Those who say that baseball is America\u2019s national pastime are dead wrong.\u00a0 While a few hundred sports writers and a few million people may be focused on the battle between baseball commissioner Bud Selig and Yankee star Alex Rodriguez, trying to figure out whether or not Selig will be able to make A-Rod\u2019s 211 game suspension stick, far more Americans are focused on the fact that Washington just doesn\u2019t work anymore.<\/p>\n
Even those who pay very little attention to the day-to-day goings-on in the nation\u2019s capitol had to sit up and take notice back in March 2010, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, in reference to the 2,300 page Affordable Care Act, Obama\u2019s principal legislative accomplishment, \u201cBut we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what\u2019s in it\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Was she telling us that the once-honorable process of legislating has become nothing more than a game of \u201cgrab bag?\u201d<\/p>\n
Those of us who\u2019ve worked in and around Washington for many years are fully aware of how the place operates and how things get done on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.\u00a0 As German Chancellor Otto von Bismark once said, \u201cThose who love sausage and obey the law should not watch either being made.\u201d\u00a0 Watching the lawmaking process from afar is merely disturbing; watching the process up close is another matter, entirely.<\/p>\n
The federal government has become so big and so unmanageable that no individual member of Congress can know or understand what is being proposed on a day-to-day basis.\u00a0 Few members are able to read even those bills that emanate from the committees they serve on, much less the bills that are produced by other committees.\u00a0 No one in Congress reads even a fraction of the bills introduced and voted on.<\/p>\n
As of 2009, members of the House were allowed to hire up to 18 full time and 4 part time staff employees.\u00a0 Because of differences in the size and population of states, the Senate has no such restrictions.\u00a0 The greatest number of those staff people are called legislative assistants.\u00a0 Their job it is to read and digest legislative proposals and advise their members on the pros and cons of bills that make it out of committee and onto the floor of the House and Senate for consideration.<\/p>\n
But the Congressional staff is small and efficient when compared to the cabinet departments and other agencies of government.\u00a0 So who are all these nameless, faceless people who play such a significant role in our daily lives?\u00a0 Each year, as tens of thousands of congressional staff and bureaucrats retire or go on to jobs in the private sector, tens of thousands more arrive by plane, train, or bus, eager to make a place for themselves in the halls of power.\u00a0 Most have never held a real job in the private sector and come equipped with nothing more than a document showing that they\u2019ve earned a degree from an accredited college or university.<\/p>\n
For many, those who arrive in Washington without reliable political connections, their first stop is the bulletin boards located in the foyers of the many small restaurants and cafes on Capitol Hill.\u00a0 From those small scraps of paper tacked to the bulletin boards, they jot down names and telephone numbers of people seeking roommates.<\/p>\n
The employer of the first roommate is unimportant.\u00a0 What is important is that the first roommate have a full time job in the Congress or at an agency of the federal bureaucracy.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the job search begins, and as the weeks pass and the newbie expands his\/her social network through nightly parties and drinking sessions on Capitol Hill or in Georgetown, the job opportunities begin to develop.\u00a0 That\u2019s how it\u2019s done.\u00a0 All that is needed to become a functioning part of the ruling class is a freshly-minted college diploma, a bit of ambition, and enough money from mom and dad to provide living expenses until a job is found and the first paycheck comes in the door.<\/p>\n
Job advancement in Washington is fast and fairly indiscriminate.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a look at just two examples from the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
By now we\u2019ve all become acquainted with a red-haired young woman named Jennifer \u201cJen\u201d Psaki, the new spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State<\/a>.\u00a0 Psaki replaces Victoria \u201cToria\u201d Nuland, a central figure in the drafting of the talking points used by Barack Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to lie to the American people about the roots of the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. \u00a0So, who is Jen Psaki?\u00a0 What are her credentials?\u00a0 What background and experience does she have that makes her capable of being the voice and the face of the U.S. State Department?<\/p>\n Just seventeen years ago, in 1996, Psaki graduated from Greenwich High School<\/a>, in Connecticut.\u00a0 She enrolled at the College of William & Mary<\/a>, in Williamsburg, Virginia, graduating in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy.\u00a0 During her college career she was a backstroke specialist on the William & Mary women\u2019s swim team.<\/p>\n Within weeks after graduation, Psaki was employed by a Democratic campaign consultant and was sent to Iowa to work on the reelection campaigns of Senator Tom \u201cDung Heap\u201d Harkin and Gov. Tom Vilsak. \u00a0When Harkin and Vilsak were reelected in 2002, she moved to Washington where she took a job as communications director in the office of Cong. Joseph Crowley (D-NY).<\/p>\n During Sen. John Kerry\u2019s 2004 presidential campaign she served as deputy press secretary, acting as spokeswoman for Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, the Kerry children, and Kerry\u2019s disgraced running mate, Sen. John Edwards (D-NC).\u00a0 When Kerry was defeated in November 2004, Psaki returned briefly to her job as communications director for Cong. Crowley.\u00a0 Then, as Democrats prepared for the 2006 mid-term elections, Psaki went to work for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, working directly under future White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, as the committee\u2019s press secretary for the Midwest and Northeast regions.<\/p>\n Less than a year later, as Obama assembled a campaign organization to seek the presidency, Psaki relied on her friendship with Rahm Emanuel to land a job as deputy press secretary in the Obama campaign, serving as Obama\u2019s traveling press secretary.\u00a0 After more than a year in that position she moved to the White House as deputy assistant to the president, and on December 19, 2009, she was named deputy communications director, serving in that capacity until 2011.<\/p>\n In September 2011, Psaki left the White House briefly to become senior vice president and managing director of a Washington <\/a>lobbying and PR firm, Global Strategy Group<\/a>.\u00a0 In 2012 she returned to the campaign trail as press secretary<\/a> for the Obama reelection campaign.\u00a0\u00a0 Then, on February 11, 2013, she replaced Toria Nuland as spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State<\/a>.\u00a0 The point is, I have socks in my dresser drawer that have been around longer than Jen Psaki.\u00a0 Nevertheless, with White House press secretary Jay Carney having used up every ounce of his credibility, lying for Obama, Psaki now waits in line to be Obama\u2019s next liar-in-chief.<\/p>\n Another case in point is Valerie Jarrett, Obama\u2019s principal brain trust and functional president of the United States.\u00a0 So who, and what, is Valerie Jarrett? \u00a0As described by The Daily Caller<\/em>, \u201cJarrett\u2019s official title\u2026 senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement\u2026 doesn\u2019t begin to do justice to her unrivaled status in the White House. She is Ground Zero in the Obama operation\u2026 the first couple\u2019s first friend and consigliere<\/em>, the last person to leave the Oval Office after meetings and the only White House official who dines with the first family in their private quarters at night.\u201d<\/p>\n Jarrett is the quintessential Chicago ward politician.\u00a0 In 1987, six years after graduating from the University of Michigan School of Law, she went to work in the administration of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.\u00a0 Continuing to work in the mayor\u2019s office, she was deputy chief of staff for Mayor Richard Daley<\/a> in 1991 when she hired Michelle Robinson<\/a>, who later became Mrs. Barack Obama.\u00a0 She served as commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development from 1992 through 1995 and was head of the Chicago Transit Board from 1995 to 2005.\u00a0 Between 2005 and November 2008, when she joined the Obamas in the White House, she served as CEO of The Habitat Company, as chairman of the Chicago Stock Exchange<\/a>, as chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center<\/a>, as vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago<\/a>, as a trustee of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry<\/a>, and as a director of USG Corporation<\/a>, a Chicago based building materials corporation.<\/p>\n Jarrett\u2019s resume is an impressive one, but one that hardly qualifies her to function as commander in chief, reportedly ordering the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs not<\/em> to send military assistance to rescue the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans, when a disinterested and incompetent commander in chief went to bed to rest up for a strenuous day of fundraising in Las Vegas, knowing that the lives of American diplomats were endangered.<\/p>\n Yes, whether in the Olympic-size pool at William & Mary or in the putrid waters of Democrat Party politics, these women are both swimmers.\u00a0 And now that they\u2019ve both reached the pinnacle of their success, they find themselves as paid liars for the most corrupt administration in history, and happily so.\u00a0 Both women paddled like hell, striving for personal success, but ended up in support of a cause that is not worthy of anyone\u2019s time or effort.<\/p>\n Jen Psaki, Valerie Jarrett, and tens of thousands just like them\u2026 people with tremendous power and influence, but with little or no real world experience\u2026 are glaring examples of what is wrong with Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Those who say that baseball is America\u2019s national pastime are dead wrong.\u00a0 While a few hundred sports writers and a few million people may be focused on the battle between baseball commissioner Bud Selig and Yankee star Alex Rodriguez, trying … Continue reading