Why Are We Surprised? Pt. 1

Politicians are crooked. Big surprise. Well it always seems like everyone is surprised and outraged when stones are overturned and all the creepy, dirty garbage underneath is exposed. Right now people are up in arms over a couple of the Obama administration's cabinet choices. I'm a little upset myself, but c'mon what did you expect? Here's the thing, before you start getting all tied up in knots about it: Geihtner was the only one who was confirmed. He did have about $35,000 in screwed up taxes, but he was confirmed. Let it go for a second. Tom Daschle had about $140,000 in back taxes and "paperwork errors". Did Daschle get confirmed? No. Let it go. Bill Richardson has a pending grand jury investigation for "pay-to-play" dealings in his home state of New Mexico. Was he confirmed as Secretary of Commerce? No. Let it go. Move on. Big politicians are treated differently. They've got more money. They have friends in high places. Do we think that's really going to change? I messed up on my taxes once. It took the IRS 5 years to discover the mistake. I got a call from a representative who told me that I needed to pay them $75. Are you kidding. 5 years! Well I paid it because I knew that someday I might want to run for public office and didn't want that hanging around my neck. Can't we wait just a little while to see how everything is going to turn out in the first one hundred days before we release the dogs? We did the same with Donald Rumsfeld, we let him in, let him shuffle the papers around on his desk, send off a few emails and then when we realized he didn't work well in that position we got rid of him.

Ok, let's see, who we have in the cabinet so far:

Agriculture--Tom Vilsack (confirmed)
Commerce--Judd Gregg (nominee)
Defense----Robert Gates (selected)
Education--Arne Duncan (confirmed)
Energy----Steven Chu (confirmed)
Homeland Security--Janet Napolitano (confirmed)
HUD------Shaun Donovan (confirmed)
Interior---Ken Salazar (confirmed)
Justice----Eric Holder (confirmed)
Labor----Hilda Solis (nominee)
State-----Hilary Clinton (confirmed)
Transportation--Ray LaHood (confirmed)
Treasury---Timothy Geithner (confirmed)
Veterans Affairs--Gen. Eric K. Shinseki (confirmed)

That's 11 people already confirmed with no problems so far, with two nominees waiting to be confirmed out of a total of 15 positions. So two guys didn't make the cut at all. TWO PEOPLE! That's a pretty good percentage when you think that all of the politicians are crooks in some way.

People are griping because they're candidate didn't win. People are griping because they think that Obama said he was going to change the way politics was going to be in Washington. Let's not forget all the griping and finger pointing when it came to Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, Mark Foley, Ted Stevens, Duke Cunningham, Harry Reid, Bob Ney and William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson. It's a two way street, both Republican and Democratic. Politicians are screwed up. They are not our moral leaders. They all have corrupt, immoral skeletons in their closets. And it seems like these days even our "moral" leaders can't cut it. But if we get shocked and apalled and mock the other side for saying this and that during their political campaigns we'll never get anywhere. In George Bush's first campaign he vowed that he wouldn't use or military for "nation building". Well?

This is exactly how Rome fell. A huge empire was filled with corrupt politicians, and the wealthy elite who finagled their way out of paying taxes, among other things, and eventually the whole system just fell apart. So what did they do? They just kept hosting more gladiator events to keep the everyday people occupied so they could do anything they wanted. Hmm, no wonder the Superbowl is such a huge event.

I'm from California, so what do I know. If you don't like it I'll sick Arnold on you. It is funny, though that one of the most liberal states, CA has a Republican governor and one of the most conservative, NC has a democratic governor in the capitol. It would make for a great gladiator event.