Meanwhile, Across The Pond

There’s a scandal of near biblical proportions:

Britain’s biggest-ever political scandal began when The Daily Telegraph acquired a disk listing the expense-allowance claims of all “honorable members” (as they used to be called) of Parliament.

Details of what every MP had spent and claimed back from the taxpayer have been released day by day over the last two weeks — and they are far more explosive than the gunpowder Guy Fawkes smuggled into the cellars under Parliament in 1605. In fact, they may cause something of a revolution in the way Parliament is run.

Sometimes, the sums were large, the benefits luxurious. A government minister, one of the richest men in the House of Commons, claimed $150,000 from the taxpayer to finance the mortgage on a “second home.” (He already had seven.) A leading Tory repaired the moat around his stately home on expenses.

Sometimes, the claims were trivial and comically embarrassing: tampons, diapers, the repair of leaky pipes, ice-cube trays ($2.50), hair straighteners ($150) and Scotch eggs ($1.25). Taxpayers unknowingly rented two pornographic movies for the husband of another Cabinet minister. A Tory spokesman on “skills and education” hired an electrician to change his light bulbs. (Cost to the taxpayer? About $225.)

The worst claims bordered on the fraudulent — and some stepped over that border. One MP claimed mortgage-interest payments of about $17,000 on a house that had no mortgage. Another took $55,000 in expenses on a necessary “second home” near Parliament, when his primary home was only a few hundred yards away.

I heard a couple of British MP’s expounding on the BBC that they needed to “take control” of parliament away from the Prime Minister. Which sounds great – until you realize that both of the MP’s happen to be from the Labor party and are likely to be voted out at next election. Which then makes it sound like a desperate attempt to hang on to whatever power they can. 

I actually agree with the author of the Post piece, John O’Sullivan: the best way to fix this is with absolute transparency. Make every MP disclose every pound they take. In fact, that should apply to the US Congress and the executive branch as well.

It would be kind of interesting to hear Congress members have to reel off the list of special interest money they took for each vote they cast, wouldn’t it?

Fudging It

Something you are generally not reading in the mainstream American media right now: criticism of Barack Obama’s handling of – well – pretty much everything.

A week ago, Barack Obama spoke at the graduation ceremony for students at the Roman Catholic university of Notre Dame in Indiana, and he was given an honorary degree in law. The event and the award of the degree split not just the university but also, after a fashion, America. It led news bulletins on all the networks – not because the President had anything momentous to say, but because the issue that the ceremony threw into focus is one of those that polarises politics in this country: abortion.

What followed was a classic Obama manoeuvre. With protesters heckling him from the audience, and many graduands having boycotted the ceremony because of the President’s support for abortion, Mr Obama simply appealed for understanding on both sides. While to many it may seem that abortion is not an issue on which there can be compromise – you either have one or you don’t – the President appealed for those in opposing camps to have respect for each other’s point of view. Then, in a gesture to his predominantly pro-life audience, he won applause for suggesting that there should be more help for disadvantaged women who wish to carry their children to term, and more support for adoption agencies. He had not changed his views at all, but was assailed afterwards by the pro-abortion lobby for surrendering to the pro-lifers.

The speech gave a crystal-clear view of Mr Obama’s approach to politics, but was also a token of how increasingly difficult he will find it to govern so long as he persists in thinking he is still on the campaign trail, rather than in the White House and actually running the country. Despite having won his election nearly seven months ago, and perhaps because of grumblings from critics that he could emulate Jimmy Carter and be a one-term Democrat president, Mr Obama cannot help but try to court popularity. He often does this, as in the abortion speech, by seeking to create an idea that he is somehow above differences within the American nation, and that he can represent neither camp or both camps on any question, however tendentious. It won’t work.

There is a lot more. Please read the whole thing.

To date, the Obama administration has, apparently, spent more time grabbing an American automobile company away from its secured creditors than it has on thinking of ways to keep North Korea from detonating nuclear weapons. 

To date, the Obama administration has spent money until the United States is essentially broke – in the words of the president himself.

To date, Obama has practiced double-speak of ridiculous proportions, promising one thing while delivering the exact opposite. (To both the left and the right, one might add.)

But if it is so blatantly obvious that it can be seen from the other side of the planet, perhaps it is time for America to start paying attention.

North Korean Nuclear Test Draws Global “Tsk-Tsks”

Slightly altered from the NYT headline.

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea’s announcement that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test on Monday drew condemnation and criticism around the world, including the United Nations Security Council.

The dimensions of the test were not immediately verifiable, but estimates ranged upwards of the nearly one kiloton of the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006.

President Obama said: “North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world, and I strongly condemn their reckless action.”

“The United States and the international community must take action in response,” he added.

And what, one has to ask, is that action or actions? Another strongly-worded memorandum from the United Nations Security Council? Another series of much-ballyhooed “sanctions” that bar the export of frilly underthings to North Korea?

This is what “soft power” produces. Psychopathic, nuclear-armed regimes with no fear – whatsoever – that the West – or Barack Obama, in particular – will intervene in any meaningful way with their plans.

China now has a nuclear armed lunatic regime at its very doorstep. They keep blocking any real meaningful sanctions against North Korea. Here’s a thought: how about putting some pressure on China to make them force some changes in Kim Jong Il’s stance.

The next nuclear/short-range missile test might be over Seoul. The next one after that could well be over San Francisco. If we do not stop tip-toeing around this issue, it will metastasize into something even more malevolent.

Here’s what I plan to do, it may be minor, but it is something at least. I will not buy anything at all that is manufactured in China until they actually step in and quash their evil stepchild. I’m not a big fan of boycotts in general. For the most part, I think they are mostly not effective. But I simply can’t come up with anything else I, personally, can do right now.

Sadly, the world – and Obama – can’t even do that much. But there will be a memo.