The Obamassiah in Indiana

The One came to the Hoosier state yesterday.

It would be hard to match the gaffe he had last time he was here, in Elkhart, when he was asked by a little girl why he was running for president and he told her that, “America is… uh… is no longer, uh… what it could be, what it once was.”

But yet the Obamassiah somehow managed to top himself not once, but twice.

First, he referred to himself as already being President:

The good news is that (in the expanded footage of this same remark), he at least got the number of states in the Union correct.

But then Obama decided to take some cheap shots at John McCain and Sarah Palin:

(Read more after the leap)

Obama then opened up rare criticism on VP nominee Sarah Palin, “I know the governor of Alaska has been, you know, saying she is change. And that is great. She is a skillful politician. But when you been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person. That is not change, come on. I mean, words mean something. You can’t just make stuff up. You can’t just make stuff up. We have a choice to make and the choice is clear.”

Remember that line. “You can’t just make stuff up.”

It seems that The One now believes (or wants us to believe) that you cannot be for change if you are also for earmarks. That’s an interesting way to define change, since John McCain has never asked for an earmark.

You just can’t make stuff up.

Barack Obama has, since entering the Senate, taken $740 million in earmarks (according to the New York Times, and that was just as of last March).

That’s about a million dollars for every working day since Obama was elected to the Senate. In that respect, at least, he’s a busy guy. Busy campaigning, and busy getting earmarks.

He hasn’t been busy doing much else, at least as far as I can tell. Remember the Democrats in Indiana that mocked State Representative Jon Elrod for immediately running for Congress? Yeah. They seem fine with it when it’s their guy and he’s running for the highest office in the land.

Anyway, when you are like Barack Obama and you are busy chowing down on that level of pork, you don’t have much room to criticize the Governor of Alaska. After all, earmarks are the province of legislators and members of Congress. Local and state officials can beg for earmarks (and many do), but it takes a Senator like Barack Obama to actually get them.

John McCain, it must be noted, has never asked for an earmark. Compare that to the million dollars in earmarks Obama got every day since being elected.

When Obama was in the Illinois state legislature (which is not so long ago), he got earmarks for his political allies. $200,000 for Jesse Jackson. $100,000 for Father Michael Pfleger (the second and less-noticed of Obama’s hate-filled pastors). There is also an interesting linkage between Obama’s earmarks and people that have become bundlers for his campaigns.

The gravy train continued when Obama got to Washington. It grew by leaps and bounds. As the Times notes above, Obama got a million dollars for the University of Chicago Hospital, where his wife worked as the “vice president of community affairs.” I’m sure it is was pure coincidence that her pay jumped from $121,910 to $316,962 after Obama got into office and could start sending the big bucks their way. EDIT: And yes, fair is fair, it should be noted that Madame Obama got her pay increase after her husband got elected but before Senator Obama got the hospital the earmark (which I guess just goes to show that the hospital was swift to realize she had suddenly become worth a lot more to them after her husband became a United States Senator).

Change you can believe in?

Or just change Michelle Obama and her husband’s political cronies can take to the bank?

Before the Obamassiah can point fingers at John McCain or Sarah Palin on earmarks, he has an awful lot of earmarks to answer for. McCain, in particular, has a spotless record when it comes to earmarks.

Obama’s record is filthy; just the sort of record you would expect from a typical Chicago machine politician.

You can’t just make stuff up.