Sarah Palin’s and Barack Obama’s very different styles and appeal illustrate the contradiction Americans have about our leaders. Some people like Joe the Plumbers. Others like elites. Others like the two wrapped up into one.

Palin, who has said she’s thinking about running for president in 2012, blew away the Tea Party Convention crowd in Nashville for a price of $100,000. What unique brand of folksy does the Tea Party get for 100-grand? She delivers lines like, “How’s that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for ya?” and writes on her hand. (You’d think with all that money, she could just remember the four concepts she scribbled on her palm.)

On the other hand (pun intended), Obama’s State of the Union speech last month was just the opposite of Palin’s folksy speech. There were the customary two introductions of the president and 91 ovations, including 58 that brought Congress – at least some of them – to their feet. Kings, queens and dictators get that type of adulation.

Continue reading 'Average And Elite Politicians'»

This is why Americans have such a low opinion of politicians.

CNN filed a report about the back room deals needed to get Democrats to pass a filibuster-proof health care bill in the Senate. Take Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. He was the last senator to agree to vote for the bill. What did this Democrat get for his state? The Federal Government will pay 100% of Nebraska’s share of Medicaid funding for all low-income Americans.. indefinitely!

The CNN story goes into detail about several deals like this. When pressed on the issue of back room dealing, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said about the bill, “If they don’t have something in it important to them, then it’s — [it] doesn’t speak well of them.”

It doesn’t? It doesn’t speak well of our representatives to vote for the bill solely because they believe in reforming healthcare? I’m definitely not a part of the Tea Party movement, but their line about corruption in Washington begins to ring true when the Senate Majority Leader says this at press conference. 

Government handouts to states or districts in exchange for votes shouldn’t be business as usual.

Here’s where Salahi Party Crasher Story could get bad for the Obama Administration. The White House is claiming separation of powers and not allowing White House social secretary Desiree Rogers to testify in front of the congressional committee looking into who let the Salahis into the party. That’s where the White House is drawing the line? At the presidential velvet rope? I don’t agree with the power grab that the Bush Administration made, but at least when they called “Executive Privilege” it was over something serious: Torture, starting a war under false pretenses, stuff like that. Some advice to Rahm and the president: let the White House staff testify. Whatever comes out won’t be as a bad as this story staying in the headlines.

Unless there’s a bigger story…