Klaatu barada nikto

President Obama has created yet another commission to study something. Rather than sitting down with economists himself which would no doubt infringe on his abilities to continue his love affair with his teleprompter on television every other minute, he has created a "bi-partisan"debt commission tasked with finding a way of getting America out of debt. And given the most recent developments (the climate bill) in the realm of bi-partisan politics I am not sure that we should hold our breath.

The heads of this commission are Erskine Bowles, a failed Democratic Senatorial candidate and outgoing president of the University of North Carolina, and Alan Simpson a former Republican Senator from Wyoming. These two will head an eighteen member panel charged with the task of reducing the deficit to $550 BILLION by 2015. The deficit for the fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2009 was $1.4 Trillion so the commission apparently have their work cut out for them.

As the president of the University of North Carolina system, Bowles was ultimately responsible for the budget and in the current fiscal year had to make cuts totaling $162.5 Million. These cuts included 935 jobs. Ninety percent of the job cuts were administrative positions eliminated "in order to protect the Academic core" of the system. Mr. Bowles has also stated that further cuts will have to be made - namely approximately $100 million from the 2010-2011 operating budget - but that those will no doubt unfortunately have to be stripped from the University's Academic core. Convenient that Mr. Bowles has announced his retirement from the presidency before he is associated with the cuts and with the permanent damage that will lead to a path of mediocrity.

After leaving the Senate, Alan Simpson (once named by a tabloid as an alien) taught at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In 2001, Senator Simpson became Honorary Chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition (a gay/straight alliance within Republican party that has since disbanded) and then supported a former Democratic candidate (over a much more conservative choice) in the 2002 Wyoming gubernatorial race. So I guess that I shouldn't be surprised at the inclusion a liberal leaning Republican as the Administration's attempt at bi-partisanship.

Is trimming administrative positions, those positions that are usually vital to the day-to-day operations of most of the programs that they will no doubt want to continue to fund, the answer? Once we do that, are we then faced with the trimming of the "Academic core" of America? And will that lead the country down the path of mediocrity - more so than even some say we already are?

I fear that when Alan Simpson this time utters "Klaatu barada nikto" it will be too late to call off the President's destruction of our beautiful country.