No less than the liberal fish wrap rag New York Times has reported that seven months into his presidency and Obama has 43 percent of the top policy-making jobs requiring Senate approval still empty, including such positions as Secretary of the Army and Director of the Agency for International Development.

Meanwhile, he has, so far at least, appointed going on 40-something so-called "czars," (a) which are at best extra-constitutional, if not unconstitutional, positions; (b) many of which duplicate existing cabinet secretarial and other federal government positions; and (c) many of which are being filled with Obama loyalists who possess what may be charitably called  "questionable" credentials, either with backgrounds totally unrelated to the czar position they're given or, in at least one case so far, the outright criminal background of a self-avowed communist.

I guess it is easier, though, and perhaps more "distracting" to those of us in the great unwashed masses out here in the hinterland, to simply appoint approximately a czar a week (oh, it's Friday, so what new czar do we have this week?), to not only give the illusion that you are doing something to solve problems but to also accomplish political payback and establish a "shadow government of czars" (a) whose salaries are unknown, (b) whose staff sizes and salaries are unknown, (c) most of whom until you appointed them were also unknown, (d) some of whom even though you have appointed them are still unknown, (e) and who are loyal only to you and not even accountable to the Congress. That's all easier, as well as more showy, than contending with that pesky and contentious ole Senate and working to get 43 percent of the policy-making positions which are actually authorized in the federal government expeditiously vetted (remember vetting?) and filled.  

And while the czar issue is both growing and ongoing, that's not all the manipulative misdirection our presidential prestidigitator and his administration henchmen offer us. The most recent is the CIA thing -- again -- and it's not just to appease their left-wing nutjobs, either. They're also doing it now as another distraction, to "change the conversation."

It came out late Friday (of course, Friday -- that's the end of the regular weekly news cycle when the White House usually dumps bad news) that Team Obama had "underestimated" the debt they've stuck us and future generations with in just over six months and it's going to be NINE TRILLION instead of the "paltry" SEVEN TRILLION that was previously announced. Of course, with the way Obama and this Congress spend money we not only don't have but also may not have even printed yet, I guess a couple of TRILLION is more or less just a "rounding error" so far as they're concerned.

Also, ObamaCare is taking a beating not only in town halls across the country but also in the latest polls, and so are Obama's ratings, so they want to change the topic to something else, perhaps almost anything, for those reasons as well.

Any time Obama gets really pressed about something he doesn't want to talk about or gets caught in another, shall we say, exaggeration (AARP backs ObamaCare -- uh, next day, no they don't), he shifts the conversation rather than answer the question, and so do his henchmen by repeating talking points instead of answering what they're asked about. Good lawyers do that. Good debaters do that. And weasely politicians do that, and, in that regard, Obama represents a trifecta -- smooth-talking lawyer, skillful debater, and ....

Besides, raising the CIA investigation issue again now also lets Obama play good cop to Attorney General Eric "Americans are cowards about race" Holder's bad cop by repeating that he only wants to look forward but it's Holder who wants to drag up investigating the CIA again, and blah, blah, blah. In D.C., that's what's politely called being disingenuous. In other parts of the country, it's called what it is: lying.

Obama may be in over his head and be too inexperienced to really know what he's doing, as some of us worried he would be, but one thing you can count on: he is a skilled politician and whatever he does do is carefully calculated, if lately at least not that well calibrated, in terms of trying to shape public opinion.

We'll see what kind of a president he turns out to be, but, make no mistake, he already is a calculating and cunning Chicago-style politician who will throw anybody he has to under the bus and who will say just about anything he thinks people will swallow. And, sadly, the liberal lamestream media and many of the people who joined his cult of personality and voted for him are not only still swallowing but also still gladly gulping down his faux "facts" and empty rhetoric. However, I myself have by now developed a pretty strong gag reflex.

I like Bob Beckel. He reminds me of a frumpy uncle who is a little intimidating but also lovable at the same time. He's a liberal, he's a Democrat, he's been a Democratic strategist, and he often appears on Fox News as a contributor and stands up for Team Obama and most people and things Democratic. He at least is normally rational and more or less reasonable as he recites Democratic talking points and argues the Democratic point of view - well, except for when he gets his head handed to him by that conservative, young woman Fox often has on opposite him, in keeping with their "fair and balanced" credo.

But good old Bob recently had an article on Real Clear Politics about whether the Pelosi-CIA kerfuffle would hurt Pelosi or the Republicans, and he was making the case, rather long-windedly, I might add, that it would ultimately hurt the Republicans.

My response:

Nice try, Mr. Beckel, but I'm not buying it. Pelosi lied for political advantage about what she knew and when she knew it, then she lied about the CIA lying to her, and then she lied about lying. (Need a bigger shovel, Miz Nancy, or is the hole you've dug for yourself deep enough already?) And there are LOTS of people who don't like a liar, no matter what party they're from.

So far as Democrats and Republicans go, it was Democrat Obama who summarily released Top Secret memos on enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) in another SHOW of transparency but actually for POLITICAL reasons, to continue bashing (and hiding behind) the Bush administration bogeyman. So, let's see the other side, the specific documents which former VP Cheney has called for, showing the positive results of those EITs.

How can one have a full, fair and open debate on a subject without both sides being presented and considered? So, it was okay for Obama to "out" our EIT info and detail our methods to our enemies in the name of transparency. And, after much too much "secrecy," ONE photo of Air Force One's dumb photo op buzzing of New York City at taxpayer expense of about $340,000 was released. And, after way too much vacillating, Obama finally made the no-brainer, and correct, decision not to release photos of 5-year-old prison mistreatment incidents, which had already been investigated and the perpetrators long ago punished. But no release yet by Team Obama of the two specific documents which the former VP has called for? Why not? Could it be that Team Obama transparency only applies when it's politically advantageous transparency? Hmmm?

David Axelrod, one of President Obama's chief White House advisors (who strangely looks like a door-to-door salesman of some kind to me), recently told CBS's "Face the Nation" that waterboarding and sleep deprivation were "one of the key tools al-Qaeda has used for recruitment."

Really? First, where's the proof of that? Did an al-Qaeda rep call and tell you that? Or is it just another unproven allegation, like "Bush lied, babies died"? Or, worse, is it simple speculation, like Democrat Senator Harry Reid's "The war is lost!, the war is lost!"?

Second, I wonder how al-Qaeda (and Democrats and other liberals) made us the bad guys for waterboarding (something we have done for years in training some of our own troops), while maintaining that they, al-Qaeda, were the good guys for beheading people. Oh yeah, because their cause is right and holy and we are the Great Satan. Well, whether we had waterboarded or not, wouldn't their cause, to them at least, still be right and holy and wouldn't we still be the Great Satan?

If these methods were already serving as a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda, as Axelrod claimed, why did Obama release the Top Secret details of the Bush waterboarding memos, thereby confirming whatever al-Qaeda was already saying to recruit more followers? It would seem that assists al-Qaeda in now saying, "See, we told you so. The American Satan has now admitted what it was doing. But, better than that, we now know in detail about their methods and can therefore train to resist them." Way to go, Team Obama! I feel so much safer now that our enemies, by our own admission, know our interrogation techniques in detail.

Obama banned "enhanced interrogation techniques" his first week in office, but that's obviously not enough for some Democrats and other liberals. They want a so-called Truth Commission and/or federal investigation (read: show trials), as Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) stated, "so it never happens again." Well, Senator, you don't need a show trial to keep it from ever happening again, just better Congressional oversight. Don't forget, please, that Congressional leadership was briefed about 30 times by the Bush administration on what it was doing and why, and Congress not only went along with it but in some cases asked if what Bush was doing was enough. See, there may be the Catch 22 to insisting on so-called Truth Commissions and/or federal prosecutions - they may come back to haunt some Democratic leadership, as well as members of the Bush administration and the intelligence community, notwithstanding Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's blank-stare protestations of "I don't know what I knew or when I knew it" to the contrary. (May I get you a bigger shovel, Miz Nancy, or is the hole you've been digging for yourself getting deep enough already?)

There are several ironies involved in all this.

The first irony is that the CIA stopped waterboarding in March 2003, after using it on only three high-value al-Qaeda detainees in 2002 and 2003, and the practice was removed from the CIA authorized list of techniques altogether sometime around 2005. In other words, waterboarding not only began but also ended during the Bush administration, long before Obama "banned" its use in January 2009.

The second irony is that Obama ostensibly released the classified CIA methods in another show of "transparency" and "openness" but he calculatingly and politically really did it to further the Bush-bashing which he and Team Obama have engaged in (and hidden behind) before, during and ever since he became president, as well as offering it up as another sop to his left-wing base of supporters. Well, ironically, his "lefties," instead of being "placated," became emboldened and wanted still more. For them, Obama's naive miscalculation in releasing the previously classified techniques was like fresh blood in the water.

The third irony is that Obama's own Director of National Intelligence, his own hand-picked Director of CIA and four previous CIA directors all told him not to release the classified techniques, and why, yet he yielded to the pressure from the likes of liberal godfather George Soros, MoveOn.org and other far left agents and did it anyway. However, I will give him credit, so far at least, Obama has shown that he will listen to his military experts (a smart thing, especially when you yourself don't know much about "military things," like the difference between a battalion and a brigade). But an additional irony therefore is, why didn't he also listen to his intelligence experts?

The fourth irony is that, once Obama let the cat out of the bag, he found he couldn't put it back. Oopsie! My bad. Naivete and inexperience, sometimes described by Team Obama as boldness, showed themselves once again. He vacillated back and forth about what to do, a firestorm of criticism followed (something Obama has demonstrated an overly thin-skinned ability to handle in the past), and so he passed the problem off to his Attorney General, saying Eric "Americans are cowards about race" Holder would determine whether any prosecutions needed to take place or not. We're still waiting, Eric, but if you decide to prosecute anyone, make sure you include all those fellow-traveling Democrats in the House and Senate who were briefed on, approved, supported and funded what the CIA was doing, okay?

The fifth irony was Obama going to speak to the CIA intelligence community and telling them he supported them and not to worry about being prosecuted for doing what you were told, while they sat there knowing that he had compromised their classified techniques and would probably sell them out in a heartbeat if he had to for political expediency. The mere possibility of a new round of federal investigations has sent the real message to all U.S. intelligence agents that there is no upside in aggressive interrogation. To the contrary, it's not only a career killer but also may land you in prison.

The sixth irony is that the 9/11 commission was supposed to prevent intelligence lapses so that 9/11 could never happen again. Now, Senator Leahy and other Democrats want to "investigate" what they claim were post-9/11 intelligence "abuses." So, the 9/11 commission didn't really work? So, you want something similar done again? Let's be honest, this isn't about gathering more information to prevent any further "abuses." This is another attempt at Democratic payback for the liberally despised Bush administration, pure and simple. To call it anything else is.....well, ironic.

And, Heaven forbid, but what may become the most tragically ironic thing of all: If Obama plays politics and so dismantles what Bush assembled that we don't see another attack on our homeland coming. In other words, we are back to "not connecting the dots" again. Those who ignore history are not only ignorant but also doomed to repeat it, and tragic history usually repeats itself with a vengeance. Beware the irony - or ironies, as it were.