The Obama Cabinet: Hope, Change, and Indiscretion

Sunday Paper - January 18th, 2009

Barack Obama promised hope and change, however it appears that a parasitic, criminal element is already seeping into Washington.  It hasn’t been smooth sailing for Obama and his footmen.  As Senate hearing confirmations unfold, the questionable character of several characters has come into question.

We’ll begin with Eric Holder, Obama’s nominee for Attorney General.  Holder is best know for his involvement in helping Marc Rich win a pardon from President Clinton.  Rich, a billionaire fugitive, was second on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list and fled the country to avoid 50 counts of tax evasion, fraud, and racketeering.  The ex-wife of Rich had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Clinton’s presidential campaign.  Holder’s record also comes up spotty with regards to terrorist surveillance, clemency for a militant group who utilized bombings in its demand for Puerto Rican independence, and refusal to investigate Al Gore’s violations of campaign finance laws.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was Obama’schoice for Secretary of Commerce.  However, Richardson withdrew after reports of an ongoing grand jury investigation into state contracting and political contribution impropreities that have surfaced from Richardson’s dealings with a California based company. 

Although not officially a cabinet position, Leon Panetta was tagged for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Panetta has received sharp criticism from Senators and some in the media for having zero background in intelligence.  The former Clinton staffer was not even Obama’s first choice to fill the post, John Brennan withdrew from consideration prior to officially being nominated.

The Republican staff on the Senate Finance Committee are not quick to approve Obama’s pick for Secretary  of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle.  The committee is carefully scrutinizing a wide range of financial documents, including his tax records and his association with an education-loan provider that had already been under investigation.

Honors of the position of Secretary of Transportation have been offered up to Ray LaHood.  LaHood’s Senate hearing has been placed on hold because of his delay in turning over information to federal law enforcement officials until recently.  LaHood has close ties to William Cellini who has been indicted in the “pay-to-play” scandal that has nailed Rod Blagojevich.  Leslie Paige, from the watchdog group Citizens Against Geovernment Waste says, “This guy has a history of pork barrel spending and lot of a questionable spending linked to his friends. He’s going to be in charge of funneling hundreds of billions of dollars into local projects . . . and he’s not going to be suddenly changing his stripes tomorrow.”  The FBI is now scrambling at the eleventh hour, trying to complete a thorough background check.

President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and Robert Rubin disciple Timothy Geithner is Obama’s selection for Secretary of Treasury.  It’s quite baffling how little a “banker” and his accountants know about filing tax returns.  According to the Senate Finance Committee, Geithner wrote his check to the IRS for more than $48,000 just hours prior to his nomination.  Highlights of his tax evasion include receiving a refund from the IMF for taxes he did not pay, claiming his children’s summer camp costs as “childcare expenses,” and failing to file proper immigration paperwork for three of his housekeepers.  Geithner will be grilled in front of the committee this week.

The hope and change we’ve been promised, appears more and more like the unscrupulous business as usual in Washington.  As Obama and his integrity-challenged clowns roll into town, one thing is certain, they can not be trusted.  There is an old Latin saying, “Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.”  The meaning is simple and fitting, “False in one thing, false in all.”

Video from FOXNews of Dennis Miller on The O’Reilly Factor from December 2008

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