Mr. President - please define "gyrations"...

“Day to day gyrations of the stock market” – this is how our Commander in Chief describes the Dow’s fall from 12,000 in September to its current 6,500 level. My concern is less that he doesn’t know what’s going on in the stock market – I don’t either. My concern is the dismissive attitude we see whenever anyone asks Mr. Obama a question whose answer might be uncomfortable or inconvenient, or otherwise not in line with his string of campaign promises. “Don’t worry about it” is beginning to sound like, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”, or worse: “Your worries are silly, ridiculous and beneath my dignity to address”. It smacks of the elitism, the “let them eat cake” attitude he and the other Democrats currently in positions of authority attributed to the previous administration and the Republican Congress.

I want this nation to recover. I want government to be in its intended role as servant of the people, not ruler of the people. I want this administration and this Congress to understand and remember that, in the words of Rush Limbaugh last weekend, they are elected to be temporary stewards of the nation, not to remake the nation. This nation has survived worse than we are currently experiencing, and it is arrogant in the extreme to think that one President’s view of how this nation should look trumps all those who have gone before and that the nation must change to fit his view.

Harkin, no; Hatch, yes: Whaaaa….???

As I write this, Fox News is reporting that Timothy Geithner has been confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury. A man who owed about $34,000.00 to the IRS, some of which, according to Allahpundit in his January 13 blog on www.hotair.com, he didn’t pay until the day he was nominated for the post, has been confirmed to the position which is directly responsible for the assessment and collection of income taxes. The argument is apparently that he was just SOOOO BUSY being in charge of financial stuff that he didn’t read the two manuals the IMF gave him describing both the obligation and the procedure to pay self-employment taxes. Oh, he said he was sorry.

Earlier in the day, Democrat Tom Harkin took a principled stand, voting against Geithner because he (rightly, to my way of thinking) could not in good conscience vote for a man who had repeatedly violated the very laws he will now be in charge of administering. On the other hand, Republican Orrin Hatch made the astonishing statement that Mr. Geithner’s experience in financial matters outweighed his violation of the tax laws of this nation. According to Mr. Hatch, capability outweighs responsibility.

This is an embarrassment more appropriate for European politics than American. My hat is off to Senator Harkins. I can't fathom Mr. Hatch's logic. How are we to teach our children to do the right thing for the right reason when people in positions of authority absolve each other for ethical lapses, without requiring any consequences for their actions?

A Faulty Premise for Foreign Policy

I watched President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton yesterday as they, dare I say smugly, announced a "new direction" in US foreign policy: aggressive engagement. As though the only way we're going to regain the respect of the world is to ask them what they want and give it to them. This, my friends, is appeasement, pure and simple. I believe it arises from the faulty premise that we should care what the rest of the world thinks of the United States.

Does that sound arrogant? Let me tell you why it shouldn't matter to us what any other country or person thinks of us. We, the United States of America, should be doing the right thing, in the right way, for the right reason, regardless of who will approve or disapprove of our choice. That is a definition of integrity, and that is what we will lose (some, like Bill Gertz in his book, "The Failure Factory", think we've already lost it) when we begin making our decisions based on what we perceive others may think. CS Lewis, in his essay, "The Inner Ring", explains that the only inner circle we should care about being a part of is the one that results from us doing what we should in the way we should - then the respect and accolades we receive will go where they should: upwards. We (read, "State Department bureaucrats and Blame America Firsters") care too much about what others think of us. Right is right - the rest will take care of itself.

I may be rambling a bit - it's early yet. If you have something to contribute to this conversation (agreeing or disagreeing - that's why I putting this stuff out there), please visit my blog at http://josephandhisbrothers.blogspot.com. As the header says, I'm Just A Guy trying to figure this stuff out.