When President Obama made his initial cabinet appointments upon assuming the presidency, it looked as if the president had been, despite his history and associations with Wright, Ayers, Davis, et al., a moderate, left-leaning Democrat.  His appointments were practically all ex-Clintonites.

In a 2008 Human Events article, "Obama's Cabinet So Far," Ross Kaminsky wrote that Obama's cabinet looked "like the third Clinton Administration."  That soon began to change with Executive Office appointments, Regulatory Agency appointments, and appointments of czars and czarinas.

Thus began Obama's rule by judicial intimidation through the DOJ and by behavioral modification through the myriad of government agencies, from the EPA to the DoE.  Behavioral modification by red tape has especially become the imprimatur of the Obama administration -- i.e., bypass congress and rule by regulatory edicts.

It has become increasingly evident that the original Clintonista appointments were just a smokescreen regarding what was to be Obama's stealth agenda.  Subsequent appointments have revealed two persistent themes that that would be a hard sell outside the Beltway.  To wit:

Transnationalism and Postconstitutionalism

Transnationalism is, in part, the theory/doctrine that the U.S. should subordinate its sovereignty to the U.N. in the interest of world comity.  Policies which weaken national sovereignty such as open borders, rights of illegals, and the promotion of challenges to dominant religious and cultural institutions are consonant with transnationalist objectives.

Postconstitutionalsim (or, more commonly, non-originalism) is the theory/doctrine that the Constitution should be a "living" document adaptable to modern realities.  Indeed, the Constitution should not be locked into the 18^th-century mindset of the original framers.

The two doctrines dovetail nicely, and many of Obama's most influential appointees openly advocate the agenda of the twin sisters.  They include:

Harold Koh - Chief Counsel, State Department

Koh believes that America should defer to the International Court of Justice to determine legal precedents.  He believes that all distinctions between American Constitutional law and international law should vanish.  He further believes that sharia law should be applied to some disputes in U.S. courts.  Koh is also a prominent member of the American Constitution Society.  The mission statement reads:

The American Constitution Society (ACS) believes that law should be a force to improve the lives of all people. ACS works for positive change by shaping debate on vitally important legal and constitutional issues through development and promotion of high-impact ideas to opinion leaders and the media; by building networks of lawyers, law students, judges and policymakers dedicated to those ideas; and by countering the activist conservative legal movement that has sought to erode our enduring constitutional values. By bringing together powerful, relevant ideas and passionate, talented people, ACS makes a difference in the constitutional, legal and public policy debates that shape our democracy.

Todd Stern - Climate Czar

Stern thinks that international agencies, such as the United Nations, should take the lead on forcing climate change solutions down the throats of national governments.  Stern has proposed that world powers form an "E8" group, which would meet yearly and dictate environmental policy to the rest of the world.

John Holdren - Science Czar

Holdren wants the government to dictate family size and advocate a "planetary regime" run by the United Nations

Eric Holder - Attorney General

Can there be a better example of undermining national sovereignty than Holder (who is also a member of the ACS) joining with a foreign country (Mexico) to sue Arizona over its immigration laws?  "It's almost like they are competing with each other to see who will be the plaintiff," says Kris Kobach, the law professor and former Bush Justice Department official who helped write the law.

Holder also uses the DOJ to mainstream Islam.  Under his guidance, training manuals for the FBI and other security agencies have been bowdlerized to ensure that Islam and violence are made to appear antithetical.  Speaking for Holder, Dwight Holten (U.S. attorney) said, "I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this president, this attorney general and Department of Justice stands for. They will not be tolerated."

Samantha Power - National Security Council

Ed Lasky, news editor for American Thinker, writes in his article The Power of Samantha Power that "the Soros-linked Samantha Power continues to work with Barack Obama to weaken the concept of American sovereignty and empower the international community at the expense of American independence. He [Stanley Kurtz of NRO] also notes that Obama has always been clever about hiding his motives behind a façade of pragmatism."

Preeta Bansal - General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Management & Budget

Bansal is a leader of the American Constitutional Society.  Like the ACS, Bansal is a strong supporter of illegal alien rights, terrorist rights, and other rights not enshrined in the Constitution.  ACS is America's main networking group for far-left attorneys and is where Bansal is recruiting many of Obama's judicial nominees.

Bansal is also a member of the "critical race theory" (CRT) school of legal thought that boils all legal concepts down to racist conspiracies and alleges that racism permeates all aspects of American society.  Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals called CRT supporters the "lunatic core" of "radical legal egalitarianism."

Cecilia Munoz - Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, Executive Office of the President

Munoz is an open-borders advocate who served recently as the vice president for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), where she supervised all legislative activities.  La Raza is the nation's foremost supporter of "rights" for illegal aliens and the granting of amnesty to the millions of illegals here in America.  She believes that they should enjoy the same rights as citizens.  She also served on the U.S. Programs board of the Open Society Institute, a George Soros-funded group.

Cass Sunstein - Regulatory Czar

Sunstein openly advocates behavioral modification by "nudging" people into the proper mindset for the 21^st century.  The masses are too stupid to be convinced by argumentation and evidence.  Naturally, he supports the "Fairness Doctrine," the wrongly named concept which allows the government to regulate the airwaves.

Mark Lloyd - FCC Chief Diversity Officer

While Obama is playing coy with his plans to shut down conservative talk radio, we know what his real intentions are due to his appointment of Mark Lloyd.  Lloyd's view of the 1^st Amendment is...well, refreshingly novel:

It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies. ... [T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.

Like many of Obama's appointees, Lloyd worked for George Soros, the foreign billionaire who funds anti-America groups.  He seems to be enamored of dictators, even publicly praising Venezuelan Communist dictator Hugo Chávez's "incredible ... democratic revolution."  He also wants to use the Fairness Doctrine to "balance" talk radio and believes that there are too many white people in the media -- unless there are "more people of color, gays and other people ... we will not change the problem."  One of Lloyd's solutions to "balance" the media is to fine conservative radio stations up to $250 million and give the proceeds to National Public Radio.  Get ready for censorship like America has never seen before.

Forget the soaring rhetoric, and forget the imbroglios with Congress.  Forget the blaming, the admonishing, the extolling, the visionary promises of a greater future for America under Obama's guidance.  In fact, forget Obama's mouth -- it's his feet that count.  The talk he talks is not the walk he walks.

If you vote for Barack Obama because of his charm, his urbanity, his soaring rhetoric that seems to endorse traditional American values, and presume that a man of such fine qualities must be open and honest in his agenda...well, you've been conned.