The sad quality of corruption in the Obama Administration.
Back in 2008-2009, one of the few consolations for we who remained hopeless in that dawn of hope and change was the chance to see some world-class Chicago-style corruption. No more of this Halliburton-told-Cheney-not-to-worry-there’d-be-WMDs-piled-in-the-streets-of-Basra tomfoolery, none of this third-rate Arkansas sleight-of-hand with the cattle futures records.
No, we were gonna see some brazen Windy City politicking. Tony Rezko in charge of HUD. Secretary of Defense Herb “Hefty” Kowalski (formerly Ward 57 waste-hauling commissioner). Somebody’s ex-con uncle in charge of the FBI. Ambassador Blago.
But nearly three years into the reign of the Sun King, and the administration’s corruption is no more effective than its legitimate policies (though, given the way ObamaCare came into being, one could be forgiven for confusing the two).
"And right over there, Mr. President, is where we're gonna store that pile of cash for your re-election campaign."
It would be understandable were it just the president himself. He probably learned no more in Chicago than he did at Occidental, Columbia or the Harvard Law Review. (Constitutional scholar? Please.) The affirmative action didn’t end at graduation. They were stealing h
im elections while he concentrated on attaining the proper air of cool, analytical detachment and getting that pants crease right. About the only thing he seems to have taken from the City with the Big Shoulders is a community organizer’s fondness for mau mauing the opposition.
But he had some real pros around him: Red diaper baby and one-time Chicago Tribune “journalist” David Axelrod. Eric “Pardons” Holder, who helped give us one last Clinton scandal for the road. Heck, wasn’t Rahm “Dead Fish” Emanual Obama’s Chief of Staff? That guy that made $18 million in three years working for Freddie Mac (three years that coincided with a lot of accounting “irregularities”) and then walked away smelling … not like a dead fish?
What a disappointment. Look, nobody expects Democrat programs to work, but the party of Tammany Hall, Billy Bulger and the Daily Dynasty should be able to get corruption right. But this gang has proven hapless.
To wit:
New Black Panther Gate: Are you kidding? If Chicago didn’t invent voting “irregularities” it raised them to an art form. These guys couldn’t even make a simple voter intimidation case go away without publicity. The two New Black Panthers caught on film menacing white voters in Philadelphia during the 2008 election were small-time and, with all the unicorns and rainbows and butterflies unleashed by Obama’s election, should have been utterly forgotten. OK, the investigation was begun under Bush, and a career lawyer, J. Christian Adams, decided to get all ethical and blow the whistle on Holder’s … indifference to the case. But Great Scarface’s Ghost! have Chicagoans lost the
"And here's the best part, Blago: the guns will only kill Mexicans! It's not like they'll be used to shoot our ICE agents. Great idea, right?"
ability to shut up an inconvenient witness?
Fast & Furious: What has it come to when the party of government can’t manage to use government in a nefarious manner to help grow government? On the surface, it’s kind of a neat idea, and super-attractive to liberal statists: get the ATF to buy legal guns in America, ship them to drug gangs south of the border and be shocked-shocked! when they turn up in violent crimes down there. “Why, we need to severely curtail the sale of weapons in our country, so they don’t go to Mexican narco-terrorists.”
But, as the left never seems to learn, liberals aren’t as smart as they think, and the rest of us aren’t as dumb as they think. The wrong people got killed. Someone added 2+2, and suddenly it’s “Yes Congressman Issa, no Congressman Issa.”
Solyndra: Do liberals think their corruption is more excusable if it’s in the service of failure? That would help explain this high-speed train-wreck. You slam through a half billion dollars in loan guarantees to a solar panel-maker (who’s other main investor just happens to have been a big-time bundler for your election campaign).
Of course, said manufacturer needs those guarantees because the market isn’t willing to capitalize it without them. Why? Oh, its competitors in China are making the same product for pennies on the dollar, and it’s got warehouses full of unsold solar panels. Oh, and nobody else has been able to make the business work without government subsidy.
OK, liberals’ blind faith in government means they don’t get business, so maybe that’s understandable. But if you’re gonna do something shady with $550 million of taxpayer money, have the good sense not to publicize it ahead of time. But Solyndra was the poster child for Obama’s green jobs pipe dream. They had a ceremony. Joe Biden was there by satellite – presumably, Amtrac didn’t run there.
We’re left with the spectacle of Obama cronies taking the fifth while even the mainstream media are publishing embarrassing details about whistling showers and robotic spas, or something.
This is embarrassing. The French are having a hearty laugh at our incompetence in extra-governmental activities. Tin-pot dictators in Latin America are cringing. Superpower, indeed!
Like all liberals, Obama’s always on about investing in our “competitiveness.” Given the sad state of corruption in his government, he may want to remember that investment begins at home.
Not much to report on the political odds front, except that, all the 
Who says these young people aren’t mixing cold reality with their idealism?
Every year Bodog tries to do it’s best at handicapping the the presidential elections. This year they’ve released odds for the Republican primary and Bodog seems to agree that Romney and Perry are the frontrunners, both receiving 5/4 odds. Gambling is big business and Bodog’s foray into political handicapping is probably nothing more than a publicity thing but you can really make some money doing this. With laws regarding online gambling having effected that sites that involve 
