Following up on Barack Hussein Obama’s Philosophy Behind the Political Strategies, here we have links to two stories on a couple of administrative appointees that he has chosen.

On April 24 of this year, NewsBusters.org reported on Sam Graham-Felsen (poignant excerpts below):

A fellow that blogs at a site called “Common Ills” did a lot of leg work to dig up some of the publicly known utterings of Mr. Graham-Felsen prior to his elevation as the Obama campaign’s official blogger, so he deserves the credit for raising a “red” flag on this one.

What we know for sure is that in May of 2006, Sam Graham-Felsen wrote a short piece in the socialist magazine Socialist Viewpointdescribing his participation in some French labor riots.

Then, back in 2003, Graham-Felsen also wrote a piece for the Harvard Crimson praising Noam Chomsky, known for blaming the United States instead of the terrorists for the attacks on 9/11, and advising him to “tone it down” in order to fool people enough to get his anti-American message out. …

The famous conservative blog “Little Green Footballs” calls this young Obama blogger a “hardcore Marxist.” To be fair, it is not known in public records if Mr. Graham-Felsen claims himself to be a “hardcore Marxist” or not, but his known associations with foreign rioters and socialists is of public record. …

What cannot be ignored is that this is yet another close Obama associate who seems to hate what most Americans love. Barack’s wife could never be “proud of America” until her husband ran for president. His “spiritual advisor” wanted God to “damn America.” Barack even launched his Senate bid in the home of a man that belonged to the Weather Underground, a radical, anti-American group that is responsible for murder. And these are just a few of the Obama associates that seem to hate what makes America great.

More below…

Today, RedState.com reported (via NationalJournal) on Sonal Shah, a Google employee, to work on his transition team:

Reporters uncover evidence that Sonal Shah is tied to VHP of America, the American arm of Vishva Hindu Parishad, a questionable militant group in India.

Ms. Shah denied the allegations:

A series of e-mails obtained by Nextgov suggest that Shah was an active member of the Vishva Hindu Parishad of America during the late 1990s and contributed to strategic discussions regarding the group’s public image. Two VHP of America officials also confirmed that Shah served on the organization’s governing council in the 1990s.

VHP is an international Hindu organization that is part of Sangh Parivar, the Indian nationalist movement organized around Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. VHP has been condemned by the nonprofit group Human Rights Watch and the State Department for its role in the 2002 violence in the northwestern state of Gujarat that killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

Why is this so important, for the fact that she’s dealing with technology policy? It might have something to do with that whole India/Pakistan relationship situation:

Despite Shah’s statement renouncing the VHP, the issue has remained a hot topic in the Indian press. On Dec. 5, a group of more than 60 U.S. academics, many working in South Asian-related fields, sent a letter to Obama expressing their concern over Shah’s appointment and the increasing influence of Hindu nationalism in America.

Prashad also pointed to a 2004 speech by Shah at a Sangh-related event, where according to the organization’s Web site, Shah “exposed the hypocrisy of the Western way of life, highlighting its wasteful ways and compared them to the simpler but more genuine life in India. She mentioned how Indians would sacrifice whatever they had for their guests, but we in the West cannot even sacrifice a little time for them.” [emphasis in original]

At this rate, it would appear that Barack Hussein Obama is going to end up seriously stymying any chance of truly conducive governing he could have had by making less than stellar political choices with people who are otherwise up to the task of the given position.

Note to anyone considering pursuing elective office: Always set yourself up to succeed, not to fail; life’s much easier that way.

-Phil