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By Doug Casey

You may be saying to yourself: “Come on, Casey, it’s too early to get on Obama. Give the guy a chance…” I’m sorry. Despite the fact OBAMA! is a lot smarter and has much better bedside manners than his predecessor, I predict he’s going to be an even more disastrous president. For one thing, he comes from Chicago.

I grew up in Chicago. And -- probably like any other American in a big city -- remember being regaled, almost daily, by tales of corruption and incompetence in government. So I don’t understand why such a big deal is being made about Governor Rod Blagojevich attempting to benefit personally from appointing a U.S. senator to replace OBAMA! Who could be so naïve as to think that isn’t, by far, the major consideration whenever anything like that happens anywhere -- but especially in Illinois, and absolutely in Chicago. Do you imagine OBAMA! was unaware? The hypocrisy is so astounding, it’s amusing. Where is Claude Rains to come on and say, “Gambling? In Rick’s? I’m shocked! Shocked!”

Blago’s statement, “In fact, I did a lot of things that were mostly right,” has a touch of irony that makes me sympathetic to the guy.

I’m less amused by White House Chief of Staff Rahn Emanuel, who appears cut from the same cloth as Dick Cheney. It gave me the creeps when he said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”