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Monday, February 2, 2009

Obama's Idea of Honest Government?

Obama promised hope, change, and honest government. He's still making those noises even as he appoints tax evaders to his cabinet. Can anyone really believe that Tom Daschle overlooked $128,000 in errors on his taxes? Please. Then there's Tim Geithner who failed to pay almost $26,000 in self-employment taxes from work at the International Monetary Fund and also didn't pay taxes for his housekeeper who was working illegally during the last three months she was his employee. This guy is qualified to be Treasury Secretary when he can't even fill out his tax forms?

There are plenty of other scandals swirling around the Democrats, but somehow they always manage to be swept under the rug. Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committe, failed to report $75,000 in income over a number of years and when he ponied up the back taxes paid no penalties. Just to put a personal spin on this, last year my husband and I didn't have enough income withheld to please the IRS. At the end of the year when we paid the additional taxes we were FINED for not sending in enough during the year and owing too much. The feds have never sent us interest for paying too much, however. What a shell game for these politicians who just make "honest mistakes" that incur no penalty.

Add to the corruption, the mainstream media bias. Time Magazine included in its ten biggest scandals of the year Sarah Palin's wardrobe. Excuse me! What the Republican Committee did was perfectly legal and the wardrobe was donated to charity after the election - no scandal at all. Did anyone ever ask how much Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama's clothes cost? Or whether they were all donated by Hollywood fashion designers? Not that I can recall. But they couldn't get anything legitimate to trash the lady with so they had to fabricate a "scandal" out of thin air.

What happens when real criminal scandals occur? We hear the President of the United States calling tax evasion "honest mistakes" and the media gives him a pass. No, actually they downplay it as a "hiccup" or a "speed bump."

Of course there are crooks on both sides of the aisle, but it would be interesting to compare the disparity in treatment - both at the government level and with the fourth estate. As for Obama's promise of hope, change, and honest government -- it was all political posturing to achieve his goal, which once again demonstrates the philosophy of the father of community organizing , Saul Alinsky. Victory is all that matters.

4 comments:

  1. What happens when real criminal scandals occur?

    You mean like spying, torture making up excuses to go to war in Iraq so they can paint their finger purple? Yea that was worth 580 billion dollars and more than 4,000 lives.... but in republican land, those are not crimes... just tax avoidance which has already been paid back with penalties and interest.

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  2. You left out going to war to distract the country from what you're doing with interns in the Oval Office.

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  3. Hmmmm....sexual conduct in the oval office or thousands of lives lost due to George Bush's deceptions that led our country to war with Iraq? I prefer sex scandals any day. Which lies cause death and destruction? The lies from the right cost more lives.

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  4. Clinton's war of distraction didn't have any casualties?

    The point is that Obama claimed he was going to change the way things are done in Washington. His idea of change is more of same re government corruption of his party and expanding the biggest war of all -- the war against the unborn which has killed more than all other wars combined.

    Incidentally, I opposed the war in Iraq and the neo-conservative philosophy that fueled it. True conservativism seeks smaller government, respect for constitutional principles starting with the right to life, and a moral foreign policy rather than one that denies foreign aid to third world nations that refuse to murder their own children.

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