Dear President Obama: So what's changed and why should we believe you?

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Was your campaign all that long ago?

It was so full of promise... and promises. And now that you're President of the United States. YOU have the ability to make the "Change!" you kept harping on, happen.

You gave an interesting, if not inspiring, Inaugural Speech. It seems like it was years ago, now... and every day since seems to translate into additional months back that your admonition took place.

It WAS you who told us:

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

Wasn't it?

So... what's changed? Why have you become, all of a sudden, that which you've just finished telling us we should not be... and should not do?

You've put together what, to me and millions of others, seems like a very bad idea as government policy for the Generational Indebtedness Act that you seem to think will actually make any difference.

You've engaged in a frightening double standard:

OBAMA: Well, I think my mistake is not in selecting Tom (Daschle) originally,
because I think nobody was better equipped to deal both with the substance and policy of health care. He understands it as well as anybody, but also the politics, which is going to be required to actually get it done.

But I think that, look, ultimately, I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. And I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for powerful people, and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.

And yet, you demanded and subsequently appointed Tim Geithner to the post of Treasury Secretary of the United States, even though he'd done those very things.

So tell me, Mr. President: Where is the "Change" in that? What kind of message, exactly, does that appointment send, except for the very message you tell us you want to avoid sending?

You appointed a crook, Mr. President. That appointment makes it clear that there IS a double standard.

It might mean that what you DON'T want is for us to notice that you've implemented, as a matter of policy, the double standard that you claim you seek to avoid.

I, for one, neither find that to be something akin to "Change" OR "Hope."

Now, we find ourselves facing some of the worst challenges of our times.

Contrary to your Inaugural Address, you go out there and try and use fear as a reason for the American Public (You do remember us, don't you, Mr. President?) to suspend our disbelief, common sense and reality to support this pork-filled pay off program; this Generational Indebtedness Act, and you begin to rely on the very tenets of politics that you've condemned in the very recent past by saying absurd things like:

President Obama then warned, "if we don't move swiftly to put this plan in motion, our economic crisis could become a national catastrophe. Millions of Americans will lose their jobs, their homes, and their health care. Millions more will have to put their dreams on hold."

Sure. And I might win the lottery.

YOUR fear and lack of confidence in our country and in our economy is palpable. You lie and exaggerate to inflict terror, not because your statement here is true (It isn't, because this hog of a so-called stimulus bill will do nothing to change any of your doomsday scenario) but so the more politically and economically ignorant will support your ideas.

Much like you got those same people to support your candidacy as I recall.

And you never seem to mention the most important part: that is, how are we, as a Nation, going to pay for all of this nonsense? How long will it take? How many of our generations will have to pay for YOUR "irresponsibility" (and face it, Mr. President; your allegations that Mr. Bush was the "most irresponsible President in our history" because of HIS handling of the deficit seems now to be, well, reaching new heights of hypocrisy.) How come you seem incapable of discussing an increasingly bleak, self-imposed disaster of a future where we've become enslaved to ideas and pay offs that make no real economic sense?

I've been frightened since you became the democrat nominee for president. Since the 20th of January, you've managed to effortlessly scare me out of my wits with a tonedeafness and ineptitude; a hypocritical partisanship and disastrous grasp of our economy that causes me to fear for our economic collapse; not because we should not and hopefully will not do what you want; but instead, because we might do precisely what you want.

Thanks so much for listening, Mr. President. We'll chat again, I'm sure.
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