Wednesday, February 4, 2009

I Agree With Obama on One Thing...

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama deflected questions about his lack of executive experience by saying, "It's not about experience; it's about judgment." And for many people, it really was about judgment, and voters seemed to trust Obama's judgment over John McCain's experience.

And now that Obama's in the White House and making appointments, we have a good look at the quality of his judgment.

- Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner was confirmed by the Senate in spite of "forgetting' to pay $34,000 in back taxes, blaming the complexity of TurboTax. But he made up for it by paying his back taxes...only a couple of years after he was supposed to pay them.

- Bill Richardson backed out of the running for the Commerce Secretary nomination due to a grand jury investigation into whether he awarded a government contract to political donors.

- Former South Dakota Senator and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination to be Health and Human Services Secretary due to failing to fully pay taxes from 2005 to 2007. To make up for it, he recently made a $128,203 tax payment with $11,964 in interest.

- Nominee for Chief Performance Officer and a deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget Nancy Killefer withdrew her nomination withdrew her nomination after the Associated Press found that the District of Columbia placed a tax lien on her home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation for hired help.

- Obama said that his Administration would not be filled with lobbyists...until it came out that some of the people he'd chosen had close ties to lobbyists.

- Obama wrote an Executive Order signalling that he would review the possibility of closing the detention center in Guantanamo Bay next year.

- Obama made good on a campaign promise to sit down with Iran and talk about their nuclear aspirations, which made President Imadinnerjacket mock Obama in the worldwide press after the Obama Administration made some initial inquiries about that possibility.

And all of this within the first two weeks of the Obama Presidency

Barack Obama is right. It's not about experience; it's about judgment. And right now, it's clear Obama lacks the judgment to be President.

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