UPDATE!
How could I forget about this, so recent as it was during his "bipartisan gathering" at the White House with the House Republicans:
"I won"
after all of the such lovely words and ideals of being "post-partisan" to get things done. Yeah, that’s really working well, isn’t it. Sorry, bipartisanship is not just listening, and then ignoring what you heard.
And how the heck could I forget this one since Obama just signed the "Lilly Ledbetter" for "equal pay" for women compared to men:
“While this bill bears her name, Lilly knows this story isn’t just about her,” Obama said. “It is a story of women across this country still earning just 78 cents for every $1 men earn, women of color even less, which means that today in the year 2009, countless women are still losing thousands of dollars in salary, income, and retirement savings over the course of a lifetime.”
Problem is, once again, he does not practice what he preaches! In fact, he KEEPS THAT PRACTICE UP! As I blogged during the campaign:
Wouldn’t it make sense, though, to make sure your own house is in order BEFORE jumping off the figurative cliff?
On average, women working in Obama’s Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator. That’s according to data calculated from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate, which covered the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007. Of the five people in Obama’s Senate office who were paid $100,000 or more on an annual basis, only one — Obama’s administrative manager — was a woman.
The average pay for the 33 men on Obama’s staff (who earned more than $23,000, the lowest annual salary paid for non-intern employees) was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on Obama’s staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91. (The average pay for all 36 male employees on Obama’s staff was $55,962; and the average pay for all 31 female employees was $48,729. The report indicated that Obama had only one paid intern during the period, who was a male.)
Doesn’t look good, does it? There is that old traditional saying – practice what you preach! Being the agent of change, I’d be changing how I introduce my stances if I were BHO.
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Man, this is just not taking very long to reveal that the man, Obama, that has been held up as almost the Second Coming is just a……regular politician. And to boot, one that is now showing the Liberal preponderance to pontificate on the ills of our activities whilst going ahead and doing all those ills himself.
Sorta like a black version of Al Gore?
First, we have this:
"We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.
“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.
Yeah, well I had REAL problems with that at the time – I really DON’T care if he was going to be President or not, why is it’s Government role, in this land of Liberty, to tell me that I cannot put my thermostat at ANY temperature that I want as long as I am paying for it?
After all, I’m helping him to keep warm with my taxes (registration required):
The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”
Oh, that SUV crack? Well, just like the fact that his charitable contributions only went up when his political asperations did as well, he was driving a Chrysler 300M:
As beautiful as the speech was, the unexpected backlash from a few folks was to reference towards his own gas guzzling V-8, Hemi powered Chrysler 300C (13/15 mpg city), claiming the speech as a tad hypocritical in light of the fact. In return to such criticisms, the senator purchased a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid (34 mpg city) within a few weeks of the fiasco, blowing a cool breeze through what had become a tad bit of a lukewarm situation.
He didn’t have to go and buy a brand new car! I would have been quite happy to sell him (hey, recycling, right?) my 10 year old 9-passenger 4wd Suburban. With the plow off, I get about 13 mpg around town but almost 20 mpg on the highway!
But again, the contradiction between what is stated and what the actions state.
Oh, another one?
He chastises, almost rants, about the financial folks and their bonuses on the taxpayer dimes:
President Obama yesterday scolded Wall Street bankers who received millions of dollars in bonuses last year, calling the payouts "shameful" and chiding the executives for a lack of personal responsibility at a precarious time for the nation’s economy.
"There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses," the clearly irritated president said. "Now’s not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them."
Note: maybe "bonus" is not quite a "bonus as most of us know it…
So, what does Obama then do on the taxpayer dime after trying to set the stage for a bit of austerity (OK, I’ll leave off on the $1 Trillion Pelosi-Reid-Obama Generational Theft Act for now), we find that President Obama likes fine dining (Michelle has it just right):
Can the Obama administration be anymore tone deaf? After pushing his $1.1 trillion Generational Theft Act of 2009 through the House last night, the White House apparently decided to throw itself a swank cocktail party. According to ABC’s Jake Tapper, the menu included alcoholic beverages (vodka martinis are an Obama favorite, reportedly) and wagyu steak.
Yeah, “wagyu steak.” $100 per serving delicacy. I had to look it up, too.
On the heels of the most expensive inaugural celebration in American history and passage of a trillion-dollar spending binge that will saddle future generations with unprecedented debt, perhaps President Obama might consider cutting back on such indulgences.
Or is the White House exempt from “shared sacrifice,” Mr. President?
“New era of responsibility?”
Do I really have to start in on the Lobbyist promise that was given and now is in the process of being shattered?
When it is all said and done, Obama is just another politician (albeit with an excellent PR and marketing program) – high soaring rhetoric, high brow philosophy, two-faced when one measures the words to the actions.
Contradictions? Although it may seem so, my answer is no, as it is worse than just a contradiction train. No, this falls to the level of hypocrisy: Don’t do as I do, do as I say!". Once again, another uberLiberal has decided that the lifestyle that he wants the "regular folk" to follow is not the same as his own. Yup, that’s REAL leadership by example, huh?
A good leader wants the folks he leads to do better than they are – not worse. This really is starting to remind me of Jimmy Carter (I lived through his administration). Obama preached Hope and Change – can I Hope for a better alignment of his words and actions and see a Change for honesty?
Look, there are tons of things to comment on but it comes down to this – character counts and it can be measured. I talked about standards here – in this case, I don’t have to use Republican ones – I only have to use his own words as a standard.
