A government that cannot withstand scrutiny...is ours.

Well, it’s ours in the broadest sense, but up close and personal it’s President Obama’s.

He did, in fact, win, as he now seems defensively prone to say repeatedly.  A majority of Americans did buy the promise, but reality is now intruding, and the unease is beginning to fray the seams, across the political spectrum.  Even loyal liberals are beginning to whisper, “well, I don’t agree with that...or that...or that.”

A staff and cabinet that had the mainstream media gushing “best and brightest,” with as many euphemisms as could be mustered, almost immediately transformed into a mafia gang that possibly could but wouldn’t shoot straight.

In short order, the ethically challenged (that we know about) included New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (nomination for Commerce Secretary withdrawn), being investigated for pay-to-play politics, followed by three tax cheats, Tim Geithner (confirmed as Treasury Secretary), Nancy Killefer (nomination for “Chief Performance Officer” withdrawn) and Tom Daschle (nomination for HHS Secretary withdrawn).

That list doesn’t include Eric Holder (confirmed as Attorney General), who had some fascinating knowledge gaps  and memory lapses regarding the hinky pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich when Holder worked in the Clinton Justice Department.  It doesn’t include Hillary Clinton (confirmed as Secretary of State) who, despite her newfound prominence, is still laden with her own and her husband’s questionable baggage.

The list doesn’t include the lobbyists that the administration pledged not to hire and then did, up to and including Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis, whose nomination is now stalled pending questions regarding her association with a labor lobbying organization.

(The list also doesn’t include – and perhaps shouldn’t – a puzzling developing story, reported by the Washington Times, regarding former General Anthony Zinni saying he had been asked to become Ambassador to Iraq, only to have the appointment abruptly withdrawn without explanation.)

Pressed by the media on the personnel, let’s call them glitches to be charitable here, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “The bar that we set is the highest that any administration in the country has ever set.”

We think the American people are not going to see it that way.  We sure don’t.  The high bar, the bar that would have met President Obama’s soaring rhetoric, would have been to nominate and appoint only Miss Squeaky and Mr. Clean, and to reject out of hand and immediately anyone whose problems were known prior to public furor having to bring them down.  The high bar would be to remove Treasury Secretary Geithner immediately.

Those are just some personnel issues that don’t bear scrutiny, and the man has been in office less than a month.

The most serious issue that will bear no scrutiny at all is the abominable “stimulus” package that President Obama is now pushing with all his might and, frankly, with all his arrogance and more than a little deception.

To try and put the bill in perspective, because most of us cannot even comprehend a trillion dollar expenditure, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “If you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.”

Putting the bill in more graphic terms was Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC).  “If we jam a bill through like we’re doing today, nobody in America is going to trust us with future requests...People are running scared in the Senate because this bill is stinking up the place,” Graham told reporters.  That is striking, considering that Graham more often stands with whatever gang of compromisers is compromising.

On February 5, President Obama published an Op Ed in the Washington Post that echoed comments he had made the day before.  In it, he writes, “In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis...I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change.”

With all due respect, Mr. President,we thought the campaign slogan was about change people could believe in.  The way the polls are going, as more and more about the “stimulus” bill is understood, by next week more people will believe this bill is a travesty than voted for you.  Were they wrong in November or are they wrong now?

If you believe this bill, this trillion dollar bill, can withstand scrutiny, then defend it expenditure by expenditure to the American people.  You made them believe once, but that was on the rhetoric.  Now try it with substance.  Otherwise, pull the bill and start over with a package that addresses the economic crisis and only the economic crisis, not a wish list of expansionary government programs.