That is the percentage Obama is proposing to cut from the budget to reduce the deficit.

A senior administration officials says President Barack Obama is ready to ask federal department and agency chiefs to find $100 million to cut from the budget when he holds his first formal Cabinet meeting.

Now before you jump to the conclusion that this is some sort of PR stunt on the part of Jimmy Carter II, consider this:

If you were applying the same reduction to the purchase of a $50,000 car, it would amount to $1.41. If you were applying the same reduction to a family’s monthly budget of $4000 per month, it would amount to 11 cents per month. (!!!)

OK – go ahead and jump to the aforementioned conclusions now.

As for me, I can’t wait to get home tonight and tell my kids that our government is mortgaging their future a wee bit less than we thought!

Yesterday President Obama released Bush administration memos on terrorist interrogation techniques in the interest of transparency and with a blatant disregard for national security.

Clearly, as unsavory as some of these techniques must be (I don’t want to know how sausage is made either) we have been kept safe here at home for some time since 9/11 and there have been several foiled attempts at savagery on the part of terrorists in Western nations – without a doubt in part due to our more aggressive attempts to gather, intercept intelligence and connect the dots to protect our interests – and save lives.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.”

Whatever happened to when in doubt, keep your mouth shut – or in this case, keep the file cabinet locked. Whatta ya say Obammy that we err on the side of maintaining national security, not eroding it? Is that too much to ask?

What possible purpose could be served by advertising our most top-secret techniques for gleaning information that has probably saved lives?

A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.”

“It’s damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama’s action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again — even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake.”

“I don’t believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either 1. the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or 2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against.”

This should come as no surprise to those of us who warned you that a man that “served” in public office for less than two years is not a suitable choice to lead this nation. But disregard the Incompetence Theory^™ for now. Is it possible that Barack Obama holds his liberal agenda above all else, without regard for the consequences to our nation or it’s people?

Preposterous you say? Case in point: an $800 Billion stimulus package that will only raise our nation’s already untenable debt, devalue our dollar, and with no hope or precedent to show that such a plan has any hope of stimulating anything – save half our nation’s Hopey Changey dreams of a world without pain – or gain.

Not to mention the fact that our economy is showing signs of stabilization – and without any assistance from the not-yet-implemented “stimulus.”

And why release this now – are all other issues solved? Does Obama know that we are now somehow immune from attack?

Obama did not act on an arbitrary timeline. There was a deadline in a court case with the ACLU on Thursday. It had been extended, but the ACLU was not going to agree to another.

Ah, the ACLU. Well at least now we know who’s in charge.

Or, is this Barack Obtumor’s way of relieving the non-existent guilt of a nation not-sorry for having the audacity to protect it’s law-abiding citizens from being deep-fried in jet fuel in his or her 88th-floor office?

No, it’s a sophomoric President force-feeding an ever-angering nation a far-far-left (we warned you) agenda that flies in the face of his promise of Change^®.

…and leaves us a little less safe than we were on Wednesday.

When the word got out that President Obama was being fairly hands-off on the Captain Phillips crisis, some conservatives complained.

Not I.  I figured if there is a situation a President needs to delegate, this one – a fast-breaking crisis on the razor’s edge of life and death – is the one.  It should be the kind of situation where a President – and the next several echelons below him – say “we’ll seek a diplomatic solution, but you, the commander on the scene, need to use your discretion; you’ve trained for this sort of thing your whole career.  If there’s a threat to the hostage, you use your discretion, and I’ll back you on it”.

And if that’s how Obama would have handled things, I’d have nodded and said “Good job, Mr. President”, not that anyone cares.

But that’s apparently not how it happened:

Late last week, when it did not want it to appear that the president was acting like a cowboy, the Administration was content to say that Obama was taking a low key approach to the pirate hostage drama, leaving the decision making to others and perhaps hedging against a bad result.

So far, so good.

But once news of Phillips’ rescue reached the United States, the Administration was quick to try and claim at least a share of the credit for the president.

Was it the President’s handlers who did this?  Likely enough.  It’s Obama’s staff and minions and Congressional support that are the bulk of the problems with this Administration in the first place.

It is not quite shameless exploitation – presidents always get more credit, and blame, than they likely deserve for events that happen under their watch – but it is playing politics.

As a legislator, President Obama had the luxury of taking both sides of an issue to position himself politically. But as president, especially in matters of national security, the president does not have that luxury, and he cannot seek it. Perhaps with more experience, President Obama will be able to chart a course and be willing to accept the consequences of his decisions, good and bad. But in the events of the last week off the coast of Africa, President Obama showed himself to be not yet ready to act decisively before knowing how the political winds will blow.

Bill Clinton was accused of the same thing – but then, the “threats” he faced (the ones that weren’t bomb attacks that resolved themselves instantly, anyway) were all to his political power, not the nation.

For six years, I’ve had to listen to lefties barbering about the supposed butchery of civil liberties under Bush.  They are never, of course, able to actually specify any civil liberties being denied American citizens, but no matter; they’re on a roll!

Among the few who do attempt to answer the question, the common thread seems to be something along the lines of “Bush wants to do away with Habeas Corpus”.

Now, I think it’s become nearly axiomatic; when a liberal issues a group defamation of conservatives, there will either be some such behavior in the recent past, or there will be that exact behavior – beknownst or otherwise to the speaker – in the near future.  So axiomatic is it that I am going to coin “Berg’s Seventh Law of Leftyblog Behavior” to taxonomize it.[*]
…well, take a read:

The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight.In a court filing, the Justice Department also asked District Judge John D. Bates not to proceed with the habeas-corpus cases of three detainees at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Judge Bates ruled last week that the three — each of whom says he was seized outside of Afghanistan — could challenge their detention in court.

So the new law is: “When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character or respect for liberty, they are projecting”.
(more…)

Have you noticed how many crises and near-crises are, to the media, “distractions” from the really important news (like the new Obama puppy)?

Mark Steyn certainly has:

Tom Blumer of Newsbusters notes that in the last 30 days there have been some 2,500 stories featuring Obama and “distractions,” as opposed to about 800 “distractions” for Bush in his entire second term. The sub-headline of the Reuters story suggests the unprecedented pace at which the mountain of distractions is piling up: “First North Korea, Iran — now Somali pirates.”Er, okay. So the North Korean test is a “distraction,” the Iranian nuclear program is a “distraction,” and the seizure of a U.S.-flagged vessel in international waters is a “distraction.” Maybe it would be easier just to have the official State Department maps reprinted with the Rest of the World relabeled “Distractions.” Oh, to be sure, you could still have occasional oases of presidential photo-opportunities — Buckingham Palace, that square in Prague — but with the land beyond the edge of the Queen’s gardens ominously marked “Here be distractions . . . ”

Why, it’s almost as if the mainstream media want the whole world to cooperate with a triumphalistic narrative they’ve already written, in which the Obamessiah and his Hope and Change sweeps all the world’s benightedness before it!

Or something like that.

NOTE TO FLASH:  This piece is a commentary on the media’s kid-gloves treatment of Obama.  Not, as it happens, on his performance in the pirate standoff.

Chris Cilizza may think you’re hot stuff, but around here, you’re still just Flash. 🙂

Obama reaches out to ‘Moderate’ Pirates:

For too long, America has been too dismissive of the proud culture and invaluable contributions of the Pirate Community. Whether it is their pioneering work with prosthetics, husbandry of tropical birds or fanciful fashion sense, America owes a deep debt to Pirates.

The past eight years have shown a failure to appreciate the historic role of these noble seafarers. Instead of celebrating their entreprenuerial spirit and seeking to partner with them to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

Oh, of course it’s satire.

As far as you know, anyway.

Obama shows himself a rank amateur in Turkey:

The Europeans were appalled by Turkey’s neo-Taliban tantrum on-stage at last week’s NATO summit. The Turks fought to derail the appointment of a great Dane, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as the new NATO secretary general. Why? Because he didn’t stone to death the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed.

Which brings us to the even bigger problem: Obama has no idea what’s going on in Turkey. By going to Ankara on his knees, he gave his seal of approval to a pungently anti-American Islamist government bent on overturning Mustapha Kemal’s legacy of the separation of mosque and state.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, means headscarves, Korans, censorship and stacked elections. The country’s alarmed middle class opposes the effort to turn the country into an Islamic state. Obama’s gushing praise for the AKP’s bosses left them aghast.

Obama’s embrace of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (now orchestrating show trials of his opponents) was one step short of going to Tehran and smooching President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Give him time.

Remember – Obama’s the “smart one”.

…another promising career….sacrificed in the name of Hopey Changey^®.

In case you haven’t heard (because its so relevant to the average American) Kal Penn’s character, Dr.  Lawrence Kutner offed himself on last night’s “Can’t! Miss!!!^®” episode of House, M.D., and they are making an insipid attempt to make it “real” with a tribute video and memorial web site.

The next day (he should have waited three, maybe?) he is resurrected.

Actor and longtime Obama supporter Kal Penn is joining the Obama administration, the White House confirmed to CNN Tuesday.

What’s he going to be doing, what with all the qualifications he now possesses, having not been a doctor but playing one on TV?

The actor will be part of the White House Office of Public Liaison, which is run by Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Penn will be primarily involved in dealing with Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and the arts community.

Come again? So he’ll be liaising (yes, its now a word) with Obama and his peeps.

Not what you’d call a lateral move.

I wish I had written this take down of Obama sans teleprompter…

“A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn’t the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?”

Jimmy II, can I lend a hand? Start with Barney Frank.

Brown immediately swivels to leave Obama in pole position. There is a four-second delay before Obama starts speaking [click here for the rest]

Cheeky Brits.

Guaranteed…had it not been an April Fool’s Joke.

Obama Changes NASCAR by Ordering GM and Chrysler Out

The list (click above) of those outlets that fell for it is pretty interesting…and bi-partisan.

Touche’ Car and Driver!

…then again…who can blame them for falling for it…anything goes in this administration.

Do I have to go the Post Office for warranty repairs on my Suburban now?

Financial advisors are by no means infallible but tend to work with clients that plan for the future, heavily discount  government’s role in their planning, and are self-employed. As such, they probably tend to have a pretty good handle on what drives investors and the economy – not to mention often times being self employed themselves.
What say they regarding our governments efforts to salvage our economy?

from Financial Planning Magazine yesterday:

Brinker Capital, an investment management firm, published its Brinker Barometer, a gauge of financial advisor confidence and sentiment related to the economy and the markets. It concluded that advisors across the industry are skeptical of the government’s attempts to shore up the economy. “Financial advisors continue to be concerned about the state of the U.S. economy and are critical of the Obama Administration’s efforts to introduce a meaningful stimulus package,” said John Coyne, president of Brinker Capital, in a public statement. “Fully 77% of respondents say the final stimulus plan will not be effective, while 88% of advisors contend that the plan itself was not the product of a bipartisan effort.”

About 43% of advisors surveyed said that government’s efforts should have job creation as the top priority. Tax cuts came in second at 30%, with housing and mortgage relief third at 16%.

How about Mr. Obama himself?

When asked to grade President Obama’s performance so far with a mock school-grading system, nine percent gave him an “A,” while 66% graded him between “C” and “F.”

Despite the Governments worst (and predictable given the current administration) efforts, advisors think that the markets, in anticipation of the economy, will improve – albeit slowly – despite the Obama Administrations ill-advised tactics.

Sixty percent of respondents think that the economy will emerge from recession in 2010. And more than one-third of respondents believe that it will take more than six years’ for portfolios to recoup their losses.

Just in time for Obama to take credit although it will be too late as his supporters will have realized by then that they are still making their own mortgage payments and filling their own tanks with gas.

So the banks – some of them, anyway, who bet long on toxic assets and lent like 14 year olds with too-big-allowances – are in trouble.  The government, rightly or (koff, koff) wrongly, is stepping in and socializing the major bank industry in all but name, and spreading the love downstream with an immense “stimulus” program that promises money to just about everyone.

The question is, how is this going to be paid for?

“Borrowing?”  Sure – but eventually loans need to be paid back (unless the government has ordered Fannie and Freddie to underwrite the loans, but that doesn’t apply in this situation).  And that’ll be “The taxpayer”

Who is this “taxpayer?”

Well, let’s find out who it’s not.

For starters, let’s leave out the 91 million Americans who pay no tax at all, leaving 209 million people to pay taxes.

Who are the patriarchs who caused the problem?  Men!  That leaves out the 51% of the population that are women, taking us down to 98 million.

Remove those in State and Federal prison, (3.8 million), as well as the 3% of Americans on parole (another 9 million), and you’re at just under 86 million people on the hook for these plans.

Of course, you can’t count the 73.5 million Americans who are below age 18, obviously.  They’re kids.  It’s not their fault.  That leaves 12.5 million of  us – except we’re going to have to leave out 10 million illegal immigrants, leaving us at 2.5 million), the military (since they’re busy), the employees of federal and state governments (since they’ll be the ones solving the problem and…

…that leaves two Americans.  You, and me.  We are the ones who are going to wind up paying for all this.

(more…)

Barack Obama was going to fix America’s image to the rest of the planet.

After insulting European democracies, giving the Soviets Joe Biden.

Really, just saying the name is all you need. On a trip to Spain, Biden thanked Prime Minister Zapatero for his “help” in Iraq:

As everybody knows, the first decision Zapatero made after his unexpected win in 2004, right after the Madrid train terrorist attacks, was to abruptly and unilaterally pull out from Iraq.

Of course, as with all things in the current administration, there is a rational explanation:

So either Biden made a gaffe, or he was thanking Zapatero for angering Bush…

What do you think Robert Gibbs’ll say?

CORRECTION:  My bad.  Gibbs will never be asked.

One of the most galling memes of the last eight years was the notion, passed on by thousands of talking-point-gurgitating, historically-illiterate, but sometimes well-meaning lefties at all levels of the media, alt-media and society, was that the Democrats – the party of the NRO, the CCC, the WPA, the Great Society, Ted Kennedy, Tip O’Neil and Phyllis Kahn – were the party of “fiscal responsibility”.

Especially this past eight years,when we were saddled with a president and Congress who spent like crack whores with stolen gold cards (by the standards we were used to anyway), allowing the Tics to frame the debate entirely in terms of “balanced budgets” and deficits, rather than spending.

Of course, we knew the meme was a bunch of baked wind. We merely hoped the US wouldn’t have to find out with the greatest lesson in negative consequences in the history of the free world.

But that’s pretty much what’s gonna happen:

Already in the first 45 days of his administration, the federal government has authorized more debt spending than Ronald Reagan did in eight years in office.Then last week the Democrats’ own Congressional Budget Office found that the ten-year deficits of the Obama plan will be about $2.3 trillion higher than the $6.97 trillion the White House is projecting. This is the policy of the party that was swept back into power in 2006 and 2008 promising a return to an era of fiscal responsibility.

Welcome to the Obama doctrine.

“Tax and Spend” is the meme we on the right have assigned to liberal policy for several generations now.  It was pretty much a breezy device, in retrospect, compared to today, where Obama proposes to spend ghastly, brain-spinning sums today in exchange for job-killing, growth-shredding, future-mortgaging taxes tomorrow.

But the news on the red ink front is much worse than the president or even the CBO’s budget report suggests. If all of Obama’s “transformational” policy objectives–from global warming taxes to universal health care to doubling the Department of Energy’s budget–are enacted, the debt is likely
to increase from about 40 percent of GDP today to close to 100 percent of GDP by 2018. The ten-year debt is likely to be at least $6 trillion higher–or more than one-half trillion of higher deficits a year from now until forever–than the Obama budget projects.

These are uncharted levels of debt for the United States–though not for such high-flying nations as Argentina, Bolivia, and Mexico.

To be fair, Obama did promise change.

We’re changing into a third world country.

A couple hours ago I posted:
“…I’m not willing to have taxpayer money chase after bad money.”

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, that was Barack H. Obama on Thursday, March 26th, 2009.

Drum roll please…
Pakistan to get billions from U.S. despite oversight concerns 

“…I’m not willing to have taxpayer money chase after bad money.”

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, that was Barack H. Obama on Thursday, March 26th, 2009.

We’ll see about that, won’t we. Stay tuned.

As in a party and a cabinet that is corrupt, through and through. Senator Dodd’s wife: ties to AIG. Barney Frank’s lover: ties to Fannie Mae.

Now this:

One of those allegedly asleep-at-the-switch board members was Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel—now chief of staff to President Barack Obama—who made at least $320,000 for a 14-month stint at Freddie Mac that required little effort.

As gatekeeper to Obama, Emanuel now plays a critical role in addressing the nation’s mortgage woes and fulfilling the administration’s pledge to impose responsibility on the financial world.

Emanuel’s Freddie Mac involvement has been a prominent point on his political résumé, and his healthy payday from the firm has been no secret either. What is less known, however, is how little he apparently did for his money and how he benefited from the kind of cozy ties between Washington and Wall Street that have fueled the nation’s current economic mess.

Where’s the Change^®, Jimmy II? Where’s the Change^®?

Was I the only one who saw Sen. Gregg’s denunciation of Obama’s budget – it’ll bankrupt the United States…:

The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee says the Obama administration is on the right course to save the nation’s financial system.But Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire also says President Barack Obama’s massive budget proposal will bankrupt the country.

Gregg says he has no regrets in withdrawing his nomination to become commerce secretary. He pulled out after deciding he could not fully back the administration’s economic policies.

…and thought about Evita?

The Perons – Juan and Evita – were Argentinian Socialists who, between ’em, spent years as (depending on who you ask) charismatic saviors of Argentinian society or tin-pot strongmen/women who sold Fabian Socialism using callow but easy-to-digest populism, who repeatedly bankrupted a nation that, by all rights, should be the wealthiest and most prosperous in all of Latin America, getting elected repeatedly through a combination of anger at sitting administrations and what we call “star power” today.

Just you watch; Andrew Lloyd Weber (or someone very like him) is going to write a musical about The Obamas.  I say it as a joke now – but it’s one of those jokes that seems to come true for me lately.

…is that The One is doing his homework with the guy who came in second in the Cold War:

U.S. President Barack Obama has held talks with Mikhail Gorbachev, a spokesman for the former Soviet leader said on Monday, in the latest sign of Washington’s efforts to “press the reset button” on ties with Russia.

The Good News:  There is none.

The Good-News-That’s-Really Bad News:  We have no wall to tear down.

Could you imagine what’d happen if George W. Bush had not only muffed the name of the president of another nation, but of France?

Well, you’d have to imagine it; it was the Obamessiah:

Obama sent a letter to the French president, and called him Jacques Chirac.Maybe Barack Obama was too busy running for the next-higher-office (which is his his one strength) to bother reading a newspaper or a magazine or even a book to discover that they held an election a couple of years ago and elected L’Americain, Nicolas Sarkozy, as president.

But it is Obama, and not Bush, so…:

The American media has ignored this faux pas. But the French have not. One does not need to read French to understand the point of the Le Monde cartoon as shown [in Don Surber’s piece; go check it out].

Not just any nation, mind you, but a big, important one that is almost alone in Europe in upping its commitments to international security. The one that The One was supposed to help us in reaching out to.

UPDATE: Brian Jones tweets “Sarkozy oughtta respond with a letter addressed to “President Carter.”

UPDATE 2:  Of course there’s  an explanation.  And it works. 

Of course Obama will take more care with the French than with, say, all of us gun-clinging Jeebus freaks. 

60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft responds to President Obama’s curious performance on the long-running, Democrat-leaning news show.

Quoting Kroft:

You’re sitting here. And you’re laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems,” Kroft told the president. “Are people going to look at this and say, ‘I mean, he’s sitting there just making jokes about money?’ How do you deal with — I mean: explain … Are you punch-drunk?””No, no. There’s gotta be a little gallows humor to get you through the day,” Obama replied, with a laugh.

If it’d been Bush, the question would have been more like “are drinking agan?”

Of course, the media just is not going to hold The One’s feet in the fire:

The president also acknowledged surprise at how quickly the U.S. economy crumbled between his November election and January inauguration.

“I don’t think that we anticipated how steep the decline would be,” he said in the “60 Minutes” interview on CBS television. “That slope is a lot steeper than anything that we’ve said — we’ve seen before.”

Or since January.  Y’know.

But some of us – the “economic reality-based” community – weren’t surprised at all.  Tax and spend liberals shred economies.

Our current President’s ongoing tone-deafness is going to cause him some problems.

First it was insulting all of us gun-clinging Jesus freaks in the heartland in front of a bunch of poshes at a San Francisco fund-raiser.

Then, it was throwing hautesy tautesy parties at the White House as he warned the rest of us to expect soup lines in our near future (in its own way, worse than Carter’s “malaise” moment).

But now?  He’s cheesing off the military.

Careful, Barry O.

(I should check to see if that “hundred days of poems” are starting to sound depressed).

…without a teleprompter.

That is all.

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name

A month ago I wrote that Obama was having trouble filling his commerce post: I Will Not Go Down With This Ship

It turns out Treasury is having the same issue – there aren’t enough democrats desperate enough to have That Won on their resume.

The fact that Treasury is having trouble staffing its upper 14 appointments below Geithner means that people in the know about Obama’s economic policies are running scared. They don’t want to get involved, even if they have hungered after those plum jobs their whole lives. That tells you what the savviest Democrats are thinking.

Why? Policy.

Even the Europeans are resisting hyper-deficits, because Europe always has that memory of the 1920s and 30s: hyperinflation, unemployment, crushing poverty and despair, followed by Hitler and Stalin. They are refusing to follow Obama down that road. If the dollar crashes, they don’t want the euro to go down with it.

When the socialistic economies of Europe think Obama’s policies are too far left…

Washington Democrats are having panic attacks. They know you can’t turn the country on a dime; either you end up shafting the economy and lose the House in 2010, or you get slapped in the face by Putin or Ahmadinejad and also lose the House in 2010.

The American people still haven’t quite figured this guy out, probably because they can’t believe their eyes and ears.

What – we didn’t warn you about his far-left associations? You didn’t get the Che Guevara memo? You didn’t take an inventory of the few times he voted as Senator?

The saner Left is beginning to worry out loud. Yes, Nancy the Eternally Youthful really believes she is “saving the Planet,” but her House members are seeing their numbers tanking, and they have to start running this year to get re-elected next year.  Harry Reid is one of the nastiest characters in DC, but he is a survivor. Somebody is going to hit the brakes, and then an almighty struggle will break out on the Left.

The nations largest economy and sole superpower is now a lady in waiting for her savior – the saner left.

Harry Reid?

This might be a good time to panic.

…or at least sweep out a corner in the basement and start looking for sales on canned goods.

…but wouldn’t want to be compared to one, and certainly not by a woman (it sort of refers to one’s manhood, and not favorably, if you know what I mean).

Barack Obama even needs a teleprompter to get mad.

…but he always looks good doing it.

As he watches the fury of ordinary Americans bubble up at those who continue to plunder our economy, he should keep in mind one of my dad’s favorite Gaelic sayings: “Never bolt the door with a boiled carrot.”

At the White House on Monday, the president read reporters some tough talk from the teleprompter about the chuckleheads at A.I.G., accusing them of “recklessness and greed.”

But it was his own boiled carrots who acted shocked at bonuses that they should have known were coming, and should have dismantled before handing A.I.G. another $30 billion two weeks ago.

I don’t have a ton of time today to put my usual snark on this…but it’s a pretty good take on the veneer that is our President and his Cabinet, who have apparently been caught by this whole AIG debacle with their pants down (pun intended).

For the first time since last fall’s election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG.

Gone are the days when they could merely bludgeon the Bush administration and promise to seek bipartisan solutions to the nation’s economic problems.

Now, in control of the White House and Congress, they are struggling to come up with an explanation for what no one in either party seems moved to defend.

But is it all Obama’s fault? Of course not.

While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, [Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)] added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” — which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.

And of course no one knew AIG was going to pay out millions in bonuses until they paid out millions in bonuses, right?

For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn’t until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back.

Boiled Carrots. Yum.