Scenes From The Dawning of the New Age

Confirmation Hearings for Treasury Secretary-designate Geithner Postponed. If there was ever an example of media double standards that favor Democrats, it's this. Can we imagine the reaction if a Republican nominee for Treasury Secretary had failed to pay his taxes? Yes We Can! Actually, this is a special dispensation that only favors Obama nominees. Bill Clinton's AG nominee Zoe Baird was derailed over a $2,900 fine for unpaid nanny taxes. Subsequent nominee Kimba Wood withdrew from consideration on similar grounds, even though she really didn't have a tax issue. Geithner, on the other hand, failed to pay $34,000 in taxes over a period of several years. That is not an error; that is on purpose.

There is an obvious "too big to fail" joke that can be made here. However, there is something more serious at work. Geithner has not paid his taxes. The IRS, and its demands, are well known. Geithner is going to be heading the IRS, in his capacity as Treasury Secretary, and yet he has been unable to follow its most basic rules. All of this has a "Spitzer prosecuting johns" quality. I think I can safely predict more tax disclosures. It goes without saying that the REAL reason to object to Geithner is his status as "Man on the Scene" at the New York Fed during Wall Street's implosion and subsequent bailout. This will not end well.


Clinton to Engage Iran and Syria Soon . Give me a break. All you "soft" "smart" folks out there: what are you going to do that is substantively different from the Bush era? Is Hillary going to be flying in and out of the Gaza Strip to meet with Hamas and shake hands with their rotating cast of spokesmen who can promise everything and deliver nothing? How will she handle a resurgent Russia? Or a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran that we have been engaging for 30 years while they plot our destruction? And if Bush is so stupid, how did he manage to open relations with India (among other things)?

All of this talk of "soft" and "smart" power is no doubt soothing to their advocates' egos. They will go back to doing things the "right" way. This means lots of flights to the Mideast and lots of time spent (and lost) at innumerable summit meetings. It's good for preserving the illusion that the elites are in charge. Meanwhile, only God will know what is happening in the shadows. And after few years of "smart" power, they will be ready to educate us.


Chu Softens Views on Coal, Nuclear Power . That's right. Just say enough to get through a hearing chaired by your ideological allies. Too many times, the people charged with safeguarding the nations's environment are not asked about the practical effects of the rules they impose uponthe rest of us. Usually, environmental regulations are passed with the promise that they are benign, but such rules are often job killers. If you are in an industry that uses any sort of chemical, or creates any sort of discharge, then you know about the Law of Unintended Consequences follows any law that Chu might be charged with enforcing.