Chicago-style politics once again coming home to roost. The Weekly Standard is reporting that Obama is now selling judgeships for health care votes:

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he’s obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson’s brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

“Scott Matheson is a distinguished candidate for the Tenth Circuit court,” President Obama said.  “Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering.  I am honored to nominate this lifelong Utahn to the federal bench.”

Huh. How convenient. Especially when one takes into account Matheson’s past record on the health care boondoggle:

He voted against the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee back in July and again when it passed the House in November. But now he’s “undecided” on ramming the bill through Congress. “The Congressman is looking for development of bipartisan consensus,” Matheson’s press secretary Alyson Heyrend wrote to THE WEEKLY STANDARD on February 22. “It’s too early to know if that will occur.”

Perhaps they learned from the bribes of Senators “you don’t even have to get us drunk first” Landrieu and Nelson that outright cash money bribery back-fires a bit and are trying different tactics for Congressman. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch — your brother’s!

For anyone other than a delusional egomaniac, the fact that you have a super majority yet still cannot pass legislation — because no one wants it — would be enough to tell you, hey, maybe this isn’t a very good idea. Not Obama! Raised up politically in Chicago, he resorts to what he knows; strong arm tactics and outright bribery. This isn’t the first time more than just shades of his Chicago political background have come into play. He pulled the Chicago version of the petulant child saying “La la la, I can’t hear you” when he tried to freeze out Fox News and censor the citizenry’s news.

When that failed, much like everything he touches, he moved onto the Chicago-style equivalent of the smarmy, unethical Class President candidate, promising Pizza Fridays for votes. Now, for your brothers too! It has become a pattern, starting with bribery attempts for inconvenient primary challengers to drop their bids and has now moved onto vote buying. I’m starting to think that the Pay Czar is actually a Payola Czar.

They can’t, however, bribe the public with the public’s money. I do believe the 2010 elections might teach them that lesson.