Captive American Blog Roundup 12/20/08

Obama continues to find new ways to break his pledge of bringing "fundamental change" to Washington. From his pick of insider Gary Gensler to head the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to the selection of an ethanol "dream team" -- Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack to lead the Agriculture Department and Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) as his Interior secretary -- Obama is increasingly revealing that the change he spoke about in 2006, and on the campaign trail, might be a little more change than he is actually planning.

Poltico terrifies us with an article about the control China has over the U.S. economy, and The New York Times tells the nauseating tale about Wall's Street's flawed pay structure and how it remains in place, even in the face of historic bailouts. We agree with Paul Krugman that Wall Street continues to corrupt politics in a "nicely bipartisan way" and argue that Blagojevich and Madoff are symptoms, not causes, of the complete lack of accountability in our financial and political cultures. A reader agrees with our premise, but takes issue with our assertion that Madoff is a mere patsy.

We report that the Wall Street bailout, once tagged at $700 billion will actually cost more like $8.7 billion, and question why no one seems to care that Hank Paulson lied to Congress about where he was intending to spend the money all along.

As for Caroline Kennedy's bid for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton, we like that she has no political experience, but we cant help but wonder if she has any relevant experience at all. And we think Sen. Diane Feinstein, the new Chair of the Intelligence Committee might just have too much.

Finally, a new report reveals that, in fact, the United States did torture detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, tossing aside the Geneva Conventions. And we wonder why, despite evidence pointing to the highest levels of the Bush Administration as the source of this policy, to date only low level grunts have been punished.