You don’t have to go too far to find a story about people suffering in these tough economic times, and your heart goes out to them.  Some have lost houses, are living in cars, really tough stuff.  But there is another story under the surface that reflects common attitudes developed growing up in the nanny state kicked into high gear by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In the midst of these tough economic times, instead of getting out of the way by cutting taxes and red tape, the Obama administration is focused on piling on more government programs.  Worthless stimulus packages, health care reform, and efforts to push cap and trade have not moved the unemployment needle a whit.  They extend unemployment benefits and keep whistling past the graveyard hoping they won’t get swallowed up.

Personal Responsibility

Since the Great Depression and the growth of the nanny state, more and more people have bought into the myth that the government can provide all, and our responsibility is to enjoy the ride.  An article in today’s New York Times writes about people benefitting from a government program to keep them in their houses if they face becoming homeless.  But there are some subtleties in the hard luck stories that give me pause.

There is the case of Antonio Moore who lost his job as a mortgage consultant that paid him $75,000 per year.  He lost his 3-bedroom house with a Jacuzzi and his Lexus sedan.  He is now faced with eviction from his apartment.  The article doesn’t go into details, but in most cases you don’t lose your house and car if they are all paid for.  Again, it doesn’t say if Mr. Moore bought his car new or used, but when I think of a car like a Lexus I usually don’t think that fitting in the budget of someone making $75,000 living in the San Francisco Bay area.  Had Mr. Moore purchased a Toyota Corolla instead of the Lexus would he be in better shape?  Again, I don’t know the details.  I am just wondering.

Then there is the case of Dawn Martin.

Ms. Martin is mortified to be asking for help. She grew up wealthy, with vacations spent on Caribbean cruises. “I had everything I ever wanted,” she says.

She and her husband have a painting business that until 2008 was grossing $100,000 per year, but in this tough economy it dropped to $38,000.  That’s hard.  But then here is the between the lines story:

Her father has money to help if it really comes down to it, she acknowledges.

“I don’t see him letting his grandkids land on the street,” she says, “but he’d hold it over our heads for a long time. That would lower me to a level that I wouldn’t want to go.”

So she is here, at Samaritan House, filling out the paperwork for the homeless prevention program.

So because of her pride, she turns to your family and mine, through higher taxes to fund a government program, to help her through her rough spot before she will turn to her own family.  But don’t worry.  When our money is gone, she will turn to Dad.  The painting business is picking up so Ms. Martin is confident they will be able to sustain themselves.  She is able to take our money to tide her over and still maintain her pride. 

But what did Ms. Martin learn about money when “growing up wealthy”?  Is Dad responsible for not teaching her or was she a rebellious child who ignored him and perhaps that is why he would hold it over her head for a long time.  Will she do something different this time around or hope for another government program?

Perhaps I was a little torqued before reading this story by another in the Wall Street Journal that wrote about the homes underlying the Goldman Sachs fraud case.  This article talks about a Ms. Onyeukwu, a 43-year old nursing home assistant with pre-tax income of $9,000 per month.  She is having trouble paying her $688,000 mortgage at $5,000 per month which is 56% of her pre-tax income.  Her solution?  Refinance it with a $786,250 mortgage.  But hey, the interest rate is lower so her payments of $5,000 per month will stay the same.  What is she thinking?  I could be way off base here but I’ll bet she could get a nice apartment for significantly less than $5,000 per month.  Sell the house, live within your means.

Government as Savior or Government as Pusher?

This is a tale of two government programs and personal responsibility.  We had or still have a massive government program that uses threats, goals, and sleight of hand to help millions achieve the American dream of home ownership.  This is not through thrift, like our parents did it, but by the government threatening banks with charges of racism (there’s the race card again) if the banks didn’t lower their lending standards.  As the housing market took off, the feeding frenzy intensified and everyone was trying to buy houses or finance them with less and less money down.  The Community Reinvestment Act, HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac were all players in this debacle, but don’t expect our elected officials to wade into that swamp to see what happened.  No, they will pile the blame on the banks and Wall Street, while they take Wall Street’s massive donations and do nothing but pass meaningless “reform legislation”.  Now we need new government programs to keep these people hanging on.  How similar is this to the drug pusher who gives you your first hit for free to get you hooked and dependent on them forever.

What About Personal Responsibility?

Unlike the people in the articles, I believe I have responsibility first and foremost for my actions.  If I need help beyond myself I turn to my family and then the charity of my church.  I believe many conservatives share my views, which is why on average conservatives give 30% more to charities than liberals.  It is why I gave the moniker “Buck a Day Biden” to Vice President Joe Biden because in his financial disclosure forms he reported give only about $300 a year to charity.  Here is a man who has been drawing six figure salaries from the taxpayers for years, is a millionaire, but will not reach very deep into his own pocket to help his fellow man, but has no problem reaching into your pocket and mine to create some government program to give your tax dollars to someone else.

There is a man named Dave Ramsey, who was a millionaire in his mid-twenties but later lost it all and declared bankruptcy.  He now teaches others how to live without debt and take responsibility for their financial lives.  It is a lesson all of us should learn and if we do, I’ll have to find something else to write about that sets me off.  But in the mean time we have a lot of work to do.  First we have to stop the federal government’s runaway train.  Next, we have to shrink government.  Then we have to go back to being responsible for ourselves and wean ourselves off the government.

Democrats think they have a winner.  They want to lather on some more financial regulations because regulators dropped the ball on enforcing what already exists.  So as conservatives point out that what they are proposing is unnecessary or won’t work, they can gleefully say, “Republicans are for the fat cats, while we’re for the little guy.”

Broken Regulations

Harry Markopolos recognized within “minutes” that Bernie Madoff was a fraud.  He took his case to the SEC and was promptly ignored.  He took it to Forbes magazine…not interested.  Bernie Madoff himself was surprised how long it took to be found out. 

So what does the SEC do now?  It initiates a case against Goldman Sachs where professionals on both sides of a transaction knew what they were getting into.  One side bet on housing prices continuing to rise, the other betting the bubble would burst.  The decision on pursuing this was voted 3-2, with three Democrats voting in favor of pursuing the case, and two Republicans voting against.  It must be the Democrats looking out for the little guys and the Republicans looking out for evil Wall Street, right?

John Paulson is the investor who allegedly played unfairly by being able to choose the securities that went into the investment that Goldman Sachs allegedly didn’t disclose to the other party.  Mr. Paulson hasn’t been charged with anything.  Mr. Paulson also contributed $30,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last June.  If you recall Jon Corzine, former Democratic Senator and Governor of New Jersey, used to be the chairman of Goldman Sachs.  The new head of the SEC enforcement division in the Obama Administration, Adam Storch, is a former Goldman Sachs Vice President.  So who’s in bed with Wall Street? 

Democrats Need a Diversion

With almost every measure of public opinion on government appointment sinking to all time lows, the Democrats need to ramp up the class warfare machine to find anything that will gain traction with the public.  They know they can’t fight on the facts so they have to start the fog machine.  Typical Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals stuff.

Conservatives must focus the debate on the issues and not shrink from the fight.  It is far too easy to show that Big Government (Obama) and Big Business (GE, et al) are really partners in dividing up the spoils amongst themselves and telling the rest of us how to live our lives.

Remembering Reagan

Ronald Reagan famously said that the statists believe:

“If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

There is currently no more telling example of this than Senator Chuck Schumer bloviating about Spirit Air Lines charging passengers for carry on baggage.  He wants to introduce legislation prohibiting this.  Hey, Chuck, if you don’t like Spirit charging you for your carryon bags, pick another airline!  That’s how markets work.  But the genius that is Washington is, NO we have to regulate that!  So the idiots would pass a law prohibiting charging for carryon bags and the airlines will respond by raising ALL ticket prices to compensate.  So instead of my having a choice of carrying a bag on board or saving the money, or choosing another airline altogether, the government will make everything equal and more expensive.

So, Chuck, how are you and your pals doing as far as growing the economy and getting the unemployment rate down?   Maybe you should spend some time on that, no?

From being the foregone conclusion as the first woman President of the United States in 2008 to a marginalized, snarky misrepresentative of the United States, it time for her to realize, the band stopped playing and everyone has gone home but her.  It’s time to call it a day and resign.

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

Proving, once again, he is the master of hardball politics, Barack Obama dangled the Secretary of State job in front of his vanquished rival.  She took the bait.  No more would she be a force in the Senate able to challenge Obama at the first stumble.  She was now part of the problem, not a potential solution.  Once ensconced at Foggy Bottom, she thought she enhance her image by holding the most prestigious post in the Cabinet.  But she again underestimated Barack Obama.

He proceeded to divvy up foreign policy among many advisers, undercutting Hillary every step of the way.  She’s no fool, she can see it and it is eating away at her, to the point where she is becoming a gaffe machine to rival Joe Biden.

She’s No Condoleezza Rice

Upstaged by her husband in North Korea, negotiating the release of the journalist hostages, she was asked what her husband thought about another matter while in Africa.  In a similar situation, Condoleezza Rice, would have handled that with aplomb and not become rattled. But here is Hillary’s response.  Hillary Snaps.  Smacking down a questioner on the world stage?  Well that will surely “correct” our image as the Ugly Americans.

The Apology Tour Continues

She goes on to make a speech in Nigeria and wants to emphasize that there is no place in the world for corrupt elections.  A very good point to make, that few could argue with.  But what does she use as an analogy?  She openly suggests that Jeb Bush fixed the 2000 Presidential election for his brother.  Of all the analogies of corrupt elections that she could have used, let’s see, Iran?  Cuba?  the old Soviet Union? she points to the oldest democracy in history and suggest that we are as corrupt as any third world dictator.  Hillary Compares U.S. Elections to Third World Corruption.  Disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful.  Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who endorsed Hillary to take his Senate seat, must be turning over in his grave.  He used to staunchly defend the United States at the UN and here his protege is saying we are no better than the worst of them.

In Honduras, the rule of law is being followed to prevent a Chavez style dictator from taking over that country, and who does Hillary and the Obama administration support?  The Chavez puppet.  What about standing up for democracy in our Hemisphere?  It is time for her to go.

The Gore Thing in 2000

Let’s get this straight one more time.  On election night 2000, Gore lost Florida.  He lost the recount.  He lost the re-recount.  He lost the re-re-recount.  He lost the official recount.  He lost the private recount sponsored by newspapers.

Their count showed that Bush’s razor-thin margin of 537 votes — certified in December by the Florida Secretary of State’s office — would have tripled to 1,665 votes if counted according to standards advocated by his Democratic rival, former Vice President Al Gore.

“In the end, I think we probably confirmed that President Bush should have been president of the United States,” said Mark Seibel, the paper’s managing editor. “I think that it was worthwhile because so many people had questions about how the ballots had been handled and how the process had worked.” — CNN

If Democrats and their radical supporters want to salve their wounds with this myth, live the fantasy.  But don’t smear this country with these lies while acting as our chief diplomat.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, entitled, “What You Might Not Know About the Recovery,” that might more appropriately be entitled, “What I Don’t Know About the Recovery,” Joe Biden educates us on the stimulus.  It’s typical after the fact political obfuscation to try to convince people that they are not really seeing what they see with their own two eyes.

He begins in typical fashion going back to when he and Barack Obama took office, but avoids mentioning President Bush by name:

We still have a long way to go, but clearly we are closer to recovery today than we were in January.

This is a true statement, but I would argue that this is in spite of the $787 billion of our money squandered on the stimulus plan, while Mr. Biden says it is because of it.  It is instructive to see how someone begins their defense of an issue and Mr. Biden begins by saying that not all of our $787 billion is being spent on pork barrel projects.

Notwithstanding this progress, the nature of the Recovery Act remains misunderstood by many, and misconstrued by others: critics have suggested that the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet programs. As the person leading the administration’s efforts to put the Recovery Act into effect, I want to set the record straight.

He takes up the position that the statists typically do, that we are too stupid to understand.  This is complex stuff, America, way over your head.  You need us in the political class to take care of this for you.  Notice he didn’t say there was no pork barrel spending.  He says that not the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet projects. (Don’t forget the $30 million for Nancy Pelosi’s salt marsh harvest mouse).  Feel better?

Tax Cuts?

He says the single largest part of the recovery act is tax cuts, more than one third.  Huh?  Does he mean the $8 per week in lower payroll taxes?  That’s going to stimulate the economy?  At the same time they are finding trillions, TRILLIONS, in new taxes and spending through Cap and Trade, Heath Care reform, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, that will dwarf the paltry $8 per week that people are probably saving, rather than spending, if they even notice it at all.

Transfer Payments

The second largest chunk, Mr. Biden tells us, is for transfer payments.  In other words, money from the federal government given to state and local governments. Where do all governments get their money from?  Us.  So taking our money in federal taxes and giving it to state and local governments helps us exactly how?  Don’t forget the portion of each dollar that gets lost along the way as each bureaucracy handles it.

What are these transfer payments going to be used for?  Uncle Joe tells us:

The money is allowing state governments to avoid laying off teachers (14,000 in New York City alone), firefighters and police officers and preventing states’ budget gaps from growing wider.

The dictionary defines recovery as returning to health, consciousness, etc.  This part of the stimulus does nothing to stimulate the economy.  It’s another one of the Obama administration’s wonderful fictions about saving jobs.  As the economy continues to shed jobs even above the level that the Obama administration told us it would go without the stimulus Biden boasts that they saved the jobs of government workers; union workers; Democratic voters.  Also it helps bloated state governments that have mismanaged their finances from having to make fiscally responsible decisions but keeping them fat, dumb, and happy.  By the way, which states seems to be in the most financial trouble?  California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan?  Aren’t those all “blue” states?  So is the Obama adminisitration helping America or helping themselves?

On Track?

Mr. Biden says that we are on track and that 25% of the funds have been committed.  What exactly does that mean, committed?  If you go to Recovery.gov, you will see that as of this week, only 8.5% of the money has actually been spent.  Give Mr. Biden a calculator, please.  With the three chunks that the Vice President says comprise the stimulus: tax cuts, transfer payments, and infrastructure projects, and that signs of recovery are due to the stimulus, how can the stimulus have that kind of affect when only 8.5% of the money has been spent?

The Resiliency of the American Economy

The American economy is the envy of the world.  It is resilient beyond description.  It is recovering on its own, despite government interference, and the government meddling that caused this recession.  The American people are no longer being fooled by the smooth talking Barack and Joe Show.  A Rasmussen poll shows that only 25% of the American people believe that the stimulus has helped the economy.  If that’s not bad enough 31% say that the stimulus has actually hurt the economy.  On top of that 45% say the rest of the stimulus should be cancelled.

The Stupid American People

With 92% of the stimulus yet to be spent 9% more Americans say cancel the rest than say to keep going.  So Mr. Biden grabs the op-ed page of the New York Times to, sigh, lecture the American people once again on how they misunderstand, and misconstrue what your benevolent, socialist leaning government is trying to do for you.  How ungrateful can you be?  If you people don’t get it, then the president and vice president will just have to take over the rest of the economy and set you all straight.  They will tell you how much you can earn, what cars to buy, what food to eat, what kind of light bulbs to put in your house, control how much energy you can use in your house through the smart grid, what medical treatment you can have, and when you have to die.

The Sleeping Giant Awakes

The American people have been charmed by Barack Obama as he is a very charming man.  He is an historic president.  But they are starting to notice the tea parties, the abdication of the main stream media to do their job, the warnings about what is happening to their country and they are starting to pay attention.  The more they see and hear the more Obama’s approval ratings drop.  So he pushes harder and faster.  It will be a close race to see if President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can ram through their agenda and slam the door behind them, or if we can wrestle back control of our liberties and send these people packing.

It’s time to brush off the Constitution, read the 10th amendment, and start stripping the federal government back down to the size the founders envisioned.  That will give more power to the states and the people and make government more accountable.  Face it, when your Congressman represents several hundred thousand constituents and their voice is only one of 435 in the House of Representatives, is it any wonder that the founders gave them only the powers spelled out in the Constitution.  They believed that effective government has to be responsive to the people.  That is impossible in Washington.  It is too big.  It is run by too many unelected career bureaucrats.  It has too much power to tax us, regulate us, spend our tax dollars on things to which we are morally opposed, and interfere with our liberties.

This is a critical time in our history and time to roll back the unrelenting growth of government and shrink it down to size.

$18 Million for This?

$18 million folks, that’s how much the federal government is going to spend to improve the web site that tells us how they are spending the stimulus money. $18 million. They will be spending $9.5 through January, and another $8.5 million through 2014.  I don’t need a calendar nor a calculator to figure out that’s five years from now.  Are they trying to tell us now that this recession is going to last five years?

Stagnant Stimulus

If we remember President Obama and Vice President Biden telling us how urgently we needed the stimulus package and that there was no time to waste to avert a catastrophe.  Right now the unemployment rate with the stimulus is higher than they told us it would be if they did NOTHING.

Less than 10% of the stimulus money has been spent with most of it being transfers to state and local government.  The economy is showing signs of turning around on its own, and I say that because with such a small percentage of the stimulus having been spent it contributed little to the improving conditions.  So naturally, the political class is starting to talk about another stimulus package.  You would almost think that they wanted to drag this out.

Reminiscent of Roosevelt

Through the Great Depression, the steps that Roosevelt took didn’t turn the economy around.  Unemployment remained high until World War II absorbed every able bodied man into the armed forces.  Yet Roosevelt was elected to four terms in office.  Why?  The first three terms were through the Depression.  Although Roosevelt’s policies didn’t work, he knew how to communicate on a personal level.  He held “fireside chats.”  He, through the radio, came into people’s living rooms and soothingly assured them that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.  Trust Roosevelt, he will take care of us, he will see us through.

President Obama’s personal approval ratings continue to fly high, even as the wreckage of almost every campaign promise is strewn around the countryside.  He is certainly likable and his election is historic, but will that be enough to carry him as his inexperience is laid bare at every turn.  But, as the former governor of New York and Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt had executive experience.  Obama brought no executive experience with him.

Czars Aplenty

So who is running the government?  Obama had 16-18 Czars, depending on who is counting, who are not vetted by the Senate like Cabinet Secretaries and a host of other appointees are.  So where are the checks and balances?  Even Robert Byrd is concerned that the may be violating the Constitution.  If this weren’t so serious, you would think it was a pilot for a sitcom.  What aspect of this administration is not out of control?  Let’s hope we can all survive long enough to make it back to the voting booth.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Joe Biden said the Obama administration “misread how bad the economy was” but stands by its stimulus package and believes the plan will create more jobs as the pace of its spending picks up.

Does that mean Obama lied?  Biden lied?  Where’s the outrage?

There is none, which is how it should be.  But it is instructive to contrast this with what happened with President Bush.  Bush relied on intelligence from the CIA, the French, the British and others.  It all pointed in the same direction.  The information was shared with Congress and there was overwhelming bipartisan support authorizing the use of force in Iraq with 40% of Democrats voting in favor in the House and 58% in the Senate.  The senior members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Republicans and Democrats saw the intelligence.  When it was later determined that weapons of mass destruction could not be found, the mantra was “Bush lied.”  The Democrats hid under their desks rather than refute that remark.

In the case of the stimulus, the projections of unemployment capping out at 8% rather than where it is today, prompting Biden’s mea culpa, was entirely within the control of the administration.  It wasn’t corroborated by other nations’ agencies.  In addition, every Republican in the House voted against it and all but three in the Senate.  So in which situation would there be a more credible charge of lying?

But unlike the Main Stream Media and the statists, I am reluctant accuse them of deliberately lying about their policies.  Perhaps, the aforementioned Main Stream Media and the statists will show some restraint in the future and return to the days of a spirited but honest debate on the issues?  I’m not holding my breath.

Joe Biden hit the airwaves on Sunday to try to damp down the growing feeling that Americans have that their president is not Barack Obama, but Bernie Madoff.  Sold a bill of goods that the urgently needed stimulus package of $787 billion would cap unemployment at 8% and prevent it from reaching 9% in the absence of said stimulus, the American people are realizing they were fleeced.  Here’s Joe:

“Vice President Joe Biden said on a Monday conference call with reporters that it was “above [his] pay grade” to explain in detail the methodology the White House uses to estimate the number of jobs created or saved by the economic stimulus legislation, but stressed that there had been no “reasonable” challenges to the estimates.”

Biden used the same coy formulation as his boss used to answer the question concerning abortion and when life begins, i.e., “above my pay grade.”  Well, then let’s wheel in the person in the next pay grade up to explain it to you, Joe.  This is the guy who Obama put in charge of watching how the stimulus money is spent.  So as to really put you at ease, Joe added this gem:

“I’m sorry I’m not an economist,” Biden said as he was describing the methodology. “My background is foreign policy and the constitution.”

Just when you thought it was safe to believe that on the job training for President Obama might be working, his sidekick lets go with that thigh slapper. So who’s watching foreign policy and the constitution?  This president insists that $787 billion of your tax dollars are needed to boost the economy and it is left in the hands of a man who admittedly doesn’t know what he’s doing.

You Have to Spin It to Win It

45% of the American people, according to a Rasmussen poll, believe the remainder of the stimulus package should be cancelled.  Uh-oh, start the spin machine.  So Joe Biden says,

“Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that “everyone guessed wrong” on the impact of the economic stimulus, but he defended the administration’s spending designed to combat rising joblessness.”

Everyone, Joe?  If I’m not mistaken every Republican Congressman voted against that odious bill and only three Republican senators, including Arlen Specter, who has moved over to your team.  So, Joe, you should modify that to “every Democrat guessed wrong, while the Republicans were spot on.”    And if that’s not bad enough, Rasmussen tells us that 48% of Americans do not believe new stimulus spending will create more jobs.  So membership in your “everyone club” is getting mighty lean.

Rubbing Salt in the Wound

If that’s not bad enough for Joe and his team, consider this: a new Rasmussen poll says that 51% of Americans favor an across-the-board tax cut for ALL Americans to stimulate the economy.  So much for soak the rich and class warfare.  Most Americans know that we are all in this together and we all need to pitch in to get out.  Tax cuts work.  Spending doesn’t.

Here’s where we are four weeks after the election:

1. Appointments — With the Thanksgiving shortened week, it was mostly packaging of the previously announced appointments.  Monday was going to be the big day, with the formal announcement of Hillary and Holder.  They had to get Bill Clinton’s ducks in a row, and have him measured for a leash.
2. Dow Jones Industrial Average — Up 675 points. Team Obama finally got a win.  One of the reasons is that Obama has stopped talking about eliminating the Bush tax cuts early, but letting them expire in 2010.  Also, he seems to be assembling an experienced economic team, well known to Wall Street, which doesn’t hurt.
3. The New Leader – Obama has answered critics who say the team he is assembling looks a lot like the old Clinton White House, by saying that they are “Experienced, Yet Fresh.”  He is facing grumblings on his left, which brings into question how is he going to keep this team of wild horses under control?

The Challenge for Obama

Where is Obama’s base of support?  Where can he fall back on for strength?  He may well be pulling together a team of experienced hands for the various departments, but not all of them are cut from the same mold and there will be some tugging and pulling.  How does he keep them in check and how does he get them back in line?  In other words, where are his reinforcements?

In another post, I mention how past presidents, most of whom had executive experience as governors, brought some of their loyal people with them.  These were people who believed in their candidate and had been with him for a number of years.  That loyalty can be called in, like chits, when you need to win a battle.

It took Johnson a while, about two years, to get his people in the administration since he had inherited the Kennedy team when he ascended to the presidency, but he did have eleven years in the House and twelve years in the Senate, including six years as Senate Majority Leader.  So he had a lot of markers to call in if he needed them.

Kennedy was probably closest to Obama in lack of experience including no executive experience outside of the Navy, but he did have eight years in the Senate.  In addition, he had Papa Joe Kennedy, who had many strings of his own including being a former Ambassador to England; he had his own blood brother as Attorney General; and another brother Ted would be elected to the Senate two years later.  So while Jack Kennedy may not personally have had a lot of pull, his family had plenty.

Nixon was a former two term Vice President.  Ford had been House Minority Leader.  Carter had been governor and was able to bring some of his former team with him, as was  Reagan who had served two terms as governor of California, and Bill Clinton who was both Attorney General and Governor of Arkansas.  George Bush Senior was Vice President, and George W. was governor of Texas.  They all had many connections and a lot of political IOUs.

But what does Barack Obama do, after the glow of history is replaced by the hard work of governing?  It is more likely that Barack Obama wrote a lot of political IOUs rather than him holding them.  Many of his confidents uncovered during the campaign, turned out to be less than appealing to the nation as a whole.  When the going gets tough, who’s going to have Barack Obama’s back?  Who can he turn to and say, I need this one and because of thus and so, without having to say it, you owe me?  He has very little history with his team.  So when he needs a favor, he will have to deal almost from the get go.  Whose career has he made, such that he can ask for payback?

Experience Counts

Experience counts not just in knowing how to do a job, but it also counts in terms of who you know.  Rarely in our history has there been someone who has so little experience inside or outside the beltway.  This may well result in a very weak president.  For all of our sakes, I hope I am wrong.

One of the first tests of a presidential candidate’s judgement concerns who he or she picks for their running mate.  It’s hard to imagine how this presidential candidate could have possibly made a bigger mistake, and I am not talking about John McCain.

Much has been made about Sarah Palin’s qualifications, with Colin Powell being the latest to weigh in saying, “I don’t believe she’s ready to be President of the United States.”  But what about Joe Biden?  I am guessing that by now the Obama campaign has scheduled Joe Biden’s appearances over the next two weeks in Outer Mongolia.  For the Republicans, he’s the gift that keeps on giving.  His latest prognostication gave us the following:

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

So let me get this straight, if we elect Obama, his Vice President guarantees we will have an international crisis on our hands and it won’t be apparent that they will do the right thing.  Would that be like when Russia invaded Georgia and Barack Obama’s first comment was for both sides to exercise restraint.  When he came to the realization that one country invaded the other, he offered up that the U.N. Security Council should debate this issue and offer a resolution.  When he came to the realization that Russia has a veto over any U.N. Security Council resolution, he then lined up with John McCain’s position, that Russia should get out.

To summarize what Joe Biden said:

• Obama is inexperienced
• Our adversaries will see this inexperience as an opportunity for advantage and will purposely test the United States under a President Obama
• It will be like when John Kennedy was President (where we came the closest in our history to nuclear war)
• Whatever Obama does will probably be wrong
• We need to stand behind Barack Obama until he finally figures it out and gets it right

This is the experienced half of the Obama-Biden ticket, telling us about an impending crisis and we’re supposed to pull the lever for Obama and what? duck for cover?

I don’t want leave you on such a depressing note so let me share some of the lighter Biden gaffes:

• “Stand up, Chuck, let ‘em see ya” to wheelchair bound Missouri State Senator Chuck Graham.
• “Hillary is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be Vice President of the United States of America.  Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me”
• “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t talk about the, you know, the princes of greed.  He said, “Look, here’s what happened.”  When the stock market crashed, Herbert Hoover was president, not FDR, and television had not yet been invented.
• “Look, John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S.” Uh, that’s four letters, Joe.

If Barack Obama wins, I can only quote Bette Davis, “Fasten your seatbelts.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”