KDelphi-  No, intelligence and poise are not “all” I expect from our leaders.  I expect a LOT more.  However, Obama has been in office for just over 100 days and Sebelius for less than a week… and that’s as of today, Saturday, May 2.

Do I wish things would change overnight?  Yes.  Is there a snowball’s chance in hell that they will?  Not really so much.

I do NOT expect the entire U.S. government to suddenly roll over and start voting as if they’ve never received a campaign contribution from a corporate sponsor.  I don’t even expect American voters to suddenly get a clue that they’re “representatives” know who butters their bread and which way they should vote.  Either of those things would be naive and I haven’t been that for a while.

I DO expect a lot of people to take advantage of this moment and keep pushing for further reforms, and I DO expect each of us reading THIS website to keep informing our friends when we see things happening that shouldn’t.

What should be and what I expect are, unfortunately, two different things.

If Obama and his people take things even a tiny bit too far and screw it up, we’ll go back to what we spent the last three (and almost four) decades at, and that is NOT acceptable.  Change is incremental, and there’s a lot of inertia to be overcome.  People in this country have gotten complacent and quite used to the idea of living on borrowed money and not having to be too critical or harsh with ourselves; we’ve in fact been told it’s un-American NOT to support whatever the president does.

Knowing that even those of us who voted for Obama still think his being elected isn’t enough (it’s NOT “enough) is encouraging, but we shouldn’t get cocky.  It IS the president’s job, after all, to be president of ALL Americans… even the ones WE don’t agree with.  The divisive crap has got to stop.

YES, we need single-payer health care.  More than that, we need to stop socializing corporate risk and the United States government needs to stop acting as if its first priority is to be one big national chamber of commerce with all the costs of doing business subsidized by taxpayers.

There’s a HUGE lot of things that need to be fixed and it simply will not happen overnight.  Keep agitating ANYWAY, though.  Without agitating, it won’t happen at all.

Gosh… One day Obama is part of the “vast Left-wing” Conspiracy.  The next, he’s part of the Bilderberg Conspiracy.  Then back.  Then forth.  Then back.  Then forth.  To read some of the commentary, it’s hard to avoid getting a nasty case of whiplash.

Next thing you know, Obama will be found to be a closet member of either Skull and Bones or the John Birch Society.

I’m just happy we have a competent person at HHS and maybe things can move onward.

Maybe Sebelius is too elite.  I don’t know.  Obviously, I’m not getting it… because I’m still having trouble wrapping my mind around how having intelligent and competent people in the president’s cabinet, one’s who are capable of critical thought and are pretty able to answer biased questions credibly and with poise, is a ‘bad’ thing.

Joe the Plumber, Sebelius definitely is not.  Nor is she a Sarah Palin, and her last job wasn’t being in charge of organizing the maintenance staff at a nationwide horse show.  Things could be much, much worse.

If Kathleen Sebelius says or does something profoundly stupid, she needs to be held accountable.  Meanwhile, let’s puh-lease not attack the woman for association with capable folks or the president for surrounding himself with them.

Crikey.