Barack Obama is finding that it is one thing to campaign on big ideas and it is easy to promise to do things differently but quite another thing to put those ideas into practice once one gets in office. He made a number of pledges during his campaign and he even tried to fulfill some of them once he got into office but he has been forced to change his position on a number of them because the view is different when one is looking out than it is when one is looking in.
The latest change (you can believe in) is the Obama stance on contact with lobbyists by people in his administration. In March, Obama said that his people could not have contact with lobbyists except under certain conditions. Now the restriction has been lifted or, shall we say, eased.
The lobbyists were having fits because they wanted access. I imagine that it is hard to find anyone in DC, inside or outside the government, who has not been a lobbyist (or is married to one). These people were lined up trying to help direct stimulus money and now they have more direct access in order to help decide where the money we do not have is spent. I would not be surprised if someone reported that this was done in exchange for political donations. I am not saying it happened that way, only that it would not surprise me.
Obama should have taken a little time when he first arrived to see how things run. He should have reviewed the things he wanted to change and ensured that the change was possible and that whatever was changed would not, for some reason, be changed back. Instead, Obama rushed in confident that he was doing the right thing and that he did not need to see how things worked because he knows it all.
His arrogance is beginning to be his undoing.
Of course this change was released on the weekend when fewer people are paying attention. Obama does not like to have his flip flops receive widespread attention because it shows that he cannot keep his word, does not know what he is doing, and that he is no different than most other politicians (despite his claims to the contrary).
Stay tuned because I bet we will see him change his mind on many more of his plans to reinvent America.
I somehow don’t think this is what people had in mind when Obama said if America elected him he would bring change to DC.
How can he be change we can believe in when he continually shows us that we can’t believe him in the first place?
Funny thing how this works. George Bush would have been called a liar…
Source:
The Hill
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