Redefining Competence And Ethics In The Age Of Obama
Probably not too many of you have heard the name of Erroll Southers, but he is President Barack Obama’s nominee to head up the Transporation Safety Administration (see Federal Times). As it turns out, once upon a time, Southers used his access to government records to spy on his ex-wife’s boyfriend (see Washington Post). Unfortunately, that makes him a natural fit for the Obama administration. Not only does he have the Obama requisites of cheating and government Big Brother control, but he’s not committing to rule out unionization at the TSA. So he has the radical ideological pedigree, too. That issue alone flipped the U.S. Senate to Republican control in the unprecedented 2002 mid-term election.
It’s not surprising that in an era when the treasury secretary cheated on his taxes (and a sycophant Senate cowed) and the president hired an avowed communist for his White House staff (Van Jones), among the many Maoists (Anita Dunn) and other controversial appointments, that this incident from Southers’ past practically fails to register. After all, the only thing at stake is national security and individual liberty. Maybe if the administration cared more about real security threats than about appointing people with dubious backgrounds, President Obama’s government would be less dysfunctional.
We’re accustomed to liberal attempts to redefine the natural order of life. However, in the Age of Obama, those attempts no longer come through persuasion, but through power accumulated from corruption and incompetence purported to be the “best and brightest.”