Politics, as usual

/in /by

Margaret Kimberley interview by Russian Time’s Marina Portnaya

The above link is a terrific commentary on Obama administration’s lack of change in foreign policy in the first year of Office.  Except for a change in language….
Does the US public want to be misinformed?  Another good interview with Russia Times.  A commentary on our “news” people distorting the news, when they are really offering opinion-based programming (except CNN).  Are people not interested in new news.
Daniel Hannan’s viral European parliament speech – Scathing address at Gordon Brown about the complete lunacy of his spending.

Finally, did anyone read the great (Charlie Rose) interview with Paul Volcker in the 12/30/09  of Business Week?  Where he points out that Obama has not filled the ramparts of the administration?  Check it out:

“You feel strongly that the financial system has gotten out of whack. Do you think the American political process is capable of fixing it?
The American political process is about as broken as the financial system. Therefore, one has to be a bit skeptical. Just to give you one little example, one unrelated to the financial crisis. Here we are on Dec. 29, almost a year after the Inauguration, and there is no Under Secretary of the Treasury. That should be an important position. How can we run a government in the middle of a financial crisis without doing the ordinary, garden-variety administrative work of filling the relevant agencies? The Treasury is an outstanding example of a broken system, but it’s not the only one.
Is part of the problem that Congress is slow in the process of approving?
Slow is too fast a word to describe what’s going on. The Administration is one quarter over, and it hasn’t manned the ramparts of government yet.
So it’s the Administration’s problem? They haven’t gotten their Executive Branch in place?
It’s partly a reflection of the discord in government and extreme views on either side and fighting each other for every scrap of advantage.
In interviews in the past you said that’s why we needed to change the political process; that’s why you thought that candidate Obama was the best choice for President.
True. But has he been able to do that at this point? It doesn’t look that way. I think that’s unfortunate. I wish the Administration would pay more attention to what’s needed to improve the ordinary functioning of government. We can’t even fight a war with our own people any more. We’ve got to hire Blackwater. I think people have lost confidence in government, they’ve lost trust in government, and it shows. This isn’t a question just of this Administration. It’s been kind of a steady, downhill path.”