“Do As I Say, Not As I Do”: Business as Usual in Washington

Word is that President Barack Hussein Obama does not like to be cold, so he has ordered the White House thermostats turned up. Senior advisor, David Axelrod reminds us, “He’s from Hawaii, Okay? He likes it warm.” Axelrod went on to say that it was hot enough in the Oval Office to grow orchids. (Source: The Patriot Post, 1/30/09)

Now, this would be fine except that President Obama is one of those who hyperventilate about global warming. Environmentalists have lectured us that we should all turn our thermostats down to 68º in the winter to save the planet.

Does the President want to destroy spaceship earth? Or, is this just another example of liberal double standards? You and I should sit in our chilly rooms, wearing heavy sweaters, while the liberal elite enjoy warm and cozy rooms in their shirt sleeves.

This is not the only example of double standards in the first two weeks of this new administration. Our new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner fails to pay income taxes on time and still gets confirmed by the Senate. Now, Senator Tom Daschle is reported to have tax-paying troubles, too.

Surely everybody knows tax laws that require paying the full amount of taxes owed on time are only for us “little people,” don’t they? Surely, the liberal elites themselves should not be held to the same standards. After all, if they were, it might inhibit the speed at which they increase taxes and spend revenues.

Then, we have the new ethical standards regarding lobbyists and their relationships to the White House that Obama ordered on his first day in office. The goal is to keep the two at arms’ length by barring lobbyists from working in the administration for two years. While campaigning, Obama promised lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House.” Yet, both Geithner and Daschle have been Washington lobbyists.

Geithner named Mark Patterson, a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, as his chief of staff. Obama has appointed William Lynn, who lobbied on behalf of defense contractor Raytheon, as deputy defense secretary. Both of these appointments are clear violations of Obama’s self-imposed new ethics.

Ah, but the new rules allow exceptions. Poor Robert Gibbs, the new White House Press Secretary, had the unenviable task of justifying these two appointments. He tried Wednesday to convince us that granting these exceptions does not conflict with “the strongest ethics and transparency policy...seen in the history of our country.”

Can you imagine what the press would be saying if former President George W. Bush had pulled this stunt? He would have been strung up as the most craven hypocrite. But, because this is the press’s darling, a fellow “progressive” President, Obama gets a pass. Ethics rules are for others, not him. Hmm, sounds like Washington business as usual.

Hot off the British Press: Obama’s Illegal Alien Aunt Living in Boston Public Housing

Barack Hussein Obama has an aunt living in Boston public housing who is in the United States illegally, according to an Associated Press story published by British papers, The Guardian and The Times. Her name is Zeituni Onyango; she is the half-sister of Obama’s father. She entered the United States on a tourist visa about nine years ago, then sought asylum when it expired. An immigration judge denied her request and ordered her to leave the country four years ago. She never did. She attended Obama’s installation as a U.S. Senator in 2004. Instead, Zeituni “lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston.” She received a weekly stipend from the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) as a “volunteer resident health advocate between December 2007 and August this year.” She illegally donated $260 to Obama’s presidential campaign, using the BHA office’s mailing address. (James Bone, ET .al, “ Found in a rundown Boston estate: Barack Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango, “ The London Times, October 30, 2008 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5042571.ece)

In Obama’s book Dreams from My Father, he calls her "Auntie Zeituni" and describes her as "a proud woman" with a steady job as a computer programmer in Nairobi, Kenya. However, he acknowledged that Kenya had “no government safety net. There was only family, next of kin; people burdened by similar hardship.” Obama went on to say, “Now I was family, I reminded myself; now I had responsibilities.” (Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father, Three Rivers Press, New York, NY, 1995, p. 329) Zeituni explained to Obama many of his father’s complicated family relationships.

Zeituni took Obama to visit another aunt [Sarah] in the rapidly expanding shantytown at Mathare in Kenya. He described it as “miles and miles of corrugated rooftops.” They walk down an unpaved road where there were “on either side rows of small hovels, their walls a patchwork of wattle, mud, pieces of cardboard, and scavenged plywood.” Zeituni leads him to a concrete building where Sarah lives in “a small room, ten feet by twelve.” (Ibid. p. 331-2) Sarah chastises Obama for taking so long to visit her. She admonishes him, “Look how I live. Why don’t you help us, instead of these others?” (Ibid. p. 333) Before leaving, he gives her the equivalent of $30 in shillings. Zeituni explains, after they leave, “This is what happens to old women who have no husbands.” (Ibid. p. 334)

Zeituni went on to warn Obama to learn from his father’s life. “If you have something, then everyone will want a piece of it. So you have to draw the line somewhere. If everyone is family, no one is family.” (Ibid. p. 337) Evidently, Obama took his Auntie Zeituni’s advice to heart.

Publication of this case “led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring that any deportations before Tuesday's election be approved at least at the level of the agency's regional directors,” according to an AP report. Boston'S Mayor was mystified as to how Zeituni could have been allowed to rent in public housing under a deportation order. When confronted with the facts, William McGonagle, deputy director of the BHA, imitated Colonel Klink of Hogan’s Heroes, protesting “I know nothing about it and I've got no comment.” (Nedra Pickler, "Obama says he didn't know aunt's illegal status," The Guardian, Nov. 1, 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7972198) Later, McGonagle acknowledged that Zeituni had been a public housing tenant for five years. “She has been an exemplary resident,” McGonagle said. (Jessica Fargen, "Campaign confirms Obama aunt in South Boston," The Boston Herald, Oct. 30, 2008, http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/2008/view/2008_10_30_Barack_Obama_s_aunt_living_in_South_Boston_housing_project)

Is this not typical of leftwing liberals? Obama wants to spread your wealth around to take care of people like his aunt. Yet, he fails to spread his own wealth around to help her or his half-brother George who lives on $1 a day in a Kenyan hovel. So much for liberal compassion.