President Obama ran a campaign promising change.  He ran promising openness and a ethical administration while denouncing the Bush administration.  However, the reality seems to be quite different (like so much of Obama’s campaign rhetoric vs. reality).  So far, Obama’s track record for ethical nominees is closer to a bad SNL skit rather than an administration that the American people can be proud of.

- Bill Richardson withdrew his name to be Commerce Secretary due to a grand jury investigation into political favors to donors.

- Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner failed to pay more than $40,000 in payroll taxes when he worked for the International Monetary Fund.  This is the person who was placed in charge of collecting taxes from the rest of us?  What would happen to any of us for not paying $40,000 in taxes?  I doubt we would get a promotion.

- Tom Daschle, nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, had to withdraw his name today as pressure mounted.  The problems Daschle faced were due to his filing more than $140,000 in back taxes and interest (he failed to disclose more than $300,000 in past income, including the use of a car and driver for three years).

- Nancy Killefer had to withdraw her name today as well due to tax issues.  She “failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help, has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government.”  Chief Performance Officer?  Seems like with her tax issues she fits right in with the rest of Obama’s picks.

I thought it was patriotic to pay taxes?  Someone get Vice President Biden on the phone!

Judea Pearl, the father of Daniel Pearl who was kidnapped and beheaded by terrorists in the name of the “religion of peace,” writes about the mainstream legitimization of terrorism by Western media and academia.

The key graph:

But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of “resistance,” has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words “war on terror” cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.

I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism — the ideological license to elevate one’s grievances above the norms of civilized society — was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable “tactical” considerations.

Frank Gaffney writes that this mentality is adhered to and promoted by President Obama:

Several observers have noted in recent days that Mr. Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world is not only defensive and apologetic. It explicitly embraces a narrative that is factually erroneous and deprecating to his own country.

For example, in his Inaugural address, the president spoke of seeking “a new way forward [with the Muslim world], based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” He amplified this idea during his first post-Inaugural interview, which was granted to a Saudi-owned network, Al Arabiya: He is determined to “restore” the “same respect and partnership America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago.”

The problem with this formulation is that it misrepresents the more distant as well as the recent past, even as it panders to those (abroad and at home) who would blame the United States for the ills of the Muslim world.

He continues:

Mr. Obama has also seriously mischaracterized our enemy as “a far-reaching network of violence and hatred,” averring “We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence done in that faith’s name.” Such statements deliberately ignore the animating and unifying role in jihad of authoritative Islam’s violent and hateful theo-political-legal program: Shariah.

What is really worrying is that Mr. Obama’s actions and rhetoric are almost certainly being perceived by his target audience as evidence not of respect but of subservience - precisely what Islam (literally, “submission” in Arabic) requires of all of us, Muslims and non-Muslims, alike.

Many supporters of Obama appreciate his supposed ability to improve the American image in the eyes of the rest of the world.  However, if the world is blind to evil, if it refuses to denounce terrorism as a barbaric attack on civilization, if it would rather protect itself than stand up to the most obvious tyrannies in human history (the former Soviet Union, North Korea, Saddam’s Iraq, Sudan, Iran and any other state that endorses Shariah law),  should we really be concerned with seeking the world’s approval?  Weren’t we supposed to learn in high school that seeking popularity for its own sake is worthless?

So I’m at the grocery store today in suburban Washington, DC.  There is a woman in her 40’s in front of me in the checkout line with whom I presume to be her late teens/early twenties daughter.  The daughter is dressed incredibly well: the latest fashions, the latest hairdo and all the latest gadgets, bells and whistles.  The cashier rings up their items: a 12 pack of bottled Miller Light, a case of Bottled Water, a 12 pack of Lipton Brisk Iced Tea, a 12 pack of Ginger Ale, a DVD (Are we Done Yet? starring Ice Cube) and various other food items.  (Despite what it sounds like, I wasn’t actually taking notes.)  Her bill comes to $171.  She turns to the cashier and tells him that she has $51 dollars left in food stamps for the week, swipes her card and her bill magically becomes $120.  She pays the rest with a credit/debit card.

Now, I don’t have anything against helping the poor, but what is wrong with this picture?  Is this the picture of “social justice” that Liberals talk about ad nauseum?  Does the government really intend for people to buy DVDs with food stamps?  Do the taxpayers really need to support someone who’s spending $50 on items that are clearly luxury items.  I don’t have any problem with luxury items when you pay for them yourself.  But when you’re on the government’s (read: the American people’s) dime, you probably shouldn’t be buying anything starring Ice Cube and you certainly shouldn’t be buying bottled water for crying out loud.  (Note: I live in urban DC.  While the tap water here was once unsafe for consumption - and the city actually mailed water filters to each residence - those problems have been fixed.  Unless there’s some health scare of which I’m not aware, it’s perfectly healthy for her to drink out of the tap).

This experience underlines the problem with socialism and government programs in general.  There are unintended consequences for every action.  When legislators on Capitol Hill supported a bill to help the poor with food stamps, they certainly weren’t thinking of supporting this woman’s desire to dress her daughter in flashy clothes, entertain her family with DVDs and pop open a cool bottle of Miller Light at the end of the day.  But naturally, when this woman has $50 of her grocery bill covered by the government, it enables her to afford luxury items that she otherwise would not have been able to.  (Another anecdote:  A friend of my mother’s teaches in inner-city schools and she says that its easy to spot the families who are on food stamps because their children have the nicest/most expensive shoes.)

Capital L Liberalism presupposes that human beings have a perfect understanding of human nature and can predict with certitude that Action X with have Effect Y (and only Effect Y).  This is patently false and impossible.  But under the tenets of Liberalism, the government is omniscient and can perfectly shape human action through legislation.  It has a moral duty to fix the problems in this world!  Sadly, however, it creates more problems (and injustice) in the process.

Its not that conservatives don’t care about helping the poor.  We just don’t think that the government is the “man for the job.”  We despise government assistance/intervention because we care about helping the poor (instead of fake-helping them over the short term).  How did the woman’s experience help her in the long run?  Did it teach her to save?  Did it teach her that hard work pays off?  Did it teach her daughter that sometimes you have to forego the DVD and the bottled water in order to keep up with the latest fashions?  Of course not!  It taught her that the government will take care of you with money that magically appears; you can work less and still buy more than you are able to afford.  Thus, the poor will always be poor.

On the bright side, I got to meet the woman who ended up with the 12 pack of Lipton Brisk that I could’ve afforded had the government not taken my money and given it to the woman in front of me in the checkout line.