President Obama, in his own words, speaking at a town hall meeting in Missouri, April 29, his 100th day in office:

"When you see, you know, those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we're going to stabilize social security."

"Claire [McCaskill] and I are working diligently to do basically a thorough audit of federal spending."

"But let's not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got."

Anyone still seriously arguing that Obama is not arrogant, often thin-skinned and sometimes even petty? Really? With a straight face? Please remind me not to buy a used car from you, then. And I don't want to buy that bridge in Brooklyn, either, so fugeddaboutit.
 
"...those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular..."
Do you mean those which report on what you're doing, rather than just what you're saying, Mr. President? Those which question your actions sometimes, rather than just slavishly hanging on your every word? Those news channels? Gee, don't be so thin-skinned. Actually, I'm surprised to hear you say "news channels," plural. I thought there was really only one - Fox News. But, okay, maybe there's more than just one, at least occasionally.

"...and you see folks waving tea bags around..."
Those "folks waving tea bags around" were Americans, Mr. President - hundreds of thousands of them, in a truly grassroots movement, from all political persuasions, from all across the country, angry at our government (their government), the Congress (their Congress) and your White House (their White House) and protesting to be heard - and the best you can do is refer to them dismissively, almost derisively? Why, you would think you were just another arrogant American, being dismissive and derisive about the Europeans again.

"...let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we're going to stabilize social security."
So, by implication, their protests were not serious but you will be glad to have a serious conversation with them about what you want to talk about. No, Mr. President, you don't always get to choose what you want to have serious conversations about with the American people. Sometimes they choose. And if you choose not to listen, then you will lose in the long run

"Claire [McCaskill] (U.S. Democratic Senator since January 2007 and former Missouri State Auditor) and I are working diligently to do basically a thorough audit of federal spending."
Oh? And how is that going for you so far? I mean, aside from one of your cabinet-level departments suddenly "discovering" that it could save millions of taxpayer dollars just by ordering office supplies in bulk (duh!), by you "saving" American taxpayers $100 million (about .002 percent of your budget), and also about $17 billion, mainly by cutting Department of Defense spending on about 120 programs, during a time of war being fought on two fronts, while your pork-laden, so-called stimulus package, your even more porky budget and your set-asides for future projects (health care reform) for which you don't even have a plan to implement yet are sending deficit spending into the trillions of dollars which our children and even our grandchildren will have trouble paying off. Please let me know when you and "Claire" come up with some real savings, some real contraction of runaway government spending. Then, I'll give you some credit. But, don't expect any from me just based on what you say you're doing or going to do. Seeing is believing.

"But let's not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got."
Well, finally, Mr. President, you and I agree on something. But, first, you're wrong to imply that the TEA Party protesters were "playing games." They were not. They were serious and angry at their government for not listening to them. You had people protesting who had never protested before in their lives, about anything, and taking time off from work to do it - and you had them by the hundreds of thousands. However, what you're right about is that their protests weren't just about your so-called Recovery Act, and they weren't "pretending" that it was. They were angry about much more than just that, although that was one thing which many Americans think you and your Democratic Congress pushed through without proper input or consideration.

Oh, and we agree on something else, too. "..the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got." Yes, Mr. President, your Recovery Act is just a fraction of the overall problem we've got. Some of us know that. Some of us who know that were among the TEA party protesters, and will be again on July 4th. You and the Democratic Congress have done much more than just that to try and move this country to the left, to take over businesses in order to "save" them, to redistribute the wealth of this country from those who earn it to those whose votes you can buy with it, and to deficit-spend more than any of what little may remain into creating multi-generational debt. Yes, Mr. President, some of us know your so-called Recovery Act was only the beginning. But we also know that, hopefully, your "beginning" may be short-lived. After all, 2010 and 2012 are coming, thank goodness - and probably not any too soon, either.

The U.S. House of Representatives has recently passed a bill, now on its way to the U.S. Senate, on new (more) hate crimes legislation.

That means, with everything else Team Obama and this Congress are taking onto their plates (running banks, auto companies, finding new things on which to spend tax money we don't have for things which many question we need, trying to influence a federal bankruptcy judge, socialize our national healthcare, etc.), some committee somewhere in Congress is, once again, spending our tax money considering some kind of new hate crimes legislation, as if Congress doesn't already have enough other stuff to get done.

Congressman Louie Gohmert, himself a former judge, told Human Events about the radical nature of this so-called hate crimes bill and what happened when House Republicans tried to amend the bill so it did not offer protection to pedophiles:

"When we tried to get the term sexual orientation narrowed down to where it didn't include something like a pedophile ... that was voted down on party lines ... there are about 30 different types of sexual orientations, and they can include exhibitionism and voyeurism or things that are so offensive such as pedophilia or necrophilia. The problem is that the supporters of this bill did not want to exclude any of those and even voted down the amendment that would have excluded pedophilia."

Gohmert pointed out the absurdity of the legislation as written, as it would warrant the prosecution of a woman under the federal hate crimes statues if she hits a flasher with her purse after he exposed himself to her, because exhibitionism is a protected sexual orientation under this bill.

"The one who did the flashing committed a local misdemeanor," Gohmert said. 'The one who hit (the flasher) with the purse singled him out because he's an exhibitionist, and therefore she has now committed a federal hate crime and is looking at felony time."

Kevin Theriot with the Alliance Defense Fund said it best:

"So-called 'hate crime' laws actually serve only one purpose: The criminalization of citizens based on whatever thoughts, beliefs, and emotions they have that are not considered to be 'politically correct.' No one should fall for the idea that this bill does anything to bring about greater justice for Americans."

Well, my take on this is even more simple - not simplistic, just more simple: I cannot think of one subject of so-called hate crimes legislation for which there are not already adequate laws on the books. If you are heterosexual and I assault you, I have committed assault. If you are homosexual and I assault you, I have still committed assault. If I am White and you are White and I murder you, I have committed murder. If I am White and you are Black and I murder you, I have still committed murder.

In most, if not all, capital crimes, it must be proven that one had the intent to commit the alleged crime, but the "why" of that intent does not have to be proven. The "why," as you sometimes hear lawyers, mainly on TV, say, is "irrelevant and immaterial." The intent itself, e.g., to commit murder, not the rationale behind it, is what is important. That's why someone may be found guilty of manslaughter and not murder, but in both cases the result for the victim is the same - he or she is dead. In the case of murder, the intent was to kill, but in the case of manslaughter there may have been intent to harm, or to accidentally or negligently cause harm, but not to kill.

Hate crimes legislation, instead of making various classes of people more equal before the law, actually attempts to make them more equal than other classes, and in the process represents adding another and unnecessary layer to the jurisprudential system.

Besides, it should be remembered that morality cannot be legislated, and that's exactly what hate crimes legislation attempts to do.

As President Obama (and his mad-about-you mainstream media minions) celebrated his recent 100 days press conference, one of the hard-hitting, probing and challenging (actually, probably scripted) questions asked of the president by a New York Times reporter was what has so far most "enchanted" him about being president.

Could Obama be becoming overexposed? Even some TV talking heads have begun raising that question, but Obama still seems to think, "Nah, people LIKE seeing me on TV, almost as much as I like seeing MYSELF on TV." Besides, I don't think he can help himself. Most narcissists can't.

But, back to the NYT reporter's question. Hmmm, is there a mirror in the Oval Office? Ideally, a full-length mirror, perhaps? If so, I'm pretty sure what has "enchanted" Obama the most so far is looking at his own reflection - as president, in the Oval Office. After all, remember that, to him, image is everything.

However, at another time and in another venue, Team Obama's smoke and mirrors imagery was recently challenged by no less than a Democratic senator, Senator Max Baucus from Idaho, who said to Treasury Secretary Tim "The Tax Cheat" Geithner, while he was appearing before Baucus' committee: "You created a situation where you cannot be wrong. If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say, yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs. You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."

Obama, Geithner and other Team Obama players saying they're going to "create or save" jobs, or anything else, for that matter, reminds me a lot of my days of overseeing and teaching security in the Army. If you've got an area to protect from intrusion, you do the best you can to devise a system, preferably a layered system, of barriers to control or prevent entry. But that's never a guarantee against a determined and resourceful opponent. So, the fact that you've not had a breach is not the same as assuming your security measures are all that effective. Another explanation may be that no opponent has yet attempted a breach. In other words, it's like proving a negative.

Another old joke in the security business told of a worker entering the office of a coworker, only to see him with a big tub and spatula spreading peanut butter all over his office furniture. Worker: "What the heck are you doing?" Coworker: "I'm keeping the elephants away." Worker: "Well, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen - that's not going to keep any elephants away." Coworker: "You don't see any elephants, do you?"

Yeah, a lot of what Team Obama says is like that.

When President Obama was at the G-20 meeting in Europe recently, he apologized for America (again) and said we have sometimes been arrogant, dismissive and even derisive of Europe's leadership in the world.

Then, at a recent town hall meeting in Missouri (prior to his celebratory 100th day so-called press conference that same night), he said that all he was aware of about the April 15th TEA Party protests was that it involved some people waving tea bags around and coverage of it appeared on a TV network that doesn't like him very much.

Well, I think it deliciously ironic that an American president who apologizes, especially while overseas, for America having been arrogant, dismissive and derisive of Europe's so-called leadership in the recent past is himself arrogant and narcissistic, dismissive of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans who participated in the TEA Party protests, and derisive of Fox News, conservative commentators and columnists in general, and anyone else who disagrees with him and his policies, particularly while being so petty and thin-skinned about it all. It's simply unpresidential.

But, Mr. Obama, if America has been arrogant, dismissive and derisive of Europe, what were you being about hundreds of thousands of Americans and the TV news coverage their protests got?

Obama is increasingly showing that he still has style but less and less class. Doesn't he know he was elected to be the president of ALL the American people? Doesn't he know that if he feels he is not my president simply because I disagree with his policies, he runs the risk that I, and many others, will start to think of him as not our president, too?

The outright hubris of Obama, Emanuel, Axelrod, Gibbs, Napolitano, Holder, Pelosi, Reid and many other Democrats and liberals is almost mind-boggling -- as well as infuriating. It's as if they consider themselves above any accountability. Well, an accounting is coming, and 2010 cannot arrive too soon to suit me.

So, et tu, Obamicus? Yes, et tu.

President Obama announced on January 23, 2009, that he was closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without a plan on where the terrorists were going upon its closure. Now, just over three months after Obama set the arbitrary one-year deadline for closure, terrorist detainees are already being released.

First, Obama announced during his first week that he was closing Guantanamo Bay to fulfill campaign promises but without a plan on what to do with the detainees. That "dummy" President Bush also wanted to close GITMO but thought he should at least have a plan about what to do with its detainees first (you know, sort of horse before the cart, instead of Obama's cart before the horse). But Bush didn't want to release them into the United States, most of their home countries either wouldn't take them back or would have released or even helped them to return to the battlefield, and none of our "allies" would take any of them, so Bush was stuck.

Second, however, while Obama still has no "plan," he has taken some interim actions. But those interim actions are troubling - like the release of Binyam Mohammed, a terrorist who allegedly plotted multiple attacks on American soil. Binyam Mohammed is a dangerous al-Qaeda terrorist and should have been kept in custody to protect our country and our allies. A detainee since 2004, he has admitted to training at various Al-Qaeda training camps, where he specialized in firearms and explosives. He is accused of plotting a series of attacks on the United States with Jose Padilla (The Dirty Bomber) and Khalid Sheik Mohammed (Mastermind behind 9/11). He is now free in England.

After that came the announcement of two more GITMO releases, both of whom trained at al-Qaeda camps and met with Osama bin Laden. One of them is Ayman Saeed Batarfi, a Yemeni doctor, who is a member of al-Qaeda, supported the Taliban and has been an official of al-Wafa - another organization identified by the U.S. Government as a terrorist supporting group. The U.S. government had charged him with providing medical support to al-Qaeda terrorists and he has freely admitted meeting with Osama bin Laden. As a medical doctor, he also worked closely with senior al-Qaeda microbiologists while in Afghanistan and purchased medical equipment for al-Qaeda. Why release him? Because the evidence against him is thought to be inadmissible in a civilian court.

(Aside: Of course, to me, therein lies part of the problem. Since the GITMO detainees are at least suspected terrorist enemy combatants and not U.S. citizens, nor POWs under the Geneva Conventions, they are not entitled to the rights of either U.S. citizens or normal POWs. So, whether evidence against them would normally be admissible in a civilian court, as if they were just common criminals subject to law enforcement and our regular federal court system, is beside the point. They are not just ordinary criminals. It's not simply a law enforcement and normal civilian jurisprudence issue. It's a wartime and the enemies of our country issue. They are enemy combatants and terrorists, but without the protections of the Geneva Conventions, and therefore should be tried by military tribunals which can give them at least the same or similar protections that military courts-martial give our own troops, while at the same time not compromising matters of national security which could occur in open, civilian court.)

And now, it's reported that approximately 20 more GITMO detainees, a group of seven and then a group of 13, will soon be released. There's no word from Team Obama yet on where the 13 will be released, but the seven GITMO detainees are to be freed, probably within the United States.

The seven terrorists, known as "Uighurs," were captured on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and were trained at the al-Qaeda affiliated East Turkistan Islamic Movement ("ETIM") Tora Bora camp. You may recognize the name Tora Bora because in December 2001, U.S. and Afghan forces were closing in on the location of Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Not so coincidentally the Uighurs were captured in the area around Tora Bora while Osama bin Laden used an escape route out of the region. Pure coincidence? And now these terrorists will be freed in the United States, their detention summarily ended with no trial of any kind and no justice.

The release of these terrorists not only potentially endangers American citizens on our own soil but is against federal law (8 U.S.C. 12 § 1182) which plainly states that any alien who had engaged in various forms of terrorist activity or training cannot be permitted into the United States.

Especially when Bush-bashing or agreeing with Obama about how bad America has been - particularly about how readily we "torture" our enemies - isn't it Democrats and other liberals who incessantly rail about "the rule of law" and "nobody being above the law," etc., etc.? Well, what about THIS law, then?

Or is it that whoever is in charge (of the White House, the Justice Department or the Congress) can pick and choose which laws to enforce and which ones not? It would seem the Obama Administration is more concerned with the safety of these detainees than that of the American people and what our laws say.

So, while Obama let the genie out of the bottle by summarily declassifying Top Secret documents on CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques" - against the advice of his own Director of National Intelligence, his own hand-picked CIA director and four previous CIA directors - and directed his Attorney General Eric holder to publish them under the guise of still more "transparency" and "openness," he then vacillated about whether he would seek to prosecute those involved in devising them, rendering legal opinions on them, or using them. And when all this resulted in a firestorm of criticism and Obama realized that not only could he not put the genie back in the bottle but also that his actions, I'm sure really intended to "satisfy" and "placate" his leftist base as another way to bash the Bush Administration, had instead emboldened his left-wing supporters and many Congressional Democrats to use it as another chance to "get" the Bush Administration, he vacillated again and seems now to have left it up to his AG Eric "Americans are cowards about race" Holder to decide whether to prosecute anyone and, if so, who. Which is just another example of someone like Obama's AG deciding which laws to enforce and which ones not, and against whom.

And, of course, by underreporting what amounts to a real blunder by Obama in releasing critical interrogation techniques, especially during a time of war, and by glossing over the release of the GITMO detainees, the liberal mainstream media is complicit and collusive, as usual. The Chicago Tribune: "The Obama administration is preparing to free into the United States Chinese Muslims being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials." The Los Angeles Times: "Officials have not said where in the United States they (Uighurs) might live. But many Uighur immigrants from China live in Washington's Virginia suburbs, and advocates have urged that the detainees be resettled near people who speak their language and are familiar with their customs."

Well, as Dana Carvey's old character the Church Lady would say, "Isn't that SPESH-SHUL?" I mean, all that concern and consideration for the detainees and assisting their "transition" into American life, and all. Team Obama seems more concerned with the well-being of terrorist detainees than that of the American people, and the LA Times unbelievably wants to ensure the detainees are sufficiently coddled and "accommodated" in the process of being "freed" and "relocated"! What is this, like the U.S. Marshals Witness Protection Program for Terrorists or something?

Woe be unto "The One" and his one-term presidency, if not his impeachment, if any of these untried, released detainees commits an act of terrorism against this country. But then, perhaps woe unto any number of the rest of us, too, who had nothing to do with their release. And there's the real rub in all this.

Well, I've got news. Not only have I recently been identified, at least by Obama's DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, as a potential right-wing extremist, but FYI, Team Obama and the LA Times: I also already live in a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, and it's probably best if I don't run across these Chinese Muslim terrorists and soon-to-be former detainees, who have never been adjudicated as innocent of being terrorists.

I'm just saying that I doubt I could be very welcoming, that's all. But then, I'm sometimes just cynical and a little close-minded like that. Also pretty picky about who my friends and neighbors are. But, maybe that's just me.

Hundreds of thousands of "ordinary Americans" rallied across the country for lower taxes and more limited government during the April 15 tax day tea parties, organized by conservative grassroots activists, mainly through the Internet and by email campaigns, with little or no funding. Still, Americans for Tax Reform estimated that over 360,000 attended, despite bad weather across the East Coast and the fact that it's harder to get conservatives to a protest than it is to get liberals to turn out, perhaps because conservatives often have jobs to work rather than just protests to attend.

The protests elicited widespread criticism in the mainstream media, with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow labeling tea party protesters "tea baggers." Since MSNBC stands for Mostly Snarky, Namby Brained Commentary to me, I didn't think that much about the term one way or the other at the time. I had just been watching the Tea Party coverage on Fox News and decided to see what MSNBC coverage was like, so I switched over and there she was, Rachel Maddow, about whom I had only been told that she is a self-professed lesbian and supposedly a sharp and savvy, even witty, commentator. After showing a couple of shots of some of the Tea Party protesters, Ms. Maddow's so-called "wit" amounted to no more than saying "Wow" a few times with a bemused look, one might even say smirk, on her face. She then launched into a series of fake "statistical comparisons" intended to show how unpopular the apparently pretty popular Tea Party protests were. I say "fake" because they were not relevant comparisons; they only appeared to be. They were like comparing the Tea Party protests to the Million Man March on Washington, which was more centrally organized, funded and had bunches of buses delivering people to the National Mall and which, by the way, never totaled even close to a million men. Or like comparing the Tea Party protesters to the turnout for Candidate Obama when he spoke in Germany, a highly staged, centrally organized and controlled event at which the German Polizei originally estimated the crowd at between 100,000 to 200,000 but which got "rounded up" by the MSM to 250,000 and without much, if any, reporting of the facts that the Germans attending were also promised free beer, free food and some free rock band performances if they would show up and also listen to Obama.

But soon, it was obvious that the terms tea baggers and teabagging were being used not only to describe but to also deride the Tea Party protesters (you could tell by the accompanying high school-ish, sopho-moronic snickering) all over the MSM, especially at NBC, MSNBC and CNN. Being unfamiliar with the term teabagging, I had to look it up on Wikipedia and the Urban Dictionary before realizing why Ms. Maddow, perhaps as a lesbian having had the term previously explained to her, apparently thought its use and application to the Tea Party protesters was so wickedly witty. Like I said, Mostly Snarky, Namby Brained Commentary. Snarky is as snarky does. 

On the other hand, David Axelrod, door-to-door-salesman-looking top adviser to President Obama, merely called the protests "bewildering." However, Mr. Axelrod, it seems none of the 360,000-plus attendees reported any cases of bewilderment. In fact, David, it's only "bewildering" to those of you who are so out of touch, not with the "ordinary Americans" which you only TALK about and refer to in your class warfare rhetoric but with the REAL "ordinary Americans" who were protesting you and your boss trying to take this country so far to the left so fast and spending scads of money we don't have to do it. They were just angry and fed up with the government spending all of their, their children's and their grandchildren's money on things they didn't vote for. And they - Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike - peacefully protested by the hundreds of thousands to say so. What's so "bewildering" about that? If you're bewildered now, wait until the Tea Party protest movement grows. Wait until July 4th. Wait until 2010. Then, maybe you will overcome your bewilderment and begin to understand. But, by then, it will be too late and whether you "understand" or not won't matter.

I know you wanted to be president. And, it's true, anyone who really wants that job must really, really want it. But, even given that, you went above and beyond, designing your own version of a presidential seal during the campaign (pale blue and white, if I recall correctly - or was that creme?) and then making sure to hold news pressers two or three times a week from winning the election right up to your inauguration, usually appearing at a podium bearing a sign for the nonexistent "Office of the President-elect" and to the point that your disclaimer "there is only one president at a time" became as much of a mantra as "hope" and "change" were during your campaign. I know you wanted to stay in the limelight, as well as comment on some things, yet avoid commenting on other things, so you had to remind the clamoring press that you weren't the real president yet, but that you were already almost the president and had your appointees to introduce and important things on your mind to talk about. Well, now, finally, you really are the president, so no more need for fake seals or signs. Now you can use the real ones. And I know you haven't had to wait as long, nor gain as much experience, as most who have held that office, but you've just been chaffing at the bit to actually be the president and get started "remaking" America.

I don't know that America needs "remaking," actually, but I do know that our country has problems and needs some "revitalizing." And I know you want to show that you're getting right to work on that. I also know you want to show your base that you're going to fulfill campaign promises and all of us that you're decisive and bold and, well, um, presidential. So far as I know, you may also feel the extra "burden" or "opportunity" of being our first black president and want to do especially well because of that, as well. But, despite having to wait a relatively short time before becoming president and now actually being president, you need to slow down just a little and take a breath or two.

Within just the first few days of your new administration, you've signed a flurry of Executive Orders (EOs). True, you can take fast action on many issues and campaign promises with EOs. Nobody can prevent you from signing them - after all, you're the country's chief executive and they're your orders. You don't have to have anybody's approval, much less wait on them, like you do legislation, to be considered, debated and passed by Congress in their often excruciatingly slow and sometimes painfully procedural and dysfunctionally "deliberative" process.

But, even there, in the legislative arena, you've moved quickly. You've already signed major legislation about women's fair pay in the workplace and your so-called stimulus plan, which is the largest transfer of taxpayer money not only in our country's history but in the history of the world. You've moved quickly to more than triple our nation's deficit in about the first 40 days of your new administration, compared to the deficit caused by former president George Bush over a period of eight years! And he was funding a global war on two fronts and dealing with the costs of two major hurricanes, Katrina and Gustav, as well as widespread forest fires in California, along with a few other things.

But axioms become axioms because there's truth in them, a truth which has been tested over time and found valid again and again. And one axiom is: Haste makes waste. Years ago when I was an Army instructor, small group facilitator and trainer, and student faculty advisor and field supervisor at an Army leadership, management and organizational effectiveness school, one of the classes I taught was on executive decision-making, planning and plan execution. One of the teaching points I used was a simple diagram devised hundreds of years ago by an Italian scholar (whose name I can't recall right now - Alfredo Something) which demonstrated the planning-to-plan-execution principle that longer and more careful planning before executing a plan actually reduces overall plan implementation time, and is therefore not only more effective but efficient in the long run. In other words, if you take a little longer to ensure you're implementing a good (effective) plan, rather than rushing to implement a quick (efficient) plan, you will reduce overall planning-to-implementation time, which will be more effective and efficient in the end. Your planning time will be longer, but your execution time will be shorter, cleaner and you won't have to spend even more time in "adjusting," "fixing" and "do-overs."

But, I already knew about this principle in another form because my dad, who was raised a red dirt, Georgia farm boy and had to stop his formal education after high school to work on the family farm, but who always had what I came to respect as uncommon common sense, used to remind me: "Son, you can take the time to do something right the first time, or you can take longer to do it over and over until you get it right."

So, Mr. President, you might want to slow down a little bit and take a breath now and then. Oh, I know you want to "push your agenda." And I know there are political reasons for doing that as fast as you can, on as many fronts as you can - from doing so much so fast that it's harder for the press, the opposition in Congress and the American people to keep up with; to rewarding those who helped elect you, like the Democratic Left, anti-war activists, Big Labor, ACORN, Planned Parenthood, the Hollywood glitterati, and the liberal mainstream media chattering class; to striking while the iron is hot and using our current economic crisis as a reason, excuse and political cover to scare, bully and cajole everyone into going along with you. I understand all that.

But, you also need to remember that you not only have to push your agenda, reward your supporters and move quickly, especially on the economic crisis, but that you also owe it to the American people at large to take the time to get it right. Don't confuse brashness and boldness, promises with principles, fast for functional, deliberation as dysfunctional, payback as performance, or energy and eagerness with effectiveness and efficiency. In the military, one's superiors sometimes insist that you do things not only well but "like yesterday." So, as I sometimes had to stand up to my superiors in the Army and tell them, "Sir, if you want this done fast, we can do that, but it won't be pretty." So, just remember another axiom, Mr. President: Usually, if you want something quick and dirty, that's exactly the way you'll get it - both quick and dirty.

March 9, 2009 

Dear Mr. Fowler,

Thank you for contacting me with respect to expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and an increase in the tobacco tax. I appreciate your interest in this issue and your views are important to me. This expansion of SCHIP will extend health insurance to four million additional children. It is estimated that the increase in the tobacco tax will discourage 1.8 million individuals from starting to smoke, particularly teenagers and young adults. These advancements are particularly important since the United States is the only industrialized nation that fails to insure all its children. 

Whenever Congress considers expanding an existing program or adding a new program, I believe it is important to consider the short and long-term fiscal impacts of such action. After eight years of reckless fiscal management by the Bush administration, we must impose discipline on government spending. However, parsimony with health care spending can actually cost more in the long-run, as a lack of preventive care drives up costs for treatments that frequently come too late.

Once again, thank you for expressing your concern on this very important issue. While we do not agree about this particular issue, I appreciate the opportunity to hear from you and am sure there are many other issues on which we can find common ground. For more information on my views on other issues, please feel free to visit my website at http://connolly.house.gov.  

Sincerely,

Dear Congressman Connolly:

Thank you for your prompt reply, in which you said: "This expansion of SCHIP will extend health insurance to four million additional children." And I applaud that as a worthy goal. Who does not want poor children to have health care coverage?

However, if this expanded SCHIP still contained provisions requiring taxpayer dollars being given to families who didn't want such coverage, or families who made enough that they could pay for their own coverage, or to give federal funds to illegal immigrants up to the age of 30, like the version which then-President Bush correctly vetoed, then you have aided in achieving a worthy goal only at the unnecessary and wasteful expense -- again -- of the American taxpayer. Congress' charge is not only to spend our tax money but to spend it wisely, which means, in part, that it should not only be timely and necessary but also carefully targeted and controlled.

You also said: "Whenever Congress considers expanding an existing program or adding a new program, I believe it is important to consider the short and long-term fiscal impacts of such action."

Hear, hear! I totally agree. Would that the Obama Administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress were taking more of that approach in our current economic crisis, rather than already spending more in deficits not only than President Bush did in eight years, while fighting a global war on two fronts and responding to Katrina and Gustav, as well as a few other things, but also more than all of our presidents have ever spent in our history.

Just as we cannot simply drill our way to energy independence, except perhaps temporarily (we must also consider and develop other, alternative energy sources), we also cannot simply spend our way out of the current recession, and especially not at the expense of staggering generational debt to our children and grandchildren. Remember, the watch words are supposed to be: Timely, targeted, transparent and temporary. 

Finally, you also said: "After eight years of reckless fiscal management by the Bush administration, we must impose discipline on government spending."

Well, Congressman, first of all, I didn't write you to only get partisan Democratic talking points back. But since you injected partisanship into it with that statement, I would ask you to read my penultimately previous two paragraphs again -- the ones about incurring generational debt and not being able to simply spend our way out of the current recession -- and then I would rhetorically ask you: Do you mean the eight years during which there were 52 months of unprecedented growth? Do you mean the President Bush who, starting in 2001, called on the Congress at least 17 times to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with not only a failure of Congress to act but, in fact, active opposition by Democrat Barney Frank in the House and Democrat Chris Dodd in the Senate? That eight years of "reckless fiscal management," during all of which the Congress either approved of presidentially requested spending or did not (because, as I'm sure you know, the president cannot spend one thin dime which Congress doesn't approve), and during the last two years of which Democrats totally controlled the national purse strings, with large majorities in both the House and Senate? Those eight years? That Bush administration?

Please get pass the talking points and partisanship and realize that, whatever Bush did or did not do, the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress now "own" the current economy -- and the responsibility to fix it. The constant references by President Obama and other Democrats to "the failed policies of the last eight years" are wearing thin and are definitely not bipartisan, something President Obama at least says he believes in. It is now up to President Obama and those of you in Congress to help our crippled economy recover. And I must say, so far, I am not impressed -- not with timely (haste makes waste, plus Secretary Geithner still has no plan), certainly not with targeted (massive spending all over the map and much of it pork), not with transparent (no major legislation passed or signed has yet been previously posted on the Internet, much less for the promised five days), and not with temporary (much of the spending either expands existing programs or funds new ones, and we all know how reluctant Congress is to stop something it's started).

Sincerely,

Colonel Charles Fowler
USA, RET
Lorton, VA