Obama and the case of the missing watchdogs

Confoundingly, the president has failed for years to find capable Inspector Generals to bust government waste, fraud, and misconduct. Why? If Sherlock Holmes worked in Washington, I would hire him immediately to investigate a troubling phenomenon in the federal government. Let's call it the case of the disappearing watchdogs, also known as Inspectors General (IG). 

IGs oversee an army of talented auditors and investigators who independently bust waste, fraud, and misconduct within government agencies. In the past, IG-led investigations have exposed torture supported by the Bush Administration, misuse of the controversial Patriot Act, and Humvee "death traps" in Iraq. These watchdogs are vital to keeping federal agencies honest, and informing Congress of wrongdoing. They also save taxpayers up to $18 for every dollar invested in IGs, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. 

SEE MORE: Obama's recess appointments: Unconstitutional?

But some of the most important agency posts — for example, an IG for the State Department — are vacant, and have been for years. Many of these "missing watchdogs" require an appointment from President Obama before the Senate can confirm them, but the White House has been downright sluggish, if not outright negligent, in taking action. 

If Obama expects us to take his open government promises seriously, he needs to make Inspector General appointments a priority.

SEE MORE: Jodi Kantor's 'explosive' Obama book: 4 talking points

"Every president, including Obama, talks about the need to root out government misconduct," says Dr. Paul C. Light, a New York University professor and former Brookings Institution fellow. "But when it comes to strengthening the IGs and appointing highly-qualified individuals, they go M.I.A. It just curls my hair." 

Light says he "can't imagine" any of the Republican presidential candidates addressing the problem, either. So with ineptitude from both parties, how do we solve this? As Sherlock — the Robert Downey Jr. version, of course — would say, "Never theorize before you have data. Invariably, you end up twisting facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

SEE MORE: The New Yorker's dissection of the 'Obama memos': 5 takeaways

Here are some facts: According to a new tracker published by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), there are now 12 IG vacancies, including the Department of State (vacant for nearly 1,500 days), the Department of Justice (nearly 400 days), the Department of Homeland Security (more than 360 days), and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (nearly 400 days).

Former State Department IG Clark Ervin told me via email that "it's incredibly important to have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed Inspector General for every (applicable) agency, but certainly for one as crucial to national security as the State Department." 

SEE MORE: William Daley's resignation: Will it help Obama?

Indeed, the State Department is a prime example of an agency that is in desperate need of a permanent watchdog. Since Ervin left in 2003, the State Department has only had a permanent IG for two years. Acting or deputy IGs (like ambassadors) have filled the position instead, a practice that anonymous employees of the State Department have called a conflict-of-interest "disaster," as the temporary IGs often take management positions again after leaving the IG gigs — meaning their future jobs are dependent on the people they should be evaluating. Additionally, temporary IGs don't undergo the thorough congressional vetting process that is required for permanent IGs. 

Unfortunately, now that the U.S. has pulled out of Iraq, this "disaster" of an IG office is expected to oversee the State Department's management of thousands of contractors. And we all know how well-behaved (NSFW) contractors in contingency zones can be. This is a critical task. But Obama hasn't bothered to even nominate a candidate in his entire term in office. 

The State Department may be the agency that most urgently needs an IG, but it's not the only one. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has been without an IG for more than a year, despite being responsible for unearthing waste and misconduct in Afghanistan — a gargantuan task. Remember the "Fast and Furious" scandal? That bloody, botched U.S. gun-smuggling plan was allegedly covered up by the U.S. Justice Department, an agency that hasn't had a permanent IG for over a year. 

This begs the question: What the heck is going on? 

Ervin told me he thinks the Obama Administration may be failing to promptly appoint IGs because of a variety of factors, including "the difficulty of recruiting capable people from the private sector nowadays," a "toxic political environment," and "the complexity of the financial disclosure process."

However, it appears that there is more to the story. Light believes there is no shortage of highly-qualified auditors and investigators that would be honored to take on this tough job. Instead, he said the White House is failing to pursue candidates because it doesn't think it's a priority, and federal agencies, which can be hostile towards Inspector Generals, offer no encouragement. The result has been an appointment process that Light calls "nasty, brutish, and not at all short."

Fortunately, this is a problem with a fairly simple solution. If Obama expects us to take his open government promises seriously, he needs to make Inspector General appointments a priority, by recruiting and nominating strong, capable candidates. The Senate then needs to confirm them promptly. Procrastination is no longer an option — with billions of taxpayer dollars lost to waste and fraud abroad, it is imperative that the U.S. invests in oversight.  

On second thought, I'm not sure Sherlock would be impressed by this particular case, after all. Solving it is pretty elementary. 

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The Great Obama Kowtow

Wikipedia defines "kowtow" as "kneeling and bowing so low as to have one's head touching the ground. ... (Chinese history scholar) Immanuel (Hsu) describes the 'full kowtow' as 'three kneelings and nine knockings of the head on the ground.'" Wikipedia adds that, "In modern times, usage of the kowtow has become much reduced."

Have they been watching the Obama administration?

This week, the U.S. welcomed Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping — widely assumed to be the next leader of the Communist Party, the army and accordingly, of China. Xi will officially take power in the autumn of this year, just about the time that we have a free election to determine our next leader.

There were the usual brass bands and honor guards to welcome the next Chinese strongman. Xi lunched with Vice President Biden and posed for pictures in the Oval Office with President Obama.

But the Obama administration offered more than flag-snapping visuals to ingratiate itself with Xi. It sacrificed American principles.

As the Washington Post reported, Suzan Johnson Cook, the U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, had been scheduled to travel to China on Feb. 8. Her planned visit ran into trouble when Chinese officials declined her requests for meetings. They then cited the paucity of meetings on her calendar as the reason to deny her a visa.

The Chinese have much to hide from an ambassador for religious freedom. On Feb. 13, as Xi was heading to the U.S., a 19-year-old Tibetan monk set himself ablaze in Aba County to protest the persecution of his faith by China. His is the 24th self-immolation in the past 11 months. The Chinese regime has responded to the Tibetans' protests with even more brutal repression than usual. Ngawang Sandrol, a Tibetan nun, suffered torture in jail for secretly recording songs about the Dalai Lama. Chinese troops patrol every block in Tibet and neighboring provinces where exiled Tibetans live.

Dissidents, including Muslim, Christian and Buddhist human rights advocates, have recently received long prison sentences. Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer who attempts to take the Chinese constitution's guarantees of religious liberty seriously, has been repeatedly imprisoned and tortured.

In December, a group of Uighurs was attacked while attempting to escape China across the western border. Seven were killed; several others, including five children, have been indefinitely detained. The government claims that the Uighurs were "resisting arrest."

The Chinese have long attempted to thwart U.S. and international support for religious minorities and other freedom-seeking people inside China. But denying a visa to a U.S. ambassador is a rare display of contempt.

How did the Obama administration respond? According to the Post, Cook and her staff were advised by "superiors in the Obama administration to avoid talking publicly about her canceled trip in the days before Xi's visit."

So the Chinese kick sand in America's face and the Obama administration is at pains to cover up for them?

In another signal of American meekness on human rights and religious liberty, the administration hosted a meeting on human rights the week before Xi's visit. Absent were representatives of the Uighurs, Tibetans or Chinese Christians. As Ellen Bork of the Foreign Policy Initiative noted, "Their reception in the White House would have sent a powerful signal of solidarity to the people of China, and especially human rights and democracy activists. We know from former political prisoners that such news has an impact, boosting their morale as well as improving their treatment."

Is it surprising that the Chinese disdain this White House?

In the course of his meeting with Xi, Vice President Biden made only the most anodyne and glancing references to human rights and religious persecution in China. As they clinked champagne flutes, Biden offered that he had mentioned the plight of "several very prominent individuals" to the Chinese leader and pronounced himself "appreciative" of Xi's response.

That is feeble. The greatest asset that the U.S. possesses in international relations is moral prestige. Whether they like us or not, the nations of the world acknowledge, sometimes only implicitly, that our democracy is genuine and our commitment to human freedom unmatched. Our capacity to confer legitimacy upon others is also unique. By kowtowing to China, the Obama administration has squandered that precious asset.

To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

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Will Catholic Bishops and the Religious Right Save Obama?

What is most striking about the showdown over contraceptive freedom is not the political victory that President Obama earned by standing up for women's reproductive rights, although his Republican adversaries are certainly helping him to make the most of it. Those adversaries don't seem to realize they have fallen into a trap, whether the White House set them up intentionally or not.

While the Catholic bishops and their allies on the religious right insist that this is an argument over the First Amendment, their true, longstanding purpose now stands revealed to the public. They would begin by imposing their dogma on every woman unlucky enough to work for an employer who shares it — an agenda that is deeply unpopular even among the Catholic faithful, let alone the rest of the American electorate. Then they would impose it on everyone, as the theorists of the religious right suggest every time they deny the separation of church and state.

The bishops have nothing to lose except their flock, whose respect for the hierarchy has plunged anyway over its resistance to reform and its failure to punish abuses far graver and more sinful than contraception. If they had to stand for election, not many of them would be left standing. And if they had to face a referendum on this current matter, they would lose resoundingly to the president, according to the latest survey data.

In a poll taken last Friday for the Coalition to Protect Women's Health Care, Public Policy Polling found that 57 percent of Catholic voters endorse the Obama "compromise" that would ensure continued prescription birth control for women working in religious institutions, without requiring those institutions to pay directly for that coverage. Only 29 percent sided with the bishops, the religious right and the Republicans , while 5 percent actually think the religious institutions should pay for contraceptive coverage regardless of their doctrine. The cross-tabs of the PPP poll show that Latino Catholics, Catholic independent voters and Catholic women support the Obama solution by wide margins. (The most recent poll by Fox News Channel shows the same overwhelming approval for the president's position among the general public, with 61 percent of voters on his side versus only 34 percent against.)

Those statistics are no threat to the bishops, of course, but represent a profound problem for the Republican leaders and candidates who have signed up for this male geriatric crusade against modernity. Mitt Romney, for instance, seems to believe that by stoking evangelical paranoia about a supposed "war on religion" by Obama, he will subdue evangelical paranoia about his Mormonism (which, by the way, expressly permits birth control). His pandering commenced when he announced his 2012 candidacy, but grew still more intense this week when he accused the president of perpetrating an "assault" on religion.

Such tactics are unlikely to placate the prejudices arrayed against Romney — and even if they did, he will pay a very high price next fall for joining the angriest and most extreme culture warriors on this issue. Congressional Republicans will be courting the same danger if, as promised, they propose legislation that would overturn the Obama compromise and deprive women working for religious institutions of equal rights to contraceptive services.

The president should hold fast. He has proved that it is possible to uphold the principle of full access to birth control, which has been the pro-family social policy of the American majority for half a century, while respecting the religious convictions of all Americans. The wild ranting of his enemies is only helping him now — and may yet ruin them in November.

Joe Conason is the editor in chief of NationalMemo.com. To find out more about Joe Conason, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

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Who is stronger against Obama: Santorum or Romney?

Rick Santorum has overtaken Mitt Romney in several GOP primary polls — but skeptics still aren't sold on the Pennsylvanian's ability to topple Obama in November For months, Mitt Romney has insisted to Republican voters that he's the candidate best equipped to beat President Obama in the fall. The polls backed him up, too, says Public Policy Polling's Tom Jensen, "at least until now." This week, a series of surveys have shown Rick Santorum catching up with Romney, or even passing him, in national and statewide polls of the Republican field. And for the first time, a new survey from PPP finds that Santorum performs slightly better against Obama than Romney does. Which of the GOP's two frontrunners actually has the best shot at the White House?

Santorum edges out Romney: The flurry of new polls "provide solid proof that Santorum and Romney are now in a statistical dead heat" for the GOP nomination, says Jonathan Tobin at Commentary. And after Romney's bruising battle with Newt Gingrich and a series of devastating gaffes, Mitt is losing his "strongest argument for the nomination" — electability — because he's "losing support among the independents who made him more electable" against Obama in the first place. Suddenly, the well-liked Santorum is arguably the stronger candidate.
"New polls give more bad news for Romney"

Romney is still a much safer bet: I'm sticking with the conventional wisdom, says John Cassidy at The New Yorker: "If Santorum were to be nominated, the odds are that Obama would win in a landslide." Romney has his flaws, but "Santorum is essentially an ultra-right-wing protest candidate." Women in particular don't trust him on social issues, and even in this political climate, Americans won't elect "a religious zealot and armchair militarist of Santorum's stripe." Once he faces Romney's attacks and the media's scrutiny, Santorum's numbers should wilt.
"The Santorum surge: How seriously should we take it?"

They're almost evenly matched: "If I were a Republican, I'd still bet on Romney," but it's a toss-up, says Jonathan Chait at New York. In the end, it's a question of whose brand of swing voters are more important. If you think the general election will be decided by "economically conservative, socially liberal swing voters," Romney's your man. But if it's a contest for Reagan Democrats, the "economically populist and socially conservative" Santorum cleans up. And remember, if the economy improves, neither Republican has a great shot at beating Obama.
"Is Romney more electable than Santorum?"

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Under fire, Obama adjusts his birth control policy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Under fierce election-year fire, President Barack Obama on Friday abruptly abandoned his stand that religious organizations must pay for free birth control for workers, scrambling to end a furor raging from the Catholic Church to Congress to his re-election foes. He demanded that insurance companies step in to provide the coverage instead.

Obama's compromise means ultimately that women would still get birth control without having to pay for it, no matter where they work. The president insisted he had stuck by that driving principle even in switching his approach, and the White House vehemently rejected any characterization that Obama had retreated under pressure.

Yet there was no doubt that Obama had found himself in an untenable position. He needed to walk back fast and find another route to his goal.

The controversy over contraception and religious liberty was overshadowing his agenda, threatening to alienate key voters and giving ammunition to the Republicans running for his job. It was a mess that knocked the White House off its message and vision for a second term.

Leaders from opposite sides of the divisive debate said they supported the outcome — or at least suggested they probably could live with it. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, the head of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops and a fierce critic of the original rule covering hospitals and other employers, said the bishops were reserving judgment but that Obama's move was a good first step.

Conceding he wanted a resolution, Obama ordered advisers to find a middle ground in days, not within a year as had been the plan before the uproar. He said he spoke as a Christian who cherishes religious freedom and as a president unwilling to give up on free contraceptive care.

"I've been confident from the start that we could work out a sensible approach here, just as I promised," Obama said. "I understand some folks in Washington may want to treat this as another political wedge issue, but it shouldn't be. I certainly never saw it that way."

Under the new plan, religious employers such as charities, universities and hospitals will not have to offer contraception and will not have to refer their employees to places that provide it. If an employer opts out of the requirement, its insurance company must provide birth control for free in a separate arrangement with workers who want it.

"Very pleased," was how Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, reacted in a statement distributed by the White House. Her trade group represents Catholic hospitals that had fought against the birth control requirement, and Keehan said the new arrangement addresses the concerns it had.

Planned Parenthood, a prominent women's health organization, said Obama had reaffirmed his commitment to birth control coverage. The group's president, Cecile Richards, added, though, that it would be monitoring for "rigorous, fair and consistent" enforcement so women get the promised coverage.

Before announcing his decision to reporters, Obama telephoned Keehan, Richards and Dolan.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, many shrugged and said the rewrite did not change anything.

"It's an accounting trick," said Mike Gonzales of the Heritage Foundation. "Do they think people are stupid?"

The debate within the White House was intense even before the Jan. 20 decision was announced to exempt only churches and other houses of worships from the requirement that employers must cover free contraception. Other religious organizations were given an extra year to comply, but that concession didn't do enough.

First in a rumble, and then in a roar, critics formed a movement to overturn what they considered to be an egregious violation. Bishops assailed the policy in Sunday Masses and Republican leaders in Congress pledged to push a legislative repeal.

The White House seemed to be caught flatfooted.

"The past three weeks have witnessed a remarkable unity of Americans from all religions, or none at all, worried about the erosion of religious freedom and government intrusion into issues of faith and morals," said Dolan, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The turmoil, in turn, prompted advocates from other sides to get vocal in the battle for public opinion. They defended the rights of women and the need for preventive health care, including contraception, to be provided without fee for people of all faiths, no matter where they work.

Officials said Obama has the power under his health law to compel insurance companies to provide free contraception coverage directly to workers.

The health insurance industry voiced concern that putting the burden on them could set a precedent of shifting cost its way. The insurance companies will weigh in later as Obama's new policy undergoes review, said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for the America's Health Insurance Plans trade group.

Administration officials say providing birth control won't cost insurers any more in the long run, because it's less expensive than the costs of maternal care and delivery. But insurers say they'll have to pay drug companies for pills and doctors for prescriptions, so it won't be free to them. The costs probably will be passed on to policy holders, as is happening already with other requirements of the health care law, such as allowing young adults to stay under their parents' coverage until age 26.

By keeping free contraception for employers at religious workplaces — but providing a different way to do it — Obama was able to assert he had found "a solution that works for everyone." Unclear was why the White House had not come up with the idea in the first place.

While Obama in 2008 won the total Catholic vote, 54 percent to Sen. John McCain's 45 percent, he lost the white Catholic vote, 52 percent to 47 percent, according to exit polls. Once reliably Democratic, Catholics are now swing voters, with white Catholics making up the majority of the group.

The Rev. Joel C. Hunter, a moderate evangelical leader and a spiritual adviser to the president, said he thinks Obama responded quickly enough to heal the rifts with many of his religious allies. "I think it's simple enough that most people will say, 'Oh good, we can get to other things now,'" said Hunter.

Yet the change just led to more criticism from some of Obama's opponents.

Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady said the revamped rule marked a "full scale retreat by a disconnected president who now knows that Washington shouldn't force American to abandon their religious convictions."

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said that that initial response indicated church leaders were not yet convinced the mandate respected religious freedom. Boehner has said he believes the original measure violates First Amendment rights, and his office said Friday that he would seek legislation.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., an ardent support of the original measure, offered a restrained response. Focusing on the benefits of health care, she said: "I appreciate the president's unifying approach."

___

Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Erica Werner, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Jim Kuhnhenn, Laurie Kellman, Rachel Zoll and Jay Lindsay contributed to this story.

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AP sources: Obama revamping birth control policy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rushing to end a political uproar, President Barack Obama on Friday will announce that religious employers will not have to cover birth control for their employees after all, The Associated Press has learned. The administration instead will demand that insurance companies will be the ones directly responsible for providing free contraception.

Obama's abrupt shift is an attempt to satisfy both sides of a deeply sensitive debate, and most urgently, to end a mounting election-year nightmare for the White House. The leader of a Catholic organization and a prominent women's group both expressed initial support for the changes.

Women will still get guaranteed access to birth control without co-pays or premiums no matter where they work, a provision of Obama's health care law that he insisted must remain. But religious universities and hospitals that see contraception as an unconscionable violation of their faith can refuse to cover it, and insurance companies will then have to step in to do so.

Obama will speak about his decision at 12:15 p.m. EST.

Senior administration officials confirmed the details to the AP but insisted they remain anonymous in advance of the president's announcement.

By keeping free contraception for employers at religious workplaces — but providing a different way to do it — the White House will assert it gave no ground on the basic principle of full preventative care that matters most to Obama.

Yet, it also was clear that Obama felt he had no choice but to retreat on a three-week-old policy in the face of a fierce political furor that showed no signs of cooling.

The White House consulted leaders on both sides of the debate to forge a decision.

The president of the Catholic Health Association, a trade group representing Catholic hospitals that had fought against the birth control requirement, said the organization was pleased with the revised rule.

"The framework developed has responded to the issues we identified that needed to be fixed," Sister Carol Keehan said in a statement.

Planned Parenthood also backed the revisions, saying the Obama administration was still committed to ensuring all women have access to birth control coverage, no matter where they work.

"We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman's ability to access these critical birth control benefits," Cecile Richards, the women's group president, said.

Officials said Obama has the legal authority to order insurance companies to provide free contraception coverage directly to workers. He will demand it in a new rule.

Following an intense White House debate that led to the original policy, officials said Obama seriously weighed the concerns over religious liberty, leading to the revamped decision.

It was just on Jan. 20 that the Obama administration announced that religious-affiliated employers — outside of churches and houses of worships — had to cover birth control free of charge as preventative care for women. These hospitals, schools and charities were given an extra year to comply, until August 2013, but that concession failed to satisfy opponents, who responded with outrage.

Catholic cardinals and bishops across the country assailed the policy in Sunday Masses. Republican leaders in Congress promised emergency legislation to overturn Obama's move. The president's rivals in the race for the White House accused him of attacking religion. Prominent lawmakers from Obama's own party began openly deriding the policy.

The sentiment on the other side, though, was also fierce. Women's groups, liberal religious leaders and health advocates pressed Obama not to cave in on the issue.

The furor has consumed media attention and threatened to undermine Obama's re-election bid just as he was in a stride over improving economic news. Political reality forced the White House to come up with a solution to a complex matter must faster than anticipated.

The fact that Obama himself will deliver the news was a sign of the stakes.

Under the new policy, religious employers will not be required to offer contraception and will not have to refer their employees to places that provide it.

If such an employer opts out, the employer's insurance company must provide birth control for free in a separate arrangement with workers who want it.

The change will still take affect with an extra year built in, in August 2013.

Already, 28 states had required health insurance plans to cover birth control before the federal regulations were issued.

However, they appear to have differing exemptions for religious employers.

Obama's health care law requires most insurance plans to cover women's preventative services, without a co-pay, starting on Aug. 1, 2012. Those services include well women visits, domestic violence screening and contraception, all designed to encourage health care that many women may otherwise find unaffordable.

The White House says covering contraception saves insurance companies money by keeping women healthy; how the insurance industry will see the mandate is another question.

Without adjusting his stand, Obama has risked alienated Catholics who have become courted swing voters in such pivotal political states as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. In 2008, Obama won 54 percent of the total Catholic vote, compared to 45 percent for Republican John McCain.

As the week wore on, the White House increasingly signaled that a change was coming.

Vice President Joe Biden, a Catholic, said in a radio interview Thursday that "there is going to be a significant attempt to work this out and there is time to do that."

Outside advocates were urging a quick resolution.

"As a Catholic I don't want to hear about this in Mass every week until the election," said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats For Life of America. "I don't think it's good for the party and I don't think it's good for Obama's re-election chances."

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Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this story.

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Super PAC-Men: Obama Bundlers Gone Wild!

The White House didn't blow a dog whistle for deep-pocketed liberal donors on Monday. No, the administration whipped out a supersized vuvuzela. Blaring message: Let loose the campaign finance-bundling hounds of super PAC war!

President Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, who served as White House deputy chief of staff for operations before assuming 2012 re-election duties, announced the super PAC super-flip-flop in a mass e-mail to supporters and a blog post published on the left-wing Huffington Post website. In a related conference call to major campaign finance bundlers, Messina encouraged these high-dollar donors to start funding Priorities USA Action. That's the Democratic super PAC founded by former White House staffers Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney.

Super PACs and campaigns are barred from coordinating with each other. Nevertheless, Messina said that "senior campaign officials as well as some White House and Cabinet officials will attend and speak at Priorities USA fundraising events." Of course, they "won't be soliciting contributions." Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

This brazen about-face for Team Obama is a goldmine of campaign lies, contortions and epic hypocrisy. Let us count the ways.

— A bundle of contradictions. "Bundling" is the rustling up of aggregate contributions from friends, business associates and employees, a practice to circumvent individual donation limits that Obama has long condemned. When he announced his presidential intentions in 2007, candidate Obama decried "the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play." He indignantly singled out "the best bundlers" who get the "greatest access" to power.

Last week, Obama acknowledged raising at least $74 million through his team of big-time bundlers who have been showered with access, tax dollars and plum patronage positions. This elite group of Hollywood celebrities (such as open-borders actress Eva Longoria), political cronies (such as Chicago bagman Louis "The Vacuum" Susman) and politically correct businessmen (such as bankrupt Solyndra investor George Kaiser) now totals a whopping 445 gold-card members.

— The roar of the revolving door. In his Monday announcement, Messina bragged about how the White House has enacted "sweeping" reforms to "close the revolving door between government and lobbyists." In truth, the administration has widened the carousel and removed the brakes. The Obama-cheerleading Fishwrap of Record (The New York Times) itself identified at least 15 bundlers "involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies."

Moreover, "at least 68 of 350 Obama bundlers for the 2012 election or their spouses have served in the administration in some capacity; at least 250 of the bundlers visited the White House, and another 30 have ties to companies that conduct business with federal agencies or hope to do so in the future," according to a recent iWatch News report. Several first-time 2012 bundlers already have snagged administration posts:

— Norma Lee Funger, of Potomac, Md., who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama, was appointed last month to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

— Glenn S. Gerstell, of Washington, D.C., who bundled the same amount, was appointed to the National Infrastructure Advisory Commission last fall.

— Richard Binder, of Bethesda, Md., another $50,000 to $100,000 bundler, was appointed to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health last spring.

And note: The most transparent administration ever still refuses to disclose recusal orders involving the nearly 100 lobbyists and ex-lobbyists on its payroll.

— Super PAC super-hypocrisy. "Super PACs" are federal political action committees that only make independent expenditures in support of, or in opposition to, candidates. Their birth and growth were fueled indirectly by the Supreme Court's Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling in 2010. The decision overturned severe campaign finance restrictions that essentially criminalized certain forms of political speech. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it during oral arguments: "We don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats."

Until this week, the Obama administration vehemently condemned the Citizens United decision and vowed to eschew super PACs. The entities are a "threat to our democracy," Obama railed two years ago. The ruling would "open the floodgates for special interests," he warned. And last July, Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt kept talking the anti-super PAC talk. "Neither the president nor his campaign staff or aides will fundraise for super PACs," he asserted. Now? President Obama and his wife won't fundraise for the democracy-undermining super PACs. But countless other Cabinet members and advisers, partying with Obama bundlers gone wild, will.

In 2008, Obama lambasted rival Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for criticizing independent expenditures while raking in big PAC bucks: "So you can't say yesterday you don't believe in them, and today you have three quarters of a million dollars being spent on you. You can't just talk the talk."

Obama 2012 campaign motto: Empty talk? Yes, we can!

Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

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