Five Days of Obama

We are now in the fifth day since the Coronation....errr inauguration. What have learned in this first week?

Obama's first act as President was to screw up the oath of office. He started out by interrupting Chief Justice John Roberts during the administering of the Oath. That set off a chain of events that had the Oath out of order on some of the words.

He followed the easiest part of the day by giving his inaugural speech. It was not a typical Obama speech. 2 million people showed up to hear the most boring and cynical Inaugural Address since Jimmy Carters Malaise speech in 1977.

Speaking of the 2 million people. Thousands of ticket holders were not allowed onto the mall. They traveled from as far away as California only to be told to go back. The 2 million that did make it in, left 130 tons of garbage to be picked up, including souveniers and small American flags. Garbage I expect, but to leave little American Flags tossed away just shows the lack of pride and love for country. It reminded me of the Convention in Denver where they had all of those American Flags just tossed around and into the garbage.

In the past 24 hours, it's been discovered that the group playing the music faked it. It reminds me of when Jan and Dean returned to concert again years after a devastating auto accident that nearly took a life. It was discovered that they were lip synching their old music. This was basically the same thing. They faked the cello, the violin, the piano, all of it. The music was instead piped in.

It's interesting that there were many complaints about the Pastor of Saddleback Church giving the Invocation, which was very good, but the Reverend Lowry gave a racist benediction.

During all of this, the so-called reporters were having a love-fest with Obama's historical moment, historical day. I hope we don't find out next that John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Quincy Jones were all phony's too. Please tell me they weren't part of the Simpson's cartoon but were the real deal.

Even a past President got in on the pettiness of the day. Former President Jimmy Carter snubbed Former President Bill Clinton and wife Hillary. Later, Hillary got into a row with Senator John Cornyn because he dared to hold up her confirmation for a day due to some additional questions he had.

There was some dignity to the day however. President George W. Bush came out to the platform with Hail To The Chief playing. As he took his seat and new song started from the crowd near the platform. Angry liberals sitting nearby started singing nyah nyah nyah nyah, hey hey, goodbye. President Bush was very dignified and made no expression and no acknowledgement of the lack of taste of those angry liberals.

Obama made some very uncharitable references to the Bush years during his speech. However, both President Bush, (former President by that time) and former Vice President Cheney, sat their listening politely, without making any expression. They let Obama have his day as the new President.

The following day, Wednesday, Obama announced new guidelines for his staff. Ceilings on salary, and a new rule on lobbyists. If you were a lobbyist, you won't be permitted to work in an area that you lobbyed in the past. If you leave the administration, you won't be allowed back as a lobbyist until the Obama is administration is out of office. But then it was discovered that that rule is being broken because a Deputy Secretary was a lobbyist but is still going to be in his new position despite the new lobbying rules.

His Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, asked that the previous speakers names not be used by the press, instead to call them senior White House Staff, then he promptly used their names several times.

Obama was also administered the Oath of Office again, this time behind closed doors and no bible in his hand. They also couldn't or wouldn't answer whether there was a war on terror. Obama has announced that he's closing Guantanamo Bay with no idea on what they are going to do with the detainees currently there. This as we learned that 60 former detainees have been released and have returned to the middle east and again working with Al Queda including one who is the number two Al Queda man in Yemen. Yemen is where the USS Cole was attacked in October 2000.

Obama's first week in office was not uneventful. The events were embarassments however. This is the guy that's going to steer us out of a recession? Protect the country from terrorist attacks? So far, he's talked to the generals about getting out of Iraq, he's overturned an abortion policy, and broken his own lobbying rules. Then there is his Treasury Secretary that didn't pay taxes for a few years but quickly paid them just prior to his nomination as Treasury Secretary.

It's also now just coming out that the Bill Clinton foundation was given stock as a donation, the stock was sold for nearly $500,000 even though it was pretty much worthless which amounts to a donation but that the donor is being kept anonymous. Transparency?

So a weeks summary of the new Obama Administration gives us, a botched oath, a poor speech, fake music, a racist prayer, broken rules, a new oath, our first indication of the "cut and run" that everyone was worried about during the campaign, a completely lost Press Secretary, a Treasury Secretary that evaded paying taxes until a day or two before his appointment, a promise of transparency from behind a cloak, a secretary of state nominee who promised access to donors for her husband's foundation except for one (that we know of) and terrorists to be moved but nobody knows to where. Not bad for a week.

Maybe we can look to the New York Senate appointment and see if Caroline Kennedy gets a nice smooth move into the United States Senate. What's this headline? A nanny and tax problem for Kennedy? A problem with her marriage? Uh oh.

Well, there is one happy note. Today is my daughters birthday. She enters her teen years today. Happy Birthday, Rachel.

Brett