Looking at the Democrats Now

I see Nancy Pelosi was reelected Speaker and Harry Reid retains his position as Senate Majority Leader.  I guess the dems didn’t learn anything from the 110th do nothing Congress.  I almost feel sorry for Obama having to put up with those two for at least the next two years.

The dems who made a big point of republican corruption during the campaign seem to have run into a rough stretch of their own; or more likely, it has become so obvious even the MSM has to report on it. 

Back in the days of the republican “culture of corruption,” Jack Abramoff was the poster boy for the proof of the republican evil ways.  In no way am I defending the obvious corruption some republicans displayed, but factually some democrats were also in business with Abramoff and his Indian tribes scandal.  As far as I have been able to dig up, Abramoff directed about two thirds of his largess to the republicans and about a third to the democrats; this makes sense from a lobbying perspective as the republicans were in power at the time.  No question Abramoff is a life-long republican, but both sides were acquiescent in this nauseating display of Washington at work.  The MSM neglected to cover the democrat angle at all as they beat the drums to cast aspersions at W and the republicans; I never recall reading that the clown Reid was a significant recipient of Abramoff’s lobbying.

The Blagojevich situation still is grabbing headlines away from what had been heretofore a smooth transition.  Reid possibly could have handled it worse, but it would be hard to imagine how.  He made the astonishing statement that “we decide who sits in the Senate” rather than the people of the sovereign states.  Obama in one of his few mistakes in the transition period came out in support of Reid not seating Roland Burris; I think the Supreme Court will come down in favor of Burris fairly quickly, should Burris continue his current path (incidentally, Burris seems to be the only gentleman in the Blago game).  The fact that Reid called Blagojevich and told him he did not want any of three different potential candidates nominated to the position, all of whom just happened to be black males, is disgusting to me.  Seems the dems are back to playing the race cards in a big way, but this time on each other rather than the repubs.  At one level, it is extremely humorous; too bad it is such a serious topic.

Then the Obama nominee for Secretary of Commerce, Bill Richardson, had to recuse himself due to his own problems with a California company, CDR Financial.  This hits Obama in a couple of ways. 

First, the scandal has been brewing in New Mexico for a number of months as the feds were investigating it; it was not a secret (for full disclosure I used to live in Albuquerque).  This makes the “vetting” of Richardson and the “judgment” of Obama’s transition team incredibly questionable (not to mention Richardson’s chutzpah in accepting the nomination as surely he knew it would blow up on him).  Was it just a payback for Richardson’s support of Obama when he really needed it with no questions asked?  It sure looks like it.

Secondly, Richardson was the highest profile Hispanic in Obama’s cabinet.  Obama’s strong Hispanic support in the election was a surprise to me as I had always believed Hispanics were generally more conservative and naturally would support the more conservative of any two candidates; clearly as a block they realized McCain was not a conservative in any manner.  I wonder if Richardson’s support was meaningful in Obama’s strong showing and if it will hurt Obama as it may be spun that Obama asked Richardson to give it up?

Finally, in the most duplicitous turnaround I’ve seen in a while, Obama recently said we are in the worst financial situation we’ve “had in our lifetime” and we look to have “trillion dollar deficits for the foreseeable future.”  Astonishingly, the democrats and MSM, who totally beat up Bush for running a deficit and “talking down” the economy, are all in favor of deficits now.  And how in the world can they like Obama’s “worst financial situation” comments and castigate Bush at the same time for talking down the economy?  Disgraceful.  Of course as the left does not seem to have any guiding principles other than “if it feels good, do it,” I’m not sure we can evaluate their morals compared to normal humans.

It will be interesting to see how the “culture wars” come out, particularly if the MSM bothers to examine the democrats with the same intensity and interest they spent on the republicans for the last eight years.  If they do, we are in for an entertaining time