So, I'm sitting in the cafeteria at work having lunch. The TV overhead is tuned to Headline News and, inevitably, Barack Obama.
Our new President is, on his first day in office, signing Executive Orders to frame out his rules of the road for his Executive Branch. First up: ethics reform. He's bringing change to ethics and transparency, he's saying, so that America can trust it's government again.
Wait a minute, I'm thinking. Isn't this the President whose nominee for Treasury Secretary (whose agency includes the IRS) is testifying in Congress and apologizing for being a tax cheat? Does Mr. Secretary's example mean that I can ditch my tax bill and not pay any penalties until and unless I get nominated for a cabinet appointment? Why not?
Wait a minute, I'm thinking. Isn't this the same President whose nominee for Secretary of State, in charge of our embassies and diplomatic policy worldwide and confirmed today in the Senate, has a conflict of interest the size of the her new fiefdom - having benefitted from the tens of millions of dollars her spouse has accepted from foreign governments for the Clinton Library Foundation. Isn't she a board member. Don't they have a joint checking account? Is she going to pressure a government who gave her family an easy $10 million?
Wait a minute, I'm thinking. Isn't this the same President whose nominee for Attorney General of the United States is apologizing for his role in lobbying President Clinton for a pardon for criminal fugitive Marc Rich based on cash donations from Rich's wife to the same Clinton Library Foundation?
Does his new ethics Executive Order include anything about not nominating a rogues' gallery of ethically challenged elitists to his own cabinet?
And I'm supposed to trust in government now?
I almost barfed up my sloppy joes.
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