David Koch: Obama only a bystander in bin Laden raid!

DAVID KOCH, the self-assured co-anchor of the ultra-conservative Koch brothers team, has accused President Obama of being "a hardcore socialist" who contributed very little to the raid on bin Laden's compound. There's not much new in the socialist charge. Back in 1920, Sinclair Lewis' anti-hero, George Babbitt, frequently complained that people who raised questions about fixed community standards were socialists.

But Koch's hollow remarks about Obama's role in the raid is another story. He told New York Magazine that "all that Obama did was say 'yea or 'nay', we're going to take him out. I don't think he contributed much at all." Koch added that the President's decision was easiest of them all."

Suggesting that the hard work was done by the SEALS," Koch regarded Obama as nothing more than a bystander as the plan and execution unfolded. The cheers from the fringe gallery will be energized by such exclusive insights from their leader. With such important news, it's really too bad that there still aren't some presses around to stop.

But it could be said that Obama's critics were not yet schooled on how else to address the terrorist's demise on a Democratic president's watch. Life is so full of surprises! So we must leap from one conspiracy theory to another to find out which one is the most politically productive. The naysayers obviously haven't sensed the public's relief at hearing the news. Instead, on this and many other issues, the GOP pols will keep spilling out of the Koch vending machines with their sales tags still attached to them.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin hisses that the president has been "pussyfooting" in the days following the attack; Glenn Beck called Obama's visit to Ground Zero "disgusting". Nobody has as yet claimed that Obama has driven up his poll numbers with a corked bat. Not yet.

When change means some of the same old lobbyists

AS THE POLITICAL reformers crowd into the new Congress, you can put the following report under the heading of, the more things change the more they stay the same.

ITEM: When Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landreau flew out of the chute to savage President Obama's tax compromise as "nonsensicalness and almost, you know, moral corruptness," it left me, you know, with the feeling that Katrina had garbled her memory (she did also defend BP on the oil spill, you know, you know. The problem with her outrage, however, is that she voted in favor of the Bush tax cuts in the early 90s.

ITEM: Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, of Arizona, an ardent opponent of earmarks, did manage to get a big one for old times' sake by slipping into another bill a $200 million Federal grant to one of his state's Indian tribes. His office insisted it wasn't an earmark. Right. Problem solved.

ITEM: The Washington Post had this to say about the all of the fresh faces who are arriving on Capitol Hill to clean up government: "Many incoming GOP lawmakers have hired registered lobbyists as senior aides. Several of the candidates have strong support from the anti-establishment Tea Party movement." And as Think Progress pointed out, "These lobbyists are not public servants. They are experts at carving out special deals and tax giveaways to powerful corporations."

Want a prominent example? Rep.-elect Mike Pompeo of Kansas has named Mark Chenowerth as his chief of staff. Chenowerth is a former lawyer-lobbyist for Koch Industries, owned by billionaires Charles and David Koch. They are remembered as the major sugar daddies of the Tea Partyers in the past campaign. (Guess where Chenowerth is going with this one to look after all of those angry little folks who want their government back!)

So far more than a dozen pols have been identified as having hired big-time lobbyists to shape the style of their humble offices.

I wonder if any of this has gotten back to the raging placard-wavers at the Tea Party rallies.