Everyone's been trying to find a historical parallel to President Obama.  Most suggest he's the second coming of FDR.  Many believe he's Jimmy Carter redux.  Some think he's JFK with a shorter haircut. 

There's one historical parallel that can't be denied, though: Obama is the black Ulysses S. Grant without the beard. 

I understand that's an insult to Grant, a great war hero and a true hero of civil rights, believe it or not (his reconstruction policies were far more radical than his successors').  But Grant is most remembered for corruption in his presidency.  He wasn't totally personally corrupt, although he did appoint his own father Postmaster General Postmaster of Covington, Kentucky, and allowed his dad to get several of his friends government jobs.  Mostly, he was asleep at the switch, and he allowed his subordinates to hand out jobs and cash like candy to political allies. 

Obama is a much more active patronage master.  I've amply documented his corruption with regard to the unions (even his health care plan is a sop to the unions), but he takes the cake with today's ridiculously blatant payoff to the city of Las Vegas, which is angry at him for ruining their commerce by ripping trips to Vegas as irresponsible:

Obama was to announce that housing finance agencies in the five hardest-hit states in the housing crisis will receive $1.5 billion to help spur local solutions to the problem. Those five are Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada.

Now, there's no coincidence about these choices.  Arizona is a battleground state that went for McCain last time only because McCain is an Arizona senator.  California has become a battleground for Obama, and he's making a rear guard action.  Florida is always a battleground, and so is Nevada.  And as for Michigan -- well, Obama has to pay off his union buddies again.

Obama is clearly a corrupt paymaster using our tax dollars to fund his buddies.  The sad thing is that this is now seen as a virtue instead of a sin.  When FDR did the same thing, everyone labeled him an economic hero.  When Grant did it, they disgraced him.  How far we've come ... in the wrong direction.