It was Machiavelli, the 15th century Italian philosopher, who ruthlessly stated in reference to politics, “Never waste a good crisis.” Presidential advisor Rahm Emmanuel mentions this quote frequently, but last week he and others in the Obama administration tripled-down utilizing one single crisis to launch three separate programs to further crush American capitalism. Machiavelli may have been an infamous, cunning abuser of raw political power, but compared to Rahm Emmanuel he is an ice cream vendor in a pink bunny suit.

Obviously, you have seen videos of the British Petroleum (BP) crude oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The slick has now reached shore and photos of oil soaked pelicans are broadcast globally. Somehow my e-mail address has identified me as a supporter of Move-On.org so I receive their propaganda on a regular basis. Last week while asking for money, they described a photo of an oil soaked pelican as too shocking for broadcast but included a link so you could see for yourself. I clicked it and asked myself, “Why is it horrific to show a pelican drowned in oily sea water, yet it is considered natural, even meaningful, to view a partially eviscerated elk calf being devoured alive by wolves?” Sorry, their hypocrisy jogged me off-task for a moment so back to my point. Last week the Obama administration launched three decrees under the cover of the wonderful BP oil spill crisis. Did you catch all three? The immediate moratorium on all off-shore oil drilling and the re-launching of the carbon cap-and-tax bill were the obvious first two. The following is the third; it is more subtle.

Last Tuesday, President Obama launched the “American Great Outdoors Initiative”. The listening tour for this initiative began in Ovando, Montana; population 50. Does that strike you as odd? Crowding the Ovando Convention Center / Farmer’s Co-Op / Bar ‘n’ Grill was Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Montana Senators Baucus and Tester, and Governor Schweitzer and all were purposely and uniformly promoting this as a great bottom-up listening session for the Outdoor Initiative. We were told to be happy about this, but as I read the initiative I was struck by deja-vu.

Do you remember March 5th of this year when a “NOT FOR RELEASE” Interior Department memo was leaked revealing prospective national monument designations? Montana’s Northern Prairie was included in a sweeping 2.5 million acre area proposed as an international bison refuge. When questioned, administration officials, and their congressional accomplices denied any underhanded dealings and quietly pushed the leaked memo aside. Well, it’s baaaack! With the BP oil leak crowding the headlines little notice was made when President Obama re-launched the hidden goals of the leaked memo but this time with a more warm and snuggly sounding name. The “American Great Outdoors Initiative” sure sounds inviting doesn’t it?

It is ironic when a city kid, raised in Hawaii, educated in Columbia and Harvard and then politically seasoned in Chicago, lectures Montanans about the wonders of the great outdoors. Does the president, Rham Emmanuel or Secretary Vilsack for that matter, have a clue as to which end of the cow gets up first? Certainly I can’t be the only one who thinks there is very little listening and a whole lot of propagandizing being done here. Like Pavlov’s dogs, we little people are being conditioned to blindly accept even bigger government. Whoops, got to run, I hear a bell…