Different For Its Own Sake

"What I’ve told them directly, because I have heard some of this, is they need to spend a little time outside of New York. Because if you go to North Dakota or you go to Iowa or if you go to Arkansas, where folks would be thrilled to be making $75,000 a year without a bonus, then I think they’d get a sense of why people are frustrated. I think we have to understand the severity of the crisis that we’re in right now. The fact is, because of bad bets made on Wall Street, there have been enormous losses. There were a whole bunch of folks who, on paper, if you looked at quarterly reports, were wildly successful selling derivatives that turned out to be completely worthless…. " That was a response to the question during the 60 Minutes interview as to the point of if it were the President's responsibility to decide the salaries of bankers.

There is something that does not sit well with many Americans when the nouveau riche President claims to know the salary dreams of those who are not making his fabulous book deals and taxpayer funded salary. There is something a bit unseemly when the President inks a book deal to "repackage" his last book into a classroom book for middle schoolers just days before his inauguration. There is something unseemly about a sitting President leading the nation through a particularly tough patch while yucking it up on late night talk shows and making jokes about the disgust Americans have for another auto bailout.

You may remember this is the same man as candidate who went to Iowa to campaign at the start of the presidential primary season and worked "arugula" and "Whole Foods" into his speech. There are no Whole Foods markets in Iowa.

The man is President of the United States. In his myopic zeal for trashing all things proper of the White House and traditions held by previous Presidents, he looks unserious and not at all "different" or cutting edge, as he fancies himself. Doing things just to be different is juvenile.

Today it was reported that President Obama will make an appearance during the Univision music awards ceremony. This "different" move wouldn't have anything to do with pandering for the Hispanic vote next time around, would it? Change we can believe in?

Today the Secretary of Treasury, a tax cheat, told members of Congress that he wants even more power. He wants the power to decide winners and losers in all major businesses. He wants to also set salaries and decide on bonus policy. Where would that nightmare end?

Yesterday, the Secretary of Treasury, a tax cheat, murmured that he would certainly have no problem with considering a world currency to replace the dollar and the value of the dollar plunged. The market was none too excited about that idiocy, either. Then, after being thrown a life preserver from that event's moderator, he backtracked. China must have been terribly entertained.

Smoke and mirrors rule the day.