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Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Washington dishonesty
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Face it: We’re in for four years of dishonesty in Washington, where an army of accountants, policy analysts and subject-experts will be required to examine the real story behind the campaign-style rhetoric.
We know already, for example, that the $838 billion “stimulus” bill is not about stimulus, but is instead about the pent-up demands for taxpayer-financed universal health care, about undoing welfare reform, about payoffs to ACORN and other Democratic constituencies and about throwing money at pet projects and causes.
Two or three other examples come from the day’s news. As a candidate, President Obama defined new offshore drilling as component of a national energy policy. On Tuesday, however, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that he’s putting the brakes on the Bush Administration’s plan to open more areas of the Atlantic and Pacific to exploration. He vows instead a “new way forward” that would capitalize on “the great potential for wind, wave and ocean tides.” Ah, yes. More boondoggles, less energy and when the economy recovers and world oil prices skyrocket, the U.S. will be no better prepared than it was when gas hit $4 a gallon. But, of course, liberals welcome $4 gas, since it’s an opportunity for the central government to expand regulation of our lives and of our automobile companies — “our” meaning those in Detroit that are essentially run by Washington bureaucrats.
The other story that reflects a dishonesty is the Obama Administration’s announcement that it’s reviewing the policy that prohibits the media from taking pictures of flag-draped coffins being returned to Dover Air Force Base in Deleware from Iraq and Afghanistan. Anti-war opponents wanted the photos to show the high cost of war in hopes of further alienating the country from the war. Their pretense is that showing the coffins “honors” the “fallen heroes.” It is absolute dishonesty. The sole reason activists on the left push for photos of the unloading of coffins is to advance their political agenda.
There’s a report, too, that while the nation’s attention was focused on the dishonest “stimulus” bill, a group of nine House members (eight Democrats and Ron Paul) slipped a bill called the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act to lift the ban on travel to Cuba that’s been in place since 1963. It furthermore prevents the President from being able to regulate travel to Cuba unless armed conflict is real or imminent.
There’s no indication yet that the administration has signed on, but the reality is that had this legislation been proposed in October, Democrats would have had no chance of carrying Florida.
This administration and its allies in Congress are beginning to look a whole lot more like the gang of old — old as in the party of George McGovern — than the party of change. Watch ‘em. Not what they say, but what they do.
