Gaddafi's Stash: President Obama again finds the way through a crisis

President Obama, well known for his uncanny ability to walk, chew gum and juggle,  has found in Libya a solution to the worst crisis facing the United States and has thereby demonstrated that he can indeed do those things and more, all at the same time.

El Presidente Chávez of Venezuela has been supportive of his friend and ally, Colonel Gaddafi, and has stated  that

the United States and her European allies want to seize Libya’s oil and they care nothing about the lives of the Libyan people. . . . We know what is going to happen: bombs, bombs, war, more suffering for the people…this is the hand of capitalism.

Showing the characteristic independence common among Venezuelan government officials, on March 28^th Carlos Escarra Malave, the vice president of Venezuela’s squatting standing committee on foreign policy, set the record straight: the United States does not want Libyan oil; only the Europeans want that. This makes sense, because as we all know the United States already has too much oil; indeed, she has so much of her own oil that she does not even need to drill for more of the dirty, unhealthy, climate heating changing stuff. Instead of oil, the United States is in it just for the money. Sr. Malave claimed that Colonel Gaddafi has two hundred billion dollars stashed away in banks in the United States and Europe and that’s what the United States is after; that’s the only reason.

Now that the money is safe, President Obama knows that there is no reason for the United States to become  bogged down in Libya; the United States can now disengage and take on a mere “supporting role.” The Gaddafi stash provides a clear exit strategy and if the Libyan “rebels” are now in a panicked scramble, begging for air strikes that didn’t come, it doesn’t matter and they probably don’t love us anyway; if Colonel Gaddafi retains control there will be no need to give the money back.

Putting  the jigsaw puzzle pieces together, all of this makes great good sense. President Obama, among his numerous other tribulations, faces an obdurate Republican House of Representatives intent upon severe budget cuts devastating to the wretched underprivileged of our beleaguered country. To satisfy them, President Obama plans to devote his share of the $200 Billion dollars to the operations of the federal government and thereby to avert an April 8^th government shut-down. Such a shut-down would have had unforeseeable and therefore unthinkable consequences; unforeseeable and unthinkable because the White House has told federal agencies not to reveal them and to stop even thinking about making preparations for whatever might happen. It has, however, been  revealed that President Obama is prepared to shave another twenty billion dollars from his already parsimonious budget. This, obviously, raises the question of where that money came from and Sr. Malave has told us: from Colonel Gaddafi’s stash. How much more of the $200 Billion from that stash might be available to President Obama has not been revealed, and Europe doubtless has claims to some of it. Still, there should be enough left for even more to be applied to the funding of necessary government programs and to permit President Obama to offer the obstructionist Republicans even more budget cuts. What’s left over could be used to help reduce the Federal Reserve’s purchase of assets  by the $100 Billion mentioned by St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard in Prague on March 28^th.  There may even be enough for another modest vacation state visit.

It’s a win-win situation, and President Obama has found the key to it. It is now time for Vice President Biden to emerge from the closet where the White House has hidden him. He has not been heard to say anything useful about the budget problems facing the United States  since March 4^th and it is now time for him to enter into serious negotiations with the House to end the impasse.