All the News That's Fit to be Tied

I have an axe to grind, but unlike the New York Times, I freely admit it.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Taking Notice

After the month-long hiatus needed to recover from a bruising Presidential campaign, the presumptuousness of our new President, the auto-bailout failure and the Blagojevich mess in Illinois is forcing me back to the written word to express by frustration that the American people cannot see who their real enemies are. The most outstanding thing about the Obama Presidency so far is the presumptuousness of our new President. He is the first to create "The Office of the President Elect." This has never been done before. It goes to his own perception of his importance. For most Presidents’ it is the office that is important not the person in it. We can only hope that a President Obama can learn this lesson. The lust for his Presidency is so great that the political left is ready to discard the entire transition period so their chosen one could take over before Inauguration Day. The auto bailout of GM and Chrysler is an animal of another sort. Despite the protestations by the Democrats, especially the Senate Majority leader, that Republicans killed the bill, Harry Reid voted against it. For all his talk about supporting unions and being a regular guy he voted against the bailout and then tried to put it at the foot of the opposition. Why has the media overlooked that the most powerful Democrat in Congress voted against a bill his party was supposedly for. After Governor Rob Blagojevich's Gary Hart-like challenge to the media about his pubic and private ranting, the unsinkable Patrick Fitzgerald obliged him by releasing a 74-page complaint charging him with bribery and solicitation in trying to sell Obama's US Senate seat. And like all those before Blagojevich, Obama dropped him like a stone and never had any idea about the depth of the corruption of Blagojevich despite his efforts to elect Blagojevich twice and the incestousness of their staffs. David Axlerod, for example, worked for both. Rom Emmanuel also had a relationship with Blagojevich. Both have tried to cover their tracks to Blagojevich, but the media and the Justice Department are going to help lighten that path and Jesse Jackson Jr., may get dragged into the mess before being being selected to replace Obama in the Senate. This episode reflects two realities of modern political life. The first is that political corruption in Chicago is undeniable and the second is that the President-elect went 20 years in Chicago and never knew about Reverend Wright's anti-American ravings, Bill Ayers terrorist activities, Tony Rezko's influence peddling and now Blagojevich's corruption. Considering that these things are so painfully obvious to most people, even some Big D Democrats, how can we have confidence that Obama will know what's going on in the world when he occupies the White House?