The Bane of Obama

Part of the fascinating thing about B. Obama ascending to the White House, besides the obvious racial novelty, is how he out dueled the ambitions of two of the most grasping people in DC: John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. With Edwards disgraced and Clinton safely tucked under his wing at State, Obama would seem to have no problems at all in his party. The rank and file loves him as well. Yes, he'll have to deal with career hack Nancy Peliosi and the DC version of Sgt. Schultze Harry Reid, but they are obviously inferior in political skill as well as power, so no biggy there.

The real problem is not the people as the philosophy. The Democratic Party since FDR has been a glorified spoils system writ large. You get elected, you direct the money to a loyal constituency. Want to expand your power base? Send a new cash flow streaming out of the Federal Teat to a new group. Once they're sucking, they're hooked. And it worked. Vast new entitlements and bureaucracies now wash over the political landscape.

However, with bailout mania sweeping the nation, everybody wants a bailout now. The old Dem power philosophy is sort of like the monster from Alien. It started out relatively small, but now it's taking over the ship. Obama wants to be the Democrat he is, but to do that he must give everybody everything. To say no, risks being branded as a cold callous Republican, more interested in the greater good than the narrow group, even though the group will scream bloody murder to get their piece of the bailout pie.

Starting with the $150 billion in the spring, then $80 billion to AIG, $25 billion to the US Automakers, then the TARP for $700 billion, then $30 billion for Citibank, another whopper $800 billion for various consumer credit debt and this is only the list so far. The US state governors want $100 billion. Ho Hum . . . Pelosi wants $400 billion, yet another stimulus. They obviously should have bought some Viagra with first cash. And today, the auto makers want another $34 - 75 Billion, so that maybe just maybe they can stay afloat.

It's easy to see Obama has a very tough row to hoe. He'll have to fight to keep his own shirt from being grabbed for bailout means. This fight will be waged against the very philosophy that brought him to power. Everybody wants the moolah. My two favs have to be the newspaper industry, being devoured by this very medium and the ethanol industry which wouldn't even exist in the first place, if it weren't for a government subsidy.

If you have any money left, buy some popcorn and pull up a seat, it should prove highly interesting.