Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Obama's "New Politics" look remarkably "Old School"

Looks like putting the word "New" in Obama's "New Politics" is pretty much like the "New" in "New Democrats"... sounds pretty good, but is completely meaningless.

First, the money quotes from The Washington Post:

"The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington."

"After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks."


Here's the article in full:
The Fierce Urgency of Pork
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 6, 2009; A17

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."
-- President Obama, Feb. 4.

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com
h/t to Dr. Roy

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3 Comments:

  • At Sat Feb 07, 12:12:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    What stays the same no matter who is elected? The Lobby! There will be no change!


    The Israel Lobby has so much power in Canada, it is not likely that Canada will ever have a balanced policy again.

    This is exacerbated by the confounding and inexplicable tendency of ‘progressives’ to ignore the power of The Lobby.

    They criticize Isr-el, but ignore the role of Jewish owned media and pressure organizations in shaping Canada’s policy towards Isr-el. The Israel Lobby in Canada got Lesley Hughes thrown off the ballot for stating some facts about Israel’s foreknowledge of 9/11–facts that were corroborated by an Isr-eli paper.

    Powerful lobby groups like the CJC and Bnai B’rith successfully lobbied for War on Terror legislation that has severely curtailed Canadian’s rights, resulting in innocent Muslims being locked up without charges for years before their trials, and got Zundel detained in Canada under an unconstitutional security certificate. They have successfully lobbied for laws that persecute Canadians who exercise their right to free speech.

    Now Canadian leaders read speeches that sound like they were crafted in Tel Aviv, and Canada is shamefully the only country on 47 on the UN Human Rights Panel that voted not to condemn Isr-el’s Gaza slaughter.

    Understanding Mearscheimer and Walt’s paper on The Israel Lobby is key to decoding politics today. This is a MUST read.

    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

     
  • At Sat Feb 07, 12:33:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Wow, that was pretty Anti-Semetic there moron. I posted it anyway, just so show how racist you really are.

    Signed,

    A proud supporter of Israel,
    CC

     
  • At Sat Feb 07, 02:08:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Maybe rather than attacking the OP for their opinion, it might be more productive to make an argument as to why someone who is critical of Israel, or its domestic lobby is *necessarily* an anti-semite.

    The gratuitous use of the term only leads to more recalcitrant anti-semitism.

     

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