Which way the wind will blow...

Sometimes it's hard to live up to your predecessor, but more often than not, in politics at least, it's even harder to live up to your own rhetoric.

A little history is in order.

All throughout President Obama's campaign, he and John McCain spoke and debated on the need to "curb" the excessive pork barrel spending (pet projects attached to a piece of legislation by any given lawmaker that will directly benefit his/her constituency and/or special interest) that was being added to good bills that was essentially adding billions of dollars each year to our deficit. After his election, and subsequent swearing-in, the President continued his rhetoric of fiscal responsibility, chastising both Washington and Wall Street for reckless spending and greed.

Here's where things get cool. During Obama's tenure in the senate, which was extremely brief, he was #2 in Pork spending. Furthermore, all of the rhetoric coming out against fiscal irresponsibility was spewing forth during his pitch to approve the most intensely huge spending bill in the history of the world - also laden with all sorts of crazy pork, courtesy of the democratic congress of the United States of America.

So, if you're the President, at this point, you're probably asking yourself, "how can I come across as more fiscally responsible here?" The light bulb would then come on and you could do what the President did starting last week, and announce that you will, indeed, curb pork spending.

On Wednesday, Barack Obama signed another spending bill brought before him by Congress to the amount of $410 Billion. This bill is laced with all sorts of crazy stuff - all Democrat pork.

So, what gives?

Oh, wait - in an explanation to reporters, Mr. Obama corrected skeptics by saying that he only said he would "curb" spending, not "eliminate" it. Read here for more.

Okay, that's actually awesome!

So, our President, the fearless and flawless Barack Obama, is actually disingenuous...now who would've known?

Wait, there's more. After criticizing the Bush administration for implementing hundreds of signing statements by declaring them to be unconstitutional, Barack Obama issued one of his own. FYI, a signing statement is basically a way for the President to veto certain line items on any given bill without having to flush the whole thing. It's sort of like me picking the raisins out of my trail mix. Go figure.

So, you can see that it's a tough job to be President. It's even tougher when you have to remember where you stand on certain things, or where you're supposed to stand as dictated by special interests, and what lies you've told.

For more on the nature of political rhetoric, please click here.