An Embarrassment to the White House

President Obama and the Real Presidential Seal

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who came under fire from reporters in the briefing room on Tuesday, acknowledged that the day’s events were an embarrassment to the White House, but added that the president continues to have “confidence in the [vetting] process.”— Sam Youngman and J. Taylor Rushing

Yeah like we’re not going to be hearing a lot of that for the next four years, Tom Daschle’s scandalous tax fraud and his subsequent withdrawal from consideration to be Secretary of Health and Human Services is an embarrassment to the White house and only two weeks into the Obama presidency that’s got to be a Guinness Book world record.(see story)(see video)



Now White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says that the president continues to have confidence in the vetting process? What vetting process? Is Mr. Gibbs speaking about the vetting process that Obama’s people promised was supposed to be the most extensive vetting process to ever be used by a president? You don’t remember that? Well please allow me to aid your memory.

Obama is conducting the vetting process much the way he managed his campaign: methodically, thoroughly and on a prodigious scale. He did not wait until he won the election to vet his favored picks.

Soon after he clinched the Democratic nomination, lawyers quietly prepared dossiers of about 150 contenders for senior positions -- often without the candidates themselves knowing -- said a senior Obama transition adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity.—Philip Rucker

We were told that Obama’s transition team was supposed to be manned by an army of volunteer lawyers who were supposed to vet his potential picks with unprecedented scrutiny of their personal, financial and professional backgrounds.(see story)

Now, as President-elect Barack Obama assembles his administration, an army of lawyers volunteering on his transition team are vetting his potential picks with unprecedented scrutiny of their personal, financial and professional backgrounds.—Philip Rucker,Washingtonpost

If President Obama didn’t lie about the unprecedented vetting process how did any of the following get through it: Gov. Bill Richards, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, Tom Daschle, and Nancy Killefer?

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Exceptions! The Obama administration explains it this way. There will be a few people who are uniquely qualified that will be excepted from the vetting process.

So to the Obama administration the ends justify the means. In any discussion about ethics that attitude is not very ethical. And for an administration that promised to be the most ethical presidential administration ever this is not good!

Interviewing with Anderson Cooper the President said, "I think that, look, ultimately, I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. And I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for powerful people, and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.”

The only problem Mr. President is you were perfectly willing to present all of these ethically challenged individuals to the Senate and to the American people. You were perfectly willing to support them right up until the time that public sentiment turn against some of them and their unethical behaviors. Only then did you think enough to say that you screwed up.

Each name -- Clinton, Daschle, Holder, Axelrod, Emanuel -- must meet tough new vetting standards put in place by the Obama transition. So is this the toughest screening process in presidential history?—Gwen Ifill, PBS

You had us all fooled President Obama. You even had one of your biggest fans Gwen Ifill fooled. Ms. Ifill reported that all of your appointees would have to face that most rigorous screening process in presidential history. I hope she’s not to disappointed, though it doesn’t seem that you can do anything to shake the faith of your true believers. (see story)

Saying that you messed up or that you made a mistake does not put this behind you Mr. Obama we all know that trick. What it does is it shows that you knew that these where unethical people but that didn’t bother you Mr. President because you have always surrounded yourself with unethical people.



Finally the fact that you would do a Mea culpa is further proof that you are an unethical man yourself. Not because you said it was your fault but the fact that you used the Mea culpa as a device to get over this scandal so that you could quickly move on to the next!