Remember the good old days when Barack Obama could do no wrong and was adamant about getting rid of earmarks and signing statements? Seems like a long-ago dream.
Yesterday, President Obama signed into law the budget for Fiscal Year 2009 — 6 months into said fiscal year and just before Congress will work on the FY2010 budget – and it contains earmarks. No-Drama Obama wasn’t going to order a full-on re-do, so he signed the damn thing promising to eliminate earmarks next year, which is practically next month… and then sneakily issued his first signing statement. (You remember, the thing he said he wasn’t going to issue anymore.)
Anyway, the President is about to nominate Margaret Hamburg to head the FDA, which some believe portends a splitting of the agency into two parts — one dealing with drugs and another with food. But no one really cares because Karl Rove thinks that the Obamites are behaving in too Rovian a fashion and multiple sources are confirming that Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston have indeed split up.
In other news, Louisiana Senator David “Diaperman” Vitter freaked the fuck out at Dulles Airport and pulling a “Do you know who I am?”, New York State Attorney General Andrew “Shucking And Jiving Is Not A Racist Term” Cuomo is gearing up for his gubernatorial run by going after Merrill Lynch for lying to Congress, and lawmakers are considering a Constitutional amendment to keep future Governors from opening doors to reveal opportunities for Andrew Cuomo to seek higher office by forcing them to call special elections to fill open Senate seats rather than make shitty appointments. You know, like Roland Burris.