Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Hold Off on the Crown & Tiara

Rich Galen

Monday April 6, 2009

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Democrats are busily scheduling a ceremony to continue the Administration's designs on undoing the U.S. Constitution even more and coronate King Barack and Queen Michelle upon their return from their European concert tour.

They are soooo popular over in Europe. Michelle is soooo stylish. Barack is soooo smooth. Europeans are swoooooning over the visit.

America, baby, is BACK.

Frank Sinatra said it best:

A-Number-One; Top of the List;
King o' the Hill; Top o' the Heap.

Next stop: New York, New York!

The latest poll, according to RealClearPolitics.com is the Newsweek poll which was in the field April 1 & 2 shows Emperor Obama at 61 percent approval and 27 percent disapproval. Pretty good numbers.

There will be a slew of polls upon the Obama's return to the U.S. but that's what we've got right now.

Before National Democrats begin making plans to remove the word "Republican" from any sign in or around the U.S. Capitol complex, let's hop into the Wayback Machine and see what was doing along about April, 2001 - exactly eight years ago.

George W. Bush was President and was about four months into his term.

Remember, George W. didn't win the Presidency on election day in November, 2000. He wasn't declared the winner until the Supreme Court ruled on December 12 that the Florida recount had gone on quite long enough, thank you, and ordered the previously certified total to stand and George W. be declared the winner.

If you are old enough to remember those days, you may also remember that Vice President Al Gore got more popular votes than Gov. Bush so about half the country didn't think Bush was the legitimate President.

IN. SPITE. OF. ALL. THAT. . .

According to the ABC News/Washington Post poll in mid-April 2001 - five months before 9/11 - George W. Bush's numbers were 63 Approve, 32 Disapprove.

Dear Mr. Mullings:

Whoa! Check Please!
Mr. Mullings? Do you mean to tell me that George W. Bush's numbers were about the same as Emperor Obama's numbers at the same point in their Presidency?
Yes.

Eight years - to the second - before Barack Obama took the oath of office as President of the United States surrounded by a Democratic Senate Majority Leader and a Democratic Speaker of the House, George W. had stood on that same spot and took the oath surrounded by two Republicans holding those titles.

Amazing, isn't it?

And, in the building behind them - the Capitol - eight years earlier House Minority Leader, Dick Gephardt said of the Bush tax cuts:

"Well, I think it's fiscally irresponsible; it really has a lot of similarities to what we did in 1981, when we passed a $750 billion dollar tax cut 20 years ago and caused some of the highest deficits, increased the national debt by about $4 trillion dollars, and I think caused the economy to have lots of problems that we don't need to do again - high interest rates, high inflation, high unemployment."

Pretty much what the GOP leadership in the Congress is saying about the Obama/Pelosi/Reid budget. Amazing how circular this all is, huh?

New Topic

In Saturday's Washington Post a front-pager by Amit R. Paley and David Cho said that the Obama Administration was planning to "sidestep the rules" about limiting pay and bonuses for financial companies which take government funds.

The Obamas have

"set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed."

The amusing thing about this use of "off-the-books" entities is, that is exactly what the financial institutions did to keep Credit Default Swaps and other really excellent investments off their balance sheets.

In the accounting world these are called "Special Purpose Vehicles" which are specifically designed to keep the riskiest investments off the books of the parent company, so when they need $170-or-so BILLION dollars to keep from having the Earth's economies blow up like the planet Krypton it can be a big surprise.

If the phrase "special purpose vehicle" sounds familiar, it should. It's the same accounting iceberg that the geniuses at Enron used to sink that corporate Titanic.

In Sunday's Wash Post, Reuters reporter Doina Chiacu wrote Treasury Secretary Timothy Geither said on CBS' "Face the Nation,"

"No, that's not true. Our obligation is to apply the laws that Congress just passed on executive compensation and we're going to do that."

This is what happens when the President goes off on a Magical Michelle Tour of Europe: The Right hand at Treasury doesn't know what the Left Hand across the ally in the White House is doing.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the lyrics for "New York, New York," as well as to the Dick Gephardt interview and the two Washington Post pieces.

Also, a Mullfoto of a bit of copywriting which made me chuckle, and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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