After spending $1.47+ million of taxpayers money on a Christmas vacation in Hawaii with his family, during a dire crisis in jobs and our economy, making several recess appointments, while promising bipartisanship, that has already riled the GOP, President Obama will not face much of a welcome home to DC, a city he promised to ‘change’ by ‘never reverting to politics as usual.’

Well so much for promises – we didn’t expect he would fulfill them, or did we?

Perhaps this column is a bit premature, for Obama has extended his vacation until next Tuesday, adding a few more ++ to the $1.47 million spent  for he and his family for the holidays.  You see he had to delay his departure for a few days paying attention to the people’s business, thus justifying the extension.

Nevertheless, he found time to make some recess appointments – that by the way suggests, ‘politics as usual.’

Now it is true that presidents before him made the same recess appointments, but isn’t this ‘politics as usual’ , and wasn’t this a president that promised ‘change?

You see recess appointments allow the president to break a series of logjams and fill positions that have been vacant for months.

However, these appointments will need to be confirmed by the Senate before the end of the next session.

There were two recess appointments by Obama that have caused the ire of the Republicans and should cause the concern of the people.

The reason for the concern should be the pro-activeness of the appointments, which clearly does not represent bipartisanship, but clearly represents an agenda.

There were two recess appointments that strike the core of the Obama agenda, that the people should be concerned about.

One, the appointment of James Cole as deputy attorney general.

You see Cole wants to pursue terror suspects as a criminal matter in civilian courts.  He cited a 2002 Legal Times column in which Cole called the 9/11 attacks “criminal acts of terrorism against a civilian population” – like the Oklahoma City bombing.

He wrote, “many forms of devastating crime,” from the drug trade to organized crime to rape and child abuse. “The acts of Sept. 11 were horrible, but so are these other things,” he said.

Cole’s new boss, Attorney General Eric Holder, has pushed for criminal trials but has struggled to bring mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stateside for prosecution.

The second questionable Obama recess appointment was that of Robert Ford as US ambassador to Syria after efforts to have him confirmed by the Senate stalled.

Syria transfers weaponry to Hisbullah and is unwilling to comply with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency about its suspected nuclear site.

This is not as much an issue with Ford, as it is with Syria, because Ford is the first US ambassador to Syria since 2005, when the US ambassador then in place was recalled by the Bush administration following the assassination of the anti-Syrian Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri, widely suspected to have been done with the help of Damascus.

I believe that Obama, while basking in the Hawaiian sun, is sending a provocative message to his opposition and to we the people about his agenda which is not bipartisan, but is politics ‘as usual.’

Whether these moves are in the US interest will be debated and has set an early agenda that Obama welcomes.

Well, Mr. President, welcome home to the fireworks.