“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.

Give a Man Enough Rope & He'll Hang Himself

It is not often that a politician produces his own noose to hang himself. Obama is the exception. The real Barack Hussein Obama is coming out slowly but surely.

It is no surprise to me to find out he is an arrogant liberal elitist. It is very much a surprise that a liberal elitist blog, The Huffington Post, is the one that outed him. They quoted him speaking about the economic malaise of the middle class,

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Clearly, Obama is clueless about people like myself, a disabled American middle class worker. My values do not change with the times. I am a Life Member of the National Rifle Association (NRA). I am pro-gun rights in good times and bad. The Second Amendment makes gun ownership a fundamental right under the Constitution. Likewise, I cling to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ regardless of my economic circumstances. I have opposed open borders, illegal immigration, and free trade for years, during times of prosperity and times of recession. I believe in the sovereignty of the United States at all times. Our Founding Fathers understood that a strong country protected its borders and its manufacturing base. Thus, they wisely forbade the income tax, preferring to raise the Federal government's operating funds through tariffs and duties on imports.

Obama's campaign is trying to repair the damage caused by his remarks at the San Francisco campaign fundraiser for the wealthy. At a Pennsylvania rally, he tried to fix it by saying:

"Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois who are bitter. They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through.

"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country.

"The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to.

"And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream."

Hillary Rodham Clinton was correct to call his original remarks "demeaning." She said:

"I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies. Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith. I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich. Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe. People don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them."

Of course, Republicans cheered the gift of Obama's remarks. It is fantastic fodder for the Fall campaign ads if Obama is the Democratic nominee. John McCain wasted no time in exploiting Obama's self-imposed error. McCain adviser Steve Schmidt shot the first volley:

"It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."