corruption

What do so many of the Hollywood elite think about us?



Celebrities are Serious Business
by remixamerica


They don't seem to like America much. I guess they'd rather live in a Soviet style system. But the love of Russia for Americans apparently wouldn't be returned. From Pravda in an article entitled "Sanctimonious hypocritical preaching by the imperials", the segment is so laughable I had to embed a large chunk of it.

It has become a rather common yearly and some times even monthly occurrence that the imperial elites of America gallop up on their white horses to read the riot act to the rest of the world, some times even to the EU, on how to be a republic.

This is of course rather humerus [sic] for as far as republics go, the US is definitely a failed one. Disregarding the fact that the US constitution is routinely ignored, the power politics of the past 130 years have done everything in their power to make sure there are enough stumbling blocks and hurdles that only their chosen candidates can muster the needed support to run for any high office.

Between extremely complicated election laws, requiring armies of lawyers, double standards for the major parties to the exclusion of third parties, dirty tricks, intimidation , and a media hell bent on serving the power politic and not the people, the system makes sure that reelection rates to the US Congress stay at or above a 95% rate. Most senators die or retire, the only way to clear them from their seats. But what a job, 4 months of actual work, high perks, the ability to be bribed at will (both branches of the One Party system feed from the hands of pretty much the same special interests), tax payer paid retirement and pensions after one stint, and many many other benefits. This on top of the right to vote in your own 10% yearly raise, while most of their constituents have not seen a raise above 3% in 20 years.

This only gets ever more accentuated in presidential races, where almost always its two versions of the same Marxist theme running. Ronald Reagan was the only exception since Nixon and that was 19 years ago.

But does this corruption stop the hypocrites from lecturing the world? Of course not. It is a pity for them that, at least in Europe and East Asia, the level of literacy is much higher than the US' 65% and the people there see that the Imperial preaching is nothing but hypocritical nonsense. However, at home, this plays into the self righteous ignorance of the masses.

The real irony here is that Pravda is saying American elections suffer from a Marxist theme. But in defence of the article it does make two good points about faults in the legislative process in Congress. While the anti-Americanism is over-the-top, driven by superpower envy and not backed up by facts, there are some facts about the Russia parliament - the Duma, that bear pointing out for consideration.

1. In the Duma in Russia, entire bills must be read aloud twice to a quorum of the Duma, from first word to last word. Consequently bills are short and to the point. Yes it probably slows down the number of bills that get debated on. As a conservative I applaud that as a solution to over regulation.

2. The system of attaching riders to bills to get unpopular, or even worse, stupid legislation passed on the back of a more sensible or popular piece of legislation in not allowed in the Duma.

It seems the formerly communist and now undefinable nation, has learned a thing or two that Congress is not eager to accept or admit is an option that is long overdue in the United States. Is the system corrupt? It's corruptible. Al Franken comes to mind. Is it bad? No, in fact it is a great system but it has been perverted for the purposes of partisanship or incumbency or personal gain. Overall the system needs a bit of a "reset" but it works. What doesn't work and needs to be fixed are those who would abuse it and put their own interests ahead of those of the nation. Unfortunately, given the smattering of scandals since November (Richardson, Blagojevich, Burris, Panetta, Franken), America has clearly elected the wrong cast to fix that problem.

Note to RNC and GOP candidates - the Fix Washington meme that didn't work so well for McCain may develop some pretty sturdy legs as a campaign platform item. Surely if the unbiased folks over at Pravda can see the faults in the American governmental system, some of the uninformed masses here should be alerted to the problem rather urgently.

Burris gets a seat. Obama gets a pass.

Politics with a difference. Change. Hope. Don't worry Barack, the media will carry your water on this one too. Blagojevich's appointment of Burris to Obama's vacant Senate seat was supposed to be rejected by the Senate. At least they did the public the courtesy of saying no for a day before back-dooring the appointee.

And Al Franken has apparently won the Minnesota seat, because Chuck Schumer declares the race settled, despite what the Minnesota Board stated about not declaring a winner. Again, Harry Reid will go to bat and Obama's hands can stay clean.

Bill Richardson pulls his name out of the running for Commerce Secretary so Obama doesn't have to undergo the scrutiny that the nomination would apparently have caused both of them.

Leon Panetta, a weird choice for head of the CIA is questioned as a choice by Democrat Dianne Feinstein because of lack of intelligence experience. But no worries Barack, Lee Hamilton and the Brookings Institute will go to bat for your nominee. And Dianne has fallen into line.

More and more this guy is starting to remind me of a cross between Bill Clinton and Pontius Pilot. Slick and at the same time, washing his hands of everything because his proxies are going to handle the issues so he can stay clean.

Richardson taps out, Obama still clean

Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary is opting out of the nomination process.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It seems a grand jury is investigating the fact that some of his political donors won a state contract. So for pay-to-play it likes like the tally is now up to 2, and for the nomination process the first failure with Emanuel still in the Republican barrel.

And yet so far Obama has remained above the fray. He's not Teflon but nothing has stuck so far because the press is running blocks for him. And so far they've been able to depict politics-as-usual as real change. And clearly corrupt politics as usual, at that. And he's probably going to remain arm's length from the Franken negotiations with Harry Reid, so he'll stay clean there too. But clearly partisanship won't be put aside due to an Obama dictum, and by allowing it to happen politics-as-usual will be allowed to continue. Yet Obama is still clean. What will happen with the seating of Obama's Senate replacement Burris? My gut instinct is politics-as-usual too.

As a trend for Republicans to capitalize on, this corruption won't hold up forever - at least in the visible realm. Somewhere somebody is going to be able to get a lid on it. Republicans have to start vocalizing on this stuff because the Big 3 bailout is sliding off the front page now, and they are missing an opportunity to portray all this politics-as-usual as just that. Standing back and letting the Democrats eat each other has run it,s course. It's time to step into the fray. Lay the ground work for 2012,and even 2010 by pointing out the corruption for what it is. At least that's what I would do.

Grading the staff

So Obama's picked a centrist cabinet? With a couple of 'minor' exceptions, I beg to differ. Here's a quick synopsis for those keeping score.

State Department: Hillary Clinton. American Conservative Union lifetime score - 7.71. Obama's score was 7.61, yep she's far right of him. She's drag him back to that center line right quick.

Commerce Department: Bill Richardson. Very liberal record of voting and ideas is on display here, and here. Environmentalists' choice. This is a scary bad choice for Commerce.

Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano. Amnesty supporter for Homeland Security? The hits just keep on coming.

Justice Department: Eric Holder. Had Atta survived the 9/11 attack we shouldn't regard him as a POW? Well, I guess he'd want to try him over at Justice. Right. I wonder what he would have done if he'd captured Rudolph Hess.

Treasury Department: Timothy Geithner. Supposedly the most moderate, but with a somewhat thin resume and it's argued, more of the same as Paulson - bailouts, lack of transparency. Well, at least he's supposedly more centrist than everyone else on the list so far.

Defense Department: Robert Gates. Okay, I can live with Gates. But I believe he's there just to serve a purpose for Obama. Obama can play the moderate, consensus-builder card by having Gates and Geithner on board. It also helps with the international visual of continuity.

NSC: Jim Jones. Again, livable but somewhat of an unknown. Probably serving the same purpose as Gates. According to Democracy Arsenal;

He’s a career military guy who wasn’t known during that time for doing much “off
the record” sharing of his views on policy issues — he followed orders,
impressed people enough to keep getting promoted, and either kept his views to
himself or else only shared them with people who are extremely tight-lipped.

UN Ambassador: Susan Rice. Former foreign policy advisor to Michael Dukakis during his 1998 campaign. Good stuff, that. Then there's this disturbing bit from Wikipedia;

In a 2002 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, former Ambassador to Sudan
Timothy Carney and news contributor Mansoor Ijaz implicated Rice and
counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke in missing an opportunity to neutralize Osama bin Laden while he was still in Sudan. They write that Sudan and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wre ready to cooperate on intelligence potentially leading to bin Laden, but that Rice and Clarke persuaded National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to overrule Albright.