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Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama Presidency

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Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief Edward Luce has written a granularly informed insider account about those who hold the keys to the inner most sanctum of Obama Land -- Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.

It's a vital article -- a brave one -- that includes "dozens of interviews with his closest allies and friends in Washington."

Most are unnamed because the consequences of retribution from this powerful foursome can be severe in an access-dependent town. John Podesta, president of the powerful, administration-tilting Center for American Progress, had the temerity and self-confidence to put his thoughts publicly on the record. But most others could not.

Mark Schmitt, executive editor of the liberal magazine the American Prospect, wrote that "Luce has written what seems to me the best and most succinct rundown of what's gone wrong in the White House, with particular attention to the role of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel." But some of the big aggregators out there -- Mike Allen at Politico and ABC's The Note among others -- didn't give Luce's juicy and lengthy essay any love.

Why not? Allen is a good friend of mine and tries to keep a good balance between tough-hitting political stuff, but also goes out of his way to give strokes to those in the White House he can -- particularly "Axe" -- who is a regular in Mike's daily Playbook. I try to do the same, to be honest, and have a particular thing for Bill Burton's wit and was pleased to see Rahm Emanuel giving David Geffen rather than Rick Warren lots of hugs during the Inauguration eve fests.

But this Luce piece is unavoidably, accurately hard-hitting, and while many of the nation's top news anchors and editors are sending emails back and forth (I have been sent three such emails in confidence) on what a spot-on piece Luce wrought on the administration, they fear that the "four horsepersons of the Obama White House" will shut down and cut off access to those who give the essay 'legs.'

But in the too regularly vapid chatter about DC's political scene, serious critiques of the internal game around Obama not only deserve review on their own merits but have to be read -- because Obama is not winning. He is failing and people need to consider why.

Any serious survey of the Obama administration's accomplishments and setbacks over the last year has to conclude that the administration is deeply in the red.

If current trends continue, this once mesmerizing Camelot-ish operation will be be seen in the history books as the presidential administration that -- to distort slightly and inversely paraphrase Churchill -- never have so many talented people managed to achieve so little with so much.

The entire article needs to be read, but to set the stage, here is the beginning of Ed Luce's portal into the heart of today's Obama machine:

At a crucial stage in the Democratic primaries in late 2007, Barack Obama rejuvenated his campaign with a barnstorming speech, in which he ended on a promise of what his victory would produce: "A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again."

Just over a year into his tenure, America's 44th president governs a bitterly divided nation, a world increasingly hard to manage and an America that seems more disillusioned than ever with Washington's ways. What went wrong?

Pundits, Democratic lawmakers and opinion pollsters offer a smorgasbord of reasons - from Mr Obama's decision to devote his first year in office to healthcare reform, to the president's inability to convince voters he can "feel their [economic] pain", to the apparent ungovernability of today's Washington. All may indeed have contributed to the quandary in which Mr Obama finds himself. But those around him have a more specific diagnosis - and one that is striking in its uniformity. The Obama White House is geared for campaigning rather than governing, they say.

In dozens of interviews with his closest allies and friends in Washington - most of them given unattributably in order to protect their access to the Oval Office - each observes that the president draws on the advice of a very tight circle. The inner core consists of just four people - Rahm Emanuel, the pugnacious chief of staff; David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, his senior advisers; and Robert Gibbs, his communications chief.

Two, Mr Emanuel and Mr Axelrod, have box-like offices within spitting distance of the Oval Office. The president, who is the first to keep a BlackBerry, rarely holds a meeting, including on national security, without some or all of them present.

With the exception of Mr Emanuel, who was a senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, all were an integral part of Mr Obama's brilliantly managed campaign. Apart from Mr Gibbs, who is from Alabama, all are Chicagoans - like the president. And barring Richard Nixon's White House, few can think of an administration that has been so dominated by such a small inner circle.

"It is a very tightly knit group," says a prominent Obama backer who has visited the White House more than 40 times in the past year. "This is a kind of 'we few' group ... that achieved the improbable in the most unlikely election victory anyone can remember and, unsurprisingly, their bond is very deep."

John Podesta, a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and founder of the Center for American Progress, the most influential think-tank in Mr Obama's Washington, says that while he believes Mr Obama does hear a range of views, including dissenting advice, problems can arise from the narrow composition of the group itself.

To hit some of the later highlights, Luce speaks with political giants 'inside' the Obama tent who suggest that Rahm Emanuel lost track of the importance of communicating to the public about health care, despite some success in legislative deal-making. While Luce doesn't explicate this topic, I would also suggest that Rahm pulled the plug on shuttering GITMO, which had a good plan on paper, but was unwilling to move the political wheels to get that done -- not understanding that this was a key pillar of progressive political support for Obama.

The article goes on to document how people like Health Secretary and former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius were kept off television -- along with others like Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Add to this others that Luce does not name -- including important voices like Paul Volcker and Austan Goolsbee on Obama's economic team, who saw their public voices choked off by a media-dominating Lawrence Summers with support from Robert Gibbs and Rahm Emanuel.

In a particularly cutting depiction of Emanuel, Luce writes:

Administration insiders say the famously irascible Mr Emanuel treats cabinet principals like minions. "I am not sure the president realises how much he is humiliating some of the big figures he spent so much trouble recruiting into his cabinet," says the head of a presidential advisory board who visits the Oval Office frequently. "If you want people to trust you, you must first place trust in them."

I will never forget when Rahm Emanuel laughingly responded well within earshot of several national media (and this blogger/writer) at an Inaugural bash to an inquiry if Emanuel was enjoying putting Tom Daschle on the basement floor of the White House in a non-descript office pretty far from the president. Emanuel joked back glibly that Daschle had to be happy with any office in the White House because "any square inch of real estate inside the White House -- no matter where it is -- is more valuable than anything outside it."

Compare this flippant meanness and hubris to the tone of Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's depiction of the campaign in Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory and one couldn't imagine more different worlds. Plouffe describes a campaign with a "no assholes" rule -- one where good policy would be pursued -- not just what was a winning political hand.

Luce's brief paints a picture of even a well-meaning, policy-focused "Obama the man" being warped out of shape by "Obama the team." Recounting some of the antics during Obama's November China trip, Luce recounts:

The same [dismissal of his key policy advisers in lieu of his political entourage] can be observed in foreign policy. On Mr Obama's November trip to China, members of the cabinet such as the Nobel prizewinning Stephen Chu, energy secretary, were left cooling their heels while Mr Gibbs, Mr Axelrod and Ms Jarrett were constantly at the president's side.

The White House complained bitterly about what it saw as unfairly negative media coverage of a trip dubbed Mr Obama's "G2" visit to China. But, as journalists were keenly aware, none of Mr Obama's inner circle had any background in China. "We were about 40 vans down in the motorcade and got barely any time with the president," says a senior official with extensive knowledge of the region. "It was like the Obama campaign was visiting China."

One wonders why Valerie Jarrett was on the trip in any case. As head of public engagement for the White House, it would seem she should have a rather full plate meeting the demand of the many groups around the United States that want to feel like they are connecting with and being heard by the Obama White House.

I see Valerie Jarrett a lot -- often at Georgetown's power crowd restaurant, Cafe Milano.

In fact, one night when I was at the annual gala dinner of Jim Zogby's Arab American Institute -- an important evening for leading figures from the Arab-American community to connect with the Washington political establishment -- Jarrett was on the docket to be the major keynote speaker of the entire night.

Jarrett, however, had to modify her schedule because of what she said were "urgent duties that were calling her back to the White House right away" and so she gave a few minutes of laudatory comments toward the Arab American community before most people were in their seats between reception and sitting down for dinner. My hosts that evening said that they were mainly interested in hearing her and asked me if I wanted to depart with them for Cafe Milano. I said sure -- and wow -- there Ms. Jarrett was.

Maybe she did stop at the White House between the JW Marriott and the Georgetown hot spot. That was possible -- but it would have had to be a nano-second drop by.

Compare this to President Bill Clinton giving the major keynote remarks in March 1995 at the Nixon Center's opening conference in Washington at the Mayflower Hotel when Clinton came early for a VIP reception, stayed for the entire sit down dinner, gave a 90 minute long speech, and mingled with folks after.

People can tell when you are focused on them in a serious way -- and when you are giving them a cursory glance.

There are things that happen in politics -- and Valerie Jarrett does have important duties and a schedule that is probably always in constant flux -- so I don't want to take my critique too far.

But one thing essential to understand is that the kind of policy that smart strategists -- including by people like National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other advisers like Denis McDonough, Tom Donilon, James Steinberg, William Burns, (previously Gregory Craig) -- would be putting forward is getting twisted either in the rough-and-tumble of a a team of rivals operation that is not working, or is being distorted by the Chicago political gang's tactical advice that is seducing Obama towards a course that has not only violated deals he made with those who voted him into office but which is failing to hit any of the major strategic targets by which the administration will be historically measured.

President Obama needs to take stock quickly. Read the Luce piece. Be honest about what is happening. Read Plouffe's smart book again. Send Rahm Emanuel back to the House in a senior role. Make Valerie Jarrett an important Ambassador. Keep Axelrod -- but balance him with someone like Plouffe, and get back to putting good policy before short term politics.

Set up a Team B with diverse political and national security observers like Tom Daschle, John Podesta, Brent Scowcroft, Joshua Micah Marshall, G. John Ikenberry, Joseph Nye, Fareed Zakaria, Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Harris, Arianna Huffington, James Fallows, Chuck Hagel, Strobe Talbott, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others to give you a no-nonsense picture of what is going on.

And take action to fix the dysfunction of your office.

Otherwise, the Obama brand will be totally bust in the very near term.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note. Clemons can be followed on Twitter @SCClemons


235 Comments

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I don't agree with your B Team altogether, but I was hoping that Luce might have commented on the Chicago Boys economic team Obama surrounded himself with; another major error, IMO.
That field needs a B Team in a hurry.

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Plus he could jettison Susan Rice. This sadly proves how worried so many of us have been about the extent of Rahm's power and influence over Obama.

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Team B ?? That bunch needs to be permanently sidelined in a big hurry. To be traded to China late.

C

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Steve's B Team choices, you mean?

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Yes.

C

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Yeah, talk about some re-tread insider former war-mongers. Age doesn't erase their pasts, does it?

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Team B is rather a useful list to have: these are the people certain purblind insiders in one’s party think one was voting for when one voted for President Summers and Mr. Obama. Unlike the Axelrod-Emmanuel-Gibbs-Jarrett quartet, which few can have had any antecedent notion of, the Clementine Gang of Ten have all been notorious for years, if not centuries.

The White House would probably do better to leave that crew in place over at CNAI, the Commissariat for the New American Innovation, and smother them with benign neglect.

Instead, having Mr. Luce of the Financial Times drop by for tea every Thursday afternoon for a few months might actually help a little: being an alien import from Airstrip One, he will not be looking to improve his C. V. at Uncle Sam’s expense. It would do Larry and Barry a world of good, I expect, to confer from time to time with reasonably intelligent and well-informed persons who are not attempting to obtain something for themselves, or for their paymasters, or for the groupies gathered together around their blog or tank of thought. [*]

Healthy days.


___
[1] Mr. Luce’s F.T. affiliation is not wonderful, admittedly, but there it is: anybody in the kitchen cabinet who has no connection with Mr. Carville’s notion of The Bond Market --

"I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody" [http://tinyurl.com/yklsrv9] --

would be a lightweight. "Not Serious," as Mr. Greenwald would say, stressing the upper-case ‘S’.

Mr. Luce might be even more helpfully heavyweight if he did a little research on what actually happens during political campaigns in the holy Homeland: oddly enough, he omits the whole Bond Market side of running for office. This is a slightly touchy topic that would not occur to anybody as Serious as S. Clemons, but the student should allow herself a little frivolity from time to time, trying out formulations like "Ask not what your principal campaign contributors can do for you; ask . . . ."

Oh, well. The reader may suspect that I am sulking, and the reader may even be right. I certainly did not get what I thought I was voting for, but that does not guarantee that the Innovation Commissars or the Bond Market did any better. President Summers and Mr. Obama could be headed for a replay of the John Tyler administration, with only six Homelanders out of three hundred million seriously approving of the Executive. (Messrs. Axelrod, Emmanuel, Gibbs, Obama and Summers, that would be. Plus Mme. Jarrett.)

Given Neocomrade R. B. Cheney’s recent innovations, his Omniexecutivitarianism, so to call it, I daresay that is about all the support they will ever absolutely need in matters of foreign and invasion policy. On the domestic side of the salt water, it is easy to forecast three years of pluperfect gridlock. The advanced student might look into the possibility that somebody’s principal campaign contributors, not necessarily Larry’s and Barry’s, may have been aimin’ at precisely that. [http://tinyurl.com/cjrmfn] might be pertinent; at any rate, I find it congenially alarmist without becoming silly-conspiratorial.

Which reminds me to point out how the Serious S. Clemons agrees with quite a lot of other liberal and democratic and "Democrat Party" spinsters in scribbling as if the militant extremist Republican Party had been annihilated by magic. That foolishness was even more so under Viceroy Cheney and George XLIII, no doubt, but it is still pretty foolish.

Maybe one should subtract five points from Mr. Luce’s score as well, whose alleged ‘granularity’ omits to mention that G.O.P. boulder sittin’ square in the middle of the road. Oh, well.


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That was fun to read, John.
Though where was Oprah supposed to fit into the new mix? Inquiring minds want to know...

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Though I do have to go look up 'purblind'; damn!

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65 recommends so far!

Obamabots are grabbing at "Blame it on Rahm" like so many drowning gerbils hanging onto the same little straw.

Blame it on Rahm! The President doesn't know!

Harharharhar!!!

This is just a silly ploy to give Obama a clean slate.

So what if that con-man played golf and pranced around the world on meaningless junkets while millions of Americans lost their jobs and houses?

Blame it on Rahm!

Obama didn't know what he was doing!

Obama didn't even notice that millions of Americans were losing their jobs and houses while Larry and Tim donated trillions of dollars to criminal bankers.

So obviously...

Obama must be a complete idiot!

Because otherwise...

Obama would have figured it out before you did...

You gerbils for Obama!

You mindless suckers who nominated a TV con-man instead of an honest citizen.

So if you believe Steve Clemons...

Obama must be dumber than a gerbil.

But he isn't.


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More garbage from the Obama hater.

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It's unbelievable to me that after so many administrations which have committed this major blunder, we now have another on which has exactly repeated it. Just unbelievable. watch scott pilgrim vs the world online | watch lottery ticket online

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RE: Obama's woes
MY COMMENT: Trying to be "bipartisan" by making endless concessions to the Republicans is like 'playing footsie'* with the Devil.
* this is not an allusion to Dick Morris

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The idea of the permanent campaign comes from the W team. I don't know why Obama wants to emulate them, but it did work to get W re-elected. I guess the question is, what's the point in being re-elected if you can't get anything you say you stand for enacted?

-- ARG

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Maybe that's why you choose a mantra like "change" so that no one will notice that you never really stood for anything.

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You mean they, as in those who ran Obama's election.

I assume Obama didn't sit down one day and say, "I want to get elected President. I don't really want to be President; I don't really want to govern. I just want to be elected." No, that was the last guy's view.

So the trouble is that he, Obama, hasn't seen the difference yet. I take him at his word that he'd rather be a one-term President than just be a politician. If so, then he needs to get a new A-Team (not just an additional, new B-Team).

Time to govern, Mr. Obama. Stop campaigning, and govern.

If I saw him do just one thing that was politically risky, I'd be convinced that he's really trying. So far, though, I haven't seen it. Maybe I'm expecting too much.

-- ARG

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A perfect example of what Plouffe has called "bedwetting". Was health care risk? hell yeah. Was trying to close Gitmo risky? double hell yeah. Ending DADT? Trying to do risky, difficult things is by its nature risky and difficult. Did you expect Congress to roll over for Obama on these challenging issue? He could have simply raised spending and cut taxes like Bush, his approval would be above 60%. He's had some setbacks, some of his own doing, but I'm still betting we get health care done. That alone is more than FDR or any Dem president following him has done - bigger than Medicare. The question I have is what have you done to make this happen? Have you made phone calls, written letters, sent emails? Anything? This smells like monday morning quarterbacking so I humbly suggest you get in the game.

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I don't believe your comment addresses, on any level, the core of the article on which this article is based. The problem is that with Rahm Emanuel at the helm, the entire Obama white house agenda is based on tactics, not strategy.
It's unbelievable to me that after so many administrations which have committed this major blunder, we now have another on which has exactly repeated it. Just unbelievable. A strong chief of staff is essential. An arrogant one is a sure prescription for disaster. If Rahm remains in charge much longer, this will go down as one of the more ineffective one-term presidencies.

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I am not convinced that Rahm is running the show at all. I don't believe for a moment that Obama has turned over his Presidency to Emauel.

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Obama could have been a lot further down the track on healthcare, jobs and DADT had he gone out and made his case to the people, but he handed everything off to Congress and then took a hands off approach without any leadership or pressure from the WH. He makes a couple suggestions, nods that he likes something and then backs off totally. He said he would lead, fight and change DC. The public would be behind him if he really fought and failed, but there has been NO FIGHT AT ALL and that is why he is loosing the base. He does not appear to want to roll up sleeves and get in the game where you get a little dirty.

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I completely agree with you, the florida mortgage rates have been getting so high lately that it seems i might need to look into getting a mortgage refinance

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And although M. Clemons doesn't mention it, you have to conclude that if what he says is true, it is this Chicago campaign team that decided to "surge" in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What could go wrong?

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"The idea of the permanent campaign comes from the W team."

Ummm... No. "The permanent campaign dates back at least to the Richard M. Nixon presidency of 1968-74." Which is on a page at the Britannica.com domain, no less.

Having been doing some googling to confirm this, every search of the form ("permanent campaign" {name of president}) since Nixon turns up hits, many of them contemporary to the president involved.

Take this article as a general example of the field:

Many presidential observers argue that the modern White House is the site of more-or-less permanent campaigning: high expectations are placed on chief executives, and to be effective, presidents must dedicate a great deal of energy and many resources to mobilizing public support. One indicator of the “permanent campaign” is the degree to which presidents since Ford have commissioned independent opinion polls and focus groups to assist in policymaking and political maneuvering. This paper assesses the “permanence” of the permanent campaign by examining monthly polling expenditures throughout four presidencies (Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and Clinton). We find that for the most part, presidents do not vary significantly in the average amount spent per month.

The whole idea is absolutely not news -- at least, not to anyone with a modicum of memory.

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We are not to be spared another year of yapping with Republicans and accomplishing nothing:

7 Feb. WASHINGTON - President Obama said Sunday that he will convene a half-day, bipartisan health care summit at the White House on Feb. 25 to be broadcast on television, so Americans can see Democrats and Republicans try to break the deadlock on health care legislation.

link

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Oh, Gawd, he's going to sell us down the river. We give them tort reform and they offer us healthcare vouchers redeemable at the Wal-Mart Minute Clinic?

I CAN'T STAND IT!!

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And selling insrurance across state lines, with no anti-trust provisions?

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Oh, yeah, we're going to love that in MN where we DO regulate insurance. But heck, we all should become Louisiana. They won a Superbowl. Who needs healthcare.

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You are exactly right. He's gotta be the politically dumbest SOB to be in the White House in generations. Why doesn't he just surrender openly and get it over with? Oy!

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"He's gotta be the politically dumbest SOB to be in the White House in generations."

This from somebody who couldn't get elected dog catcher in a town consisting of themselves and their dog.

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To be fair, if the only voter in that hypothetical election is the dog, he's not going to be voting for someone he thinks will be effective in the office. Which is kind of the way Republicans go about filling offices, when you think about it.

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I don't know. I'm starting to think I'd trust the dog's political instincts, based on some of the comments downthread.

Apparently Obama is committing political suicide in order to keep the DLC and the Blue Dogs in power. Or something.

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That is beyond a stupid comment but I am not surprised given your past comments

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Ah yes, the famous Obama can do no wrong, brainless, kook aid drinker Lousgirl84. You are a lemming. Pitiful.

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The idea of a televised summit is great. Inviting some real people to it, and not just political leaders, would be good too.

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I agree.

It would be prudent IMO to have some healthcare professionals (nurses, doctors) also present in advisory or at least just in the room.

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It would be great if one Republican Senator gave a damn about helping anyone who cannot access or pay for health care in this country.

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He should also do a televised summit when he meets with Congress on Banking Reform, and when he meets with the bankers themselves. Why not do televised summits for all major legislation? Seems like an idea whose time has come.

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He's leading the thirty horse to water. --
He *knows* at this point that HCR is not going through, so he's making a show about standing next to the republicans and talking to them a lot, so we 'stupids' who to blame when it fails.

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I'm definitely not a Washingtonian, but I've followed the practices of big organizations, especially the federal government, for over 4 decades and I've watched the politics of the last decade very closely. Obama's campaign pulled off two amazing victories, defeating Hillary for the Primary and again defeating the Republican Party. I really appreciated the fact that there were no really politically sensitive leaks duirng that period, and the Obama team seemed to anticipate what was going to happen in the election quite well. I knew there were some very experienced political insiders at work.

The flip side of no major leaks was that the insiders were a very small, close group. Had to be. Otherwise there would have been leaks. But the people they chose for Treasury showed that the small group did not include any high-level finance experts. The incoming Obama White House essentially leased the Treasury department to Wall Street insiders and let them do what they needed to. That explains why there has been so little difference between policies from Paulson (after he panicked and threw out the rule book at the advice of Wall Street) and the current Treasury policies.

But the big headache has in my opinion been a complete lack of White House leadership for the public about getting health care reform passed, particularly since last Summer. There was nothing except the attacks on health care to be heard, and no responses.

I thought they had some insider stuff that was a lock, but as it battle dragged out over the last half-year it became obvious that the White House had also farmed that issue out, this time to Reid and Pelosi. But those two have not been given the kind of public support only the White House could bring to bear. If Harry Reid is defeated next November, the White House will be a key element of the defeat. I think it is now too late for health care.

There are other complaints, but if Obama hasn't stretched out beyond those four people after a year in the White House then Obama knew how to get elected, but he has no clue what it takes to be President. He'd better get his things in order and shake up the failed White House and soon or the Democratic Party together with the American nation is going to go down the way the three recent special elections did.

The four staffers understand the existing system too well to realize that it has failed and that stuff has to be done that is not Washington business as usual. And Obama is a young relatively inexperienced individual trapped inside the White House bubble. He's been going with his gut, and his gut is out of its depth. Who does he trust besides the four staffers who can get the message to him? I wonder what Bill Clinton might tell him? This is Obama's biggest crisis to date.

Thanks for posting this, Steve.

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Oh, jeez; the press is gonna have a field day with this!

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Yep.

But the press won't get it right either. They too are ultimate Washington insiders. Like David Broder, they simply won't get what the problem is. They also won't believe that things outside D.C. have changed in ways that effect them.

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This.

The press's response will be to insist, yet again, that all would be well if David Broder and Fred Hiatt were making all the policy decisions.

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Sometimes when Ihear Broder latley, it's as though he speaks just a slightly different language than I know. Do you know what I mean at all?

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Sort of like he was looking at a slightly different universe from the one the rest of us live it and describing it to us as though it mattered to us? Or maybe like he' writing about some fictional history instead of reporting the present?

Yeah, it sort of seems that way to me too. I used to watch him on "Washington Week" and he and Georgie Ann Geyer seemed to have the inside track so often. GG just disappeared a few years ago, and David just got stuck in time and decided not to move forward any more.

It was a better time.

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You may have said it right, Richard.

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Ah, but the press have a field day with everything — except for important stuff. Yes: The main failure for Obama at this point in time is a failure to communicate (hat-tip to Cool Hand Luke).

What's the "important stuff"? It's not HCR. It's not DADT. It's not GITMO. It's not Red v. Blue or or whether progressives are satisfied or that Repukes have been given too much too soon.

It's a polarized and polarizing New Right staying on message from about day -150 of the administration all the way through now that paints a universal message about an illegal alien non-president who is a mash up of terrorist-pal-ing America/white-hating, baby killing/grandma killing socialist/Nazi/Che/Mao/Stalin/Hitler and get your guns and ammo in bulk because it's time for another revoltion and, besides, now that you have your guns and ammo in bulk, we really, really know what a socialist/Nazi/Che/Mao/Stalin/Hitler deserves, Right?

And he didn't stand there, all by himself, with his Bully Pulpit, and make it all go silent and go away.

So it's his #Fail. It's his fault. Because THAT fits the water-soaking-into-cement inevitability of the mass message, the meme, that he, by himself, has failed to stop.

Yup. Pay no attention to the flurry of heated activity behind the curtain over there...and over there...and over there... because he's got Chicago Insiders surrounding him, giving him bad advice, blocking up the ducts of his Majicks to be a Big Daddy that kisses the owie and makes it all better.

Yup. Pay no attention to the fact the the really-mass-media are in bed (along with a crucial number of congressional Dems) with the New Revolutionary Corporate Right spin monster, and they get to choose just how much the Bully Pulpit is echoed about endlessly anyway. That can't be the problem.

No. Obama has surrounded himself with a cabal of Evil Chicagoans that have blunted his Great Majicks and keep him campaigning instead of governing.

That is a much, much more tidy storyline, a much more terse narrative. Much more easily packaged and echoed.

And one further means of keeping attention off the problem of crippling the flow of government progress and priming the pump of violence underway thanks to the Corporatocracy's Revolution.

Sure. Brilliant.

Sure.

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I doubt anyone on these boards would argue with your take on MSM. They are largely about gossip and entertainment and innuendo. That in no way negates my observation that they will take to this version of 'insider stuff' like cats to catnip!
How many news cycles were eaten up by Heilman and Halperin's book?
Plus, IMO, snarky sarcasm rarely works that well in such a long comment; it's easy to lose the train of attitude you are trying to convey.

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Wendy,

Well, here's one problem as I see it: Portraying the non-mainstream media as helpless against their wildest urges (e.g., "catnip" reponse) is a great way of minimizing their responsibility, plus it suggests there may be no underlying motive force behind such responses. I suggest they are not MSM, unless the MS is redefined as "mainstreaming".

I prefer a more clarifying label: Corporate Mass Media.

They are the megaphones for multi-national corporate interests. They do not represent anything close to mainstream interests of the American public and citizenry.

They represent the visible and thought-shaping arm of a 30+ year revolution against the democratic underpinnings of our republic. To put none-too-fine a point on it: We are at war, and their job is to keep us distracted, divided, in denial and focused on all the diversionary narratives that keep us from seeing how close to the edge we stand.

They are not helplessly chasing catnip.

As with Orwell's Winston Smith, they re-write history-as-it-happens, on the fly, to ensure we don't see their role in the writing.

There is a ring of truth to elements of this post. Valid points raised. And that's how it works best: You salt something with enough truth to make the central premise being promoted appear reasonable — no matter that it slides past the biggest essentials.

If this presidency is failing, is it really just the result of bad advice by some star chamber of evil Chicagoans? Or, rather, might it be that even if Obama used his Bully Pulpit every single day for the past year, the Corporate Mass Media would still be awash in the corporate memes that he and his reforms represent terrorist loving, socialist/Nazi/Stalin/Mao/Hitlerian baby killing, grandma killing, weak defense stances?

After all, that pulpit stands on the dais of these media. It only reaches the public through their conduits. As soon as he stops speaking, the CMM pundits interpret his every word and gesture and whether he spent too much time flipping back and forth between teleprompters. As frequently as not, they interrupt his delivery to analyze what he might be saying.

So, yeah: I have a problem with ignoring their importance. I remember LBJ refusing to run for re-election because, as he said it himself, he had "lost Walter Cronkight."

Our democracy is at war with a rising corporatocracy. That is the big picture, the backdrop against which all other "news" must be considered. The CMM are the megaphones of the enemy, piping their Tokyo Rose messages at us, We the People, the real government, every minute of every day.

I'm less concerned with whether I maintain "snark" throughout a long post (though I rather frame it "voiced frustration") because that's not the purpose, the "big picture," of the post.

It is, instead, that those whose goal is to polarize, alienate, frustrate and discourage all have us 1) accept that the effort to rescue democracy from oligarchichal control in few private hands is failing, 2) that one man (and his "star chamber" of advisers) fails if he can't undo 30 years of damage in one, and 3) that the alleged failure has more to do with the presence of too few advisers (and all evil Chicagoans besides) than it does with the incessant, relentless drum beat of polarization against his administration from the primaries through today, as portrayed by these corporate message monsters.

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The snark comment was to address my confusion at your meaning. If a reader has to wait until toward the end to grok sarcasm, it's hard, at least for me, without rereading, to get the frame of a comment.
You are right about corporate media, but I think many of the individual pundits catnip-it to advance their own careers. Viewer ratings also play heavily into the mix, and ad sponsorship.
I'd submit that since he is a gifted speaker, he could have given voice to exactly which policies he wanted, say in HCR. Stimulus. Jobs.
Instead, changing lines in the sand confuse people, and Congress. Many Dems are complaining that he doesn't give them the signals, either.
I listend to Fareed interview the King of Jordan this week; he says everyone in the MIddle East is waiting to hear from the White House, and they are growing very impatient.

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Your assessment of the media is exactly right. But choking back valid criticism of this signal flaw in Obama's administration is like saying we shouldn't evade a charging bull because that might anger him even more. The media will peck away at Obama regardles of what he does.

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"The media will peck away at Obama regardles of what he does."

Yes, but the commenters at this site only add 100+ supportive comments to a media piece which reinforces their already-conceived narrative; any stories that don't portray the president as a bumbling incompetent, a tool of corporate America, or the second (third?) coming of George W. Bush are second-guessed, discounted, or simply ignored.

I would think that those of us that have been forced to go to the blogosphere for political analysis that goes deeper than the rehashed conventional wisdom of the Post or the Times would appreciate a president focusing on the job at hand, and not concerning himself with winning every media cycle, given the frivolous preoccupations of the establishment news organizations.

Of course, I didn't think that Senate Demcorats would do everything in their power to thwart a newly-elected Democratic president's initiatives after staring in the electoral abyss a mere four years previously, either.

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Tell me about it. Me neither

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THANK YOU, Steve. Brilliant.

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Except for this paragraph:

Set up a Team B with diverse political and national security observers like Tom Daschle, John Podesta, Brent Scowcroft, Joshua Micah Marshall, G. John Ikenberry, Joseph Nye, Fareed Zakaria, Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Harris, James Fallows, Chuck Hagel, Strobe Talbott, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others to give you a no-nonsense picture of what is going on.
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I'm guessing this is a list of Steve Clemons' pals, certainly a motley crew of leaders (Zbig, Scowcroft, Hagel) and Z teamers (Katrina Vanden Heuvel? John Harris from Politico? Josh Marshall - obvious suck up by Clemons). I'm guessing Steve's calls aren't getting returned by the Big 4.

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LOL!

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ROFLMAS.

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Haven't read the piece yet, but everyone, especially Mr. Clemons, should remember that Luce doesn't like Obama and is something of a neo-con. He wants Obama to fail. So I'm not sure that he's the most reliable source for this kind of article.

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Hell, I would have suggested Steve for the B Team, 'til I saw his list!

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What's wrong with adding a few real liberals on the list (just to mix things up) instead of octogenarian Republicans, neoliberals, second-rate journalists, and washed-up Washington insiders? Holy crap! What did Steve's B list ever do for humanity?

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I am stymied by his list; I hadn't even SEEN arianna's name until my husband pointed it out.
Maybe Steve likes the comfort of Olde Fartes, too.
What's your guess on what the Prez will do in answer to all this?

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Perhaps James Baker is there to help the re-election campaign in Florida?

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I concur. Daschle? Nye? Zakaria? James Baker! All the other light weights and thugs busy that week?

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Henry Kissinger is still alive. Why not include him? Because of dueling Nobel Peace Prizes?

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Brilliant. What is brilliant about this piece. Nothing. You must be easily impressed.

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Jarret's diss of James Zogby's group is hard to read given the crucial role of peace in the Middle East.

It's interesting to read the comments and Steve' responses at his website:

http://www.washingtonnote.com/

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Wendy, thanks for that heads up on the comments at Steve's site--likewise, I found them (most of them) most interesting.

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;-}

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Stunning Mr. Clemons.
It seemed remarkable to me that any group of DC novice could push so many different agenda get funding, sort of, and almost fool everyone except some hard core tea drinkers.
Your piece explains everything, Thanks.

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I don't think Obama will change his tune until he understands that his presidency is at risk of failure. He needs a good scare. As the clock ticks and he approaches the mid-point of his term in office, he'll figure out that he has to chalk up some real accomplishments, or history will score him somewhere beneath Jimmy Carter.

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I said the same thing specifically about Emanuel this morning before reading this piece.

A&&@@@holes suck. They ruin organizations. And Rahm sounds like a class A a$%#@*hole. You just can't imagine the damage they do. It is really out of touch for Obama to put such a distasteful dick as his Chief of Staff.

What kind of leader would subject his staff, never mind Cabinent members, to the moods of a person who clearly has monumental shortcomings in inter personal dealings. I am sure he is very smart and talented, but come on, there are other smart and talented people who can inspire and lead others. This guy just sounds like a complete brat.

This is Obama's biggest blunder.

He has had a whole year, and he has been an abject failure.

Dump him, move on, like Clinton did.

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A-friggin'-MEN!

The trouble is that assholes are often incredible suckups to the people above them, or to anyone who they admire. I spent years working for someone like that. The people above him knew he was tough, but simply couldn't understand that he was also a jerk.

I'm willing to believe that after years of getting along personally with Rahm, Obama is in that spot. He sees the toughness and is oblivious to the jerkiness.

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I hate to cite beltway pundits, but weeks ago there were folks saying Rahm would get the heave-ho if the President didn't get a health care bill.
It also seems Rahm is wearing too many hats in the White House: COS, Legislative Affairs, Foreign Policy/Diplomacy (we surmise, at least Middle East Peace negotiations-wise), and perhaps Economics.
And Axelrod sucks as a spokesperson for the WH; he is aggressive and defensive in tone and word, and his eyes shift so much you know he's not being truthful. Romer is whiney and defensive, Susan Rice is a teenager posing as an adult Hawk; man, they should get some of the others out, and act like a cohesive team!

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A teenager?

Rice was a foreign policy aide to Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential election. She was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, the global management consulting firm, in the early 1990s.[15] While at McKinsey, Rice was affiliated with the firm's Toronto office.

Rice served in the Clinton administration in various capacities: at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997; as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995; and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs from 1995 to 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Rice

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Rahm Emanuel has been a huge disappointment. I expected him to be the Obama administration's muscle in Congress, the person who would make clear to Ben Nelson, et. al., that if they screwed with the President, they'd be in a world of pain. While I might be over-estimating the power of the White House on the Hill, I just don't see any evidence that the White House has tried to use whatever power it has. I blame Rahm for that.

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Really, I think Rahm's politically closer to Nelson than to, say, Feingold. Rahm feels he has an electoral/legislative lock on the left of the party and therefore doesn't need to make any concessions to them.

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"Any serious survey of the Obama administration's accomplishments and setbacks over the last year has to conclude that the administration is deeply in the red."

Any serious survey of that statement has to conclude that the author has picked his horse. Talking about what anyone thinks COULD HAVE been accomplished by the Obama Admin. means nothing. You have to look at what he's actually done. And he has the highest Congressional success rate in history. He passed the stimulus, has handled the bailout better than most thought possible, got a SC nominee confirmed, Fair Pay Act, Matt Shepard Hate Crimes bill, and the list goes on and on and on.

Do I think he could have gotten more done? Sure. But me CLAIMING that he could have doesn't mean jack when it comes to what he's actually done. And any serious survey of the first year of the Obama Admin. has to conclude that he's done a metric f*ck ton.

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What has been done to help the American people in these tough economic times? Unemployment is hovering around 10% and is not about to go down any time soon. HCR was not passed. Reform of our financial markets has not happened. 30,000 more troops being sent to Afghanistan when the American people voted for less war. GITMO is still up and running. These aren't just liberal positions that us progressives are 'whining about'...and if they are then the American people are political progressives because it is what the American people want done, and it isn't getting done.

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Without the stimulus, unemployment would be higher. Without the bailout, the banking system would have collapsed and umemployment would have been MUCH higher. If you look at the jobs graph, or the stock market graph, or the GDP graph...they all hit bottom and started coming up again.

Is it as fast as I'd like? No. Could he have done more? Yes. But to claim that nothing has changed is just untrue. How many years did it take to get back to "normal" after the Great Depression? Hint: It wasn't 1.

HCR will be the biggest legislated accomplishment since LBJ. It was never going to be easy. Mistakes were made (many of them), but are you done fighting for it just because it's been messy or taken a while? I'm not.

I could go on...but more than anything, it seems that your ire should be directed more at Congress than the President. While I certainly expect him to help Congress along - something he didn't do NEARLY enough in the HCR debate - it ultimately is them that has dragged their feet. Pres. Obama doesn't get a vote. He can only tell them to get it done, but he can't start threatening everyone under the sun over every peice of legislation he wants accomplished. He'd make so many enemies that way, it would end with all the members on the Hill abandoning him.

Granted - it would be because they were all too stupid to follow Obama's lead. But they'd still do it, because Dems on the Hill are dumb as rocks when it come to politics.

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I am not saying that Obama has not got anything done. He has accomplished some things. But on the Macro, very important issues, nothing of note has been accomplished.

He needs to get up on the national stage and tell it to the American people straight. My agenda is being blocked by career politicians, both D and R, in congress, this is what we need to get done and I need you, the American people, by my side as I fight for you against the entrenched interests in Washington.

Instead he is back to trying to get the R's onboard in his never ending post partisan fantasy dream world that just maintains the status quo. If he thinks the R's will help him succeed in changing Washington he is not only smoking cigarettes but something else as well.

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He can TELL:

"He needs to get up on the national stage and tell it to the American people straight. My agenda is being blocked by career politicians, both D and R, in congress, this is what we need to get done and I need you, the American people, by my side as I fight for you against the entrenched interests in Washington."

Or he can SHOW:

"Instead he is back to trying to get the R's onboard in his never ending post partisan fantasy dream world that just maintains the status quo. If he thinks the R's will help him succeed in changing Washington he is not only smoking cigarettes but something else as well."

You miss the point. He accepted the Republican cacus invitation to attend their retreat -- and agreed that it be televised. He answered all their questions, and in the process also whipped their asses.

The public SAW for themselves what you say he should, yet again, TELL them.

Thus the idea of bringing in the Republicans and televising the discussion of their "ideas" -- which don't exist except as summed up in the word "NO!" -- about health insurance reform will give the Republicans the opportunity to shut about how they have ideas that are being rejected and instead either PRESENT those ideas or STFUY.

Let We the people SEE that discussion -- and who is lying and who not -- and President Obama's hand will be strengthened, and the Republicans' weakened.

Or: the Republicans FINALLY begin cooperating costructively.

But if they don't, then President Obama, having SHOWN We the people the Republicans actually refusing his effort to work bipartisan, can move on to getting Congress to -- finally -- go ahead and do what needs being done WITHOUT the Republicans, because the Republicans are not serious about addressing and resolving problems, but instead only interested in perpetuating and exacerbating them.

President Obama's State of the Union speech got an 83 per cent approval. The numbers on his kicking Republican ass aren't in yet, but those will also be high. The discussion with Republicans -- televised -- will result in We the people finally seeing for themelves and getting the message -- and thus being decisive in what and who they support. It won't be the Republicans.

That doesn't mean other changes needn't be made. But there's no reason to stop following that tact at the same time.

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Fine I am waiting to see the fighting Obama come out of his corner for round 2. Like I said down thread he gets an A for rhetoric. He has talked the talk time to walk the walk. At this point the American people are totally fed up with nothing being done while Obama is in search of the holy consensus...they want results. If he still thinks he can compromise his way to results with the R's, good luck to him, because he will need it and more.

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"What has been done to help the American people in these tough economic times?"
- Recovery Act: extended unemployment and COBRA, created infrastructure jobs, saved thousands of jobs in state government, tax cuts for the middle class. Per Mark Zandi at economy.com, unemployment would be well over 11% now without it and we'd still be at negative GDP growth in the last two quarters.
"the American people voted for less war". Yes, and they're getting it. We're on track to withdraw all combat forces in Iraq this year. No permanent bases as Cheyney wanted and McCain hinted at. Obama promised to focus on Afghanistan and send more troops - he has. And we've just killed the Pakistan Taliban leader and more Taliban leaders in the last year than in any previous year. Obama is doing what should have been done years ago, going after bin Laden and the Taliban that support him. Were you paying any attention to what Obama said during the primaries or the general election?
Suggestion: Watch the video of Obama taking questions from the House GOP and learn something.

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The American people voted for less war. Foreclosures were at an all time high in 2009 and predictions are 2010 will be the new record...as the tent cities grow in number and size across our country. So his plan is I am gonna help out the people who have lost jobs but do nothing to start putting people back to work? Serious times call for bold leadership and not "We can't do nothing about unemployment until the markets rebound on their own" (which could take 10 years if predictions are accurate). That sounds like what a president with a (R) after his or her name would say. Rising health care costs in an out of control marketplace? We'll just make more people buy insurance in the marketplace...BRILLIANT!! Unfortunately I don't think the American people were on the same page.

Keep on kidding yourself that the major issues of the day are being addressed and I am sure you will be stunned when the D's and Obama are out of power again. Keep on coddling the big corporations who bankroll the party. They don't care about the D's...only what help the D's can provide them in their looting of our country.

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I agree with you, I have actually needed to start out automated forex trading so that i could start making more money otherwise i would have been forced to get a cash out refinance which would make me lose a lot of my money invested.

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Grading Obama...

Rhetoric: A
Accomplishments: C-


President Obama was elected to change Washington. But Washington is change resistant and the GOP, along with Blue Dogs in red districts, have no interest in helping change it because they don't care about the country only their reelection chances. So who is to blame for the president's failing strategy? His inner circle, who could be sued for professional malpractice, or the president who campaigned on change and seemingly has no interest in changing anything? When you knowingly surround yourself with conventional wisdom insiders the status quo will always prevail. And I don't think the president is naive enough or not intelligent enough to realize this so I think we are getting the real Obama vision of government.

The sad thing is that as long as it took to build up the Democratic political brand after many years in the wilderness it is all being pissed away by centrists who promised change they had no intention on delivering. If Obama doesn't change course, stop playing nice with people only looking to block his agenda, and start getting the people behind him again by using the bully pulpit...he and the D's are setting them selves for epicfail. The American people expect, and are demanding, results and nothing much of note is getting accomplished. And if they don't deliver with results I will have no idea how long it will take for them to get the trust of the American people back.

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"President Obama was elected to change Washington. But Washington is change resistant and the GOP, along with Blue Dogs in red districts, have no interest in helping change it because they don't care about the country only their reelection chances. So who is to blame for the president's failing strategy?"

So in a single breath you point out how resistant to change DC is, then blame Obama for it not happening fast enough? How backwards is that?

The lobbiests, then mentalities, the politics, and backroom dealmaking, and everything else that makes DC the sespool that it is...it's been ingrained for DECADES. It's entrenched deep.

Did you think it would change in a year? Did you think that Pres. Obama could go in, and in a year, break the bonds that took 50 years to put in place? Bonds that were specifically designed to resist change?

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So Harry S. "The Buck Stops Here" Truman he ain't...

He has the bully pulpit, he had Big Mo on his side, and he chooses not to use it. If he is looking for reasons why this isn't going well he can stop right when he gets to the mirror. This is a time of deep crisis that demands strong leadership and not a CEO who delegates responsibility.

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Again, it's not about what you think he COULD have accomplished, with his "Big Mo". It's about what he HAS accomplished.

I believe he could have gotten more as well. But my beef is with the premise of the article that somehow the Obama Admin. is in the "deep red" because...he hasn't passed HCR, Financial Reform, and Climate Change legislation in his FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE.

Three of the biggest peices of legislation in half a century - and Obama's failed because he hasn't passed them all in a year. One is right on the goal line, the other two have made more progress than we've ever seen in DC.

I totally agree that it doesn't matter if you ALMOST get something and then lose it. It's still lost, because we play a zero sum game. But to claim that he's failed just because they haven't passed yet - while also ignoring a multitude of other accomplishments - is just ridiculous on the face of it.

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Could not agree more and have echoed the same sentiments over and over and over again, only to be called an Obama apologist.

I'd like to think of myself as a realistic with real expectations of someone and never thought he would even be able to turn the economy around in the first year and he did. To call him a failure is absurd and asinine,. In case anyone doesn't know about his accomplishments in the first year, let me enlighten you.

Featured Legislation
• Signed on January 22, 2010
2009 Tax Breaks for Haiti Donations
• Signed on October 30, 2009
Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009
• Signed on October 28, 2009
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010
• Signed on October 22, 2009
Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act
• Signed on August 06, 2009
Cash For Clunkers Extension
• Signed on June 22, 2009
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
• Signed on May 22, 2009
Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009
• Signed on May 22, 2009
Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act
• Signed on May 20, 2009
Helping Families Save Their Homes Act
• Signed on May 20, 2009
Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
• Signed on April 21, 2009
Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act
• Signed on March 30, 2009
Omnibus Public Lands Management Act
• Signed on March 20, 2009
Small Business Act Temporary Extension
• Signed on February 17, 2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
• Signed on February 11, 2009
DTV Delay Act
• Signed on February 04, 2009
Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act
• Signed on January 29, 2009
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act


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Also, I do want to say that I would be perfectly fine with Rahm not being CoS anymore.

But there is a part of me that wonders if there's a Barlett/McGary thing going on here, where everyone thinks it's Rahm that's pulling Obama to the center, but it's actually Obama who's holding back. (if you never saw West Wing, you won't know what I'm talking about)

I'm also pretty shocked at how absent VP Biden has been in all this. Wasn't that guy in the Senate for like 8,000 years? Wasn't that part of the selling point of having him on the ticket - that he could help shepard things through the Senate because of decades worth of relationships? Where's he been for the last year?

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So I will ask you a simple question...

When can we expect tangible things will be done on the macro issues? Because if nothing can be done the D's chances of holding onto power are somewhere between slim and none.

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You want to turn this around? Want to know how to do it? I will give you this piece of advice gratis...do something to help the middle class, at the wealthy's expense. It won't matter how much money Wall Street gives to the R's instead of the D's. If something tangible is done to help the struggling American people, especially the middle class, Obama and the D's will stay in power. Voters who aren't executives and CEO's of major corporations still vastly outnumber the ones who are.

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"It won't matter how much money Wall Street gives to the R's instead of the D's. If something tangible is done to help the struggling American people, especially the middle class, Obama and the D's will stay in power. Voters who aren't executives and CEO's of major corporations still vastly outnumber the ones who are."

This is so simple-minded it's embarrassing to read. And, ironically, it's simple-minded precisely because your own intransigence, by illustration, renders it such.

Why won't you acknowledge that he *has* done tangible things to help struggling American people (as multiple commenters have been pointing out, with factual and detailed evidence, to no avail)? You refuse to acknowledge what has been accomplished and instead do nothing but rail against the Obama administration and hold forth on its impending political doom.

So tell me again why Obama should trust that if he "gets something tangible done" the voters will side with him over a well-funded opposition campaign and prevailing conventional narratives? I would like to believe that voters would reward the Obama administration for tangible achievements displayed clearly before them. Unfortunately, many voters react to such achievement with only credulous, misguided, and perhaps perpetual dissatisfaction. You, my friend, are Exhibit A.

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Fine stay on the present course and say this is what the people wanted then we'll talk after the midterms. And fwiw I have admitted, on this thread, he has got some things accomplished, but mainly for people who have lost their jobs already. And as more and more get crushed under the weight of this financial crisis, while the cost of everything from food, to insurance, to gas goes up, and they continue to lose their homes and fall further behind I'm sure they will agree with you...your apologies for maintaining the status quo, and claiming it is what the American people really want, is what is really embarassing.

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Don't people who have lost their jobs already qualify as "struggling American people"? And are you suggesting that additional jobs wouldn't have been lost in the absence of the Recovery Act? My current employer received assistance from the stimulus and most of the personnel budget was saved from the chopping block as a direct result. Whether it would have been my job or that of the person working next to me is hard to say. But, regardless, that assistance is pretty damn tangible from where I'm sitting.

And at what point did I apologize for any status quo? By setting that up as a strawman to replace the argument I'm making, you're again implying the absence of accomplishment. If, as you say, Obama has had some accomplishments in relation to the situation at hand when he took office, then how does advocating recognition of those accomplishments and the positive effects they have had constitute apologizing for the status quo? It could be accused of apologizing for incremental progress, which I will freely admit I'm doing (not because that's all I would like but because that's what I believe we realistically can get in a year's time, all things, including Obama's imperfections, considered). But it's not an apology for maintaining the status quo.

Look, I'm not trying to be overly combative. And I'm all for more and better accomplishments. But reinforcing the meme that says Obama's administration is in danger of being a "failed" one after one year in office, with what is at least a respectable list of achievements already recorded amid historically difficult circumstances, only feeds the superficial and simplistic political narratives that threaten to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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You're tone deaf. You're arguing like someone who has been keeping close watch on Washington. Problem is that that's not where most people live.
Look at the extent to which the insiders in the unregulated financial industry have been helped out. Look at the dollar amounts. Look at the fact that the big ones, especially the ones which were most heavily involved in destroying the life savings of a vast number of ordinary people around the world, escaped with their positions intact, and look at their big bonuses. Look at the fact that they've already started pulling the same happy horse shit all over again. You think the American people are too stupid to see this ? Do you think the people don't know the extent to which they're being raped by the credit card cartel ? Do you think the people don't know what happened to the so called loan bailouts in the mortgage arena ?
State governments are going bankrupt. Where is the help for them ? State budgets are another disaster waiting to happen.
How about the promise to close our private concentration camp in Cuba ? How about our resolve not to repeat the militaristic disasters in the so-called war on terror, or our resolve to restore freedom from uninhibited domestic spying ?
I don't really want to delve too deeply into health care, but if you think the people have been fooled into thinking that being forced to buy private insurance is a good idea, then I say you're nuts.
I could go on, and on, but I do know a lot of people who don't live in Washington, and I find it really, really difficult to believe that you do.

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I'm exposed. BELTWAY RULZ!!!

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He should do the things because they're the right thing to do!!!!! Now it's you putting everything into a political win-lose basket!!!
'Guarantees'?????? WTH???

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Jesus, do you know anything about the Truman presidency? How desperately unpopular he was at times? How he struggled at times?

I wish people would stop with the silly historical analogies that have no actual basis in history. For that matter, I wish people would stop with the drama-queen "OMG! Failed presidency!" memes for a guy who has a pretty hefty set of accomplishments already and a quite respectable approval rating under the current economic circumstances. Instead, maybe we could talk about the substance of the issues, and the way those issues are presented to the American people (not only through the White House but also through the filter of the People-Magazine-generation media).

I did have to LOL at a comment a while back asking what Clinton would have done, as if he would have done better...hello, Clinton = Rahm Emmanuel? Ring a bell?


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Fine...he knows what he is doing. He is right to mock the left, freeze us out and only put stock in what the political center and right has to say. But also don't be surprised that the far left's enthusiasm has effectively been curbed when we sit at home completely disillusioned and umotivated not buying into the notion that coporate loving centrist democrats are so much better or different that corporate loving republicans. So masters of the art of the possible, work your magic, it seems to be going over swimmingly well with the people judging by recent election results in MA, NJ and VA.

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It's been ingrained since before the Constitution was framed and ratified, and therefore since before there was a Congress as we know it.

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Uh, forget the suggestions for turning things around, Steve.

Isn't it amazing how, ever since December of '08, this group has repeatedly thrown a bucket of shit in the face of the base which propelled it into office?

Yes, us liberals/progressives, we do love ol' Hannibal Jerkin. Stop thinking that Obama is being disserved. He has shown himself to be simply an operator, good with words and extraordinarily dispassionate.

The conditions and climate of this particular point in time require a president with a hugely different temperament, something of the type like Theodore Roosevelt. I've been in a war zone and this guy we have here, well, he shore ain't someone I'd follow into battle.

We need a Henry V, not a huckster.

Here's the real Domino Effect: the hit on JFK gave us LBJ whose obstinacy gave us Richard Nixon whose criminality gave us Ford whose pardon of the little shit gave us Billy Carter's brother which directly resulted with the Reagan illusion which propelled the Bush regency - the dissolution of which brought us Elvis whose swinging hips gave us that sock puppet named W, marionetted by mendacious Dick which spawned, inseminated the takeover by this con artist from Chicago.

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rahm emanuel has been a disaster because he is a total sell-out to the corporate interests not because he is a rude arrogant jerk.

obama knew that when he picked him.

so whats the problem?

maybe its the priorities of the president and the lack of interest in helping the average american.

who gets the blame for that?

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I think anyone who read The Audacity of Hope would expect Obama to be just what he has been - a mediator, someone who seeks a way to accomodate everyone, not to lead anyone. I found the book to be extremely disappointing when I read it while trying to campaign for Obama, but decided to just forget about it.

Then, I began reading Obama's position papers on his campaign website. More of the same accomodation, incrementalism, and pandering to everyone with an opinion. Nothing in his position paper on health care, for example, led me to expect that we would actually get a workable health care program. I expected a little tinkering around the edges, and nothing more.

Much of our disappointment with Obama is misdirected - it should be directed at ourselves for our lack of research, substituting our own hopes for what he was clearly telling us, if only we would read and listen.

He is doing much of what he said he would be doing, and being much the failure that doing what he said would inevitably make him be.

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i agree up to a point.

we have a 2 party system.
what exactly was the alternative to obama?

and go back to obamas speeches and convince me i shouldnt have expected more based on what he was saying.

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Of course, once Obama won the primaries, the only viable choice was Obama. But, before that, during the primaries we could have picked Hillary Clinton. And, I know she was not a great candidate, and might have lost to bumbling John McCain. But, we should have known what we were getting in Obama by taking the time to read the things he had written.

Now he is back at his neighborhood organizer job, trying to get the Repubs and Democrats to stop the gang warfare. Unfortunately, we only have one president.

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The comparison to the closely-knit inner circle of the Nixon Whitehouse is telling. The sort of group think that is obviously going on here is very likely to take down the Obama Presidency. If he doesn't replace some (if not all) of these players - and soon - he is effectively finished. There's precious little wiggle room remaining. Moreover, the damage wrought will almost certainly cause a substantial power shift in both houses of Congress - and not in a good way.

The first three resignations that need to be tendered should be: Rahm Emanuel, Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. That's for starters. Once that course correction has been made, the task of selecting others for dismissal will become more clear.

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From the article:

Then there are the president’s big strategic decisions. Of these, devoting the first year to healthcare is well known and remains a source of heated contention. Less understood is the collateral damage it caused to unrelated initiatives. “The whole Rahm Emanuel approach is that victory begets victory – the success of healthcare would create the momentum for cap-and-trade [on carbon emissions] and then financial sector reform,” says one close ally of Mr Obama. “But what happens if the first in the sequence is defeat?”

Insiders attribute Mr Obama’s waning enthusiasm for the Arab-Israeli peace initiative to a desire to avoid antagonising sceptical lawmakers whose support was needed on healthcare. The steam went out of his Arab-Israeli push in mid-summer, just when the healthcare bill was running into serious difficulties.

The same applies to reforming the legal apparatus in the “war on terror” – not least his pledge to close the Guantánamo Bay detention centre within a year of taking office. That promise has been abandoned.

“Rahm said: ‘We’ve got these two Boeing 747s circling that we are trying to bring down to the tarmac [healthcare and the decision on the Afghanistan troop surge] and we can’t risk a flock of f***ing Canadian geese causing them to crash,’ ” says an official who attended an Oval Office strategy meeting. The geese stood for the closure of Guantánamo.

Instead, the 747s crashed into each other in midair. Heckuva job, Rahmmie! Now who's the fucking retard?

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Alright, it's been a long time since I felt the need to comment, but this seems like a lot of insider bitching that they don't have enough access to the Pres. Do I wish Obama changed the world in a year? Sure. Did I expect it? No. Did I think he was the progressive ideal? No. Man, I was rootin' for Edwards (oops). But I don't think he is doing a poor job of leading this country. He is tackling the worse economy, two wars and more and he has come out slugging. Name me a president who has had more challenges and done better? Oh, and sorry to all those who don't think they get to talk to him enough.

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How about what he has done in a year?

Featured Legislation
• Signed on January 22, 2010
2009 Tax Breaks for Haiti Donations
• Signed on October 30, 2009
Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009
• Signed on October 28, 2009
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010
• Signed on October 22, 2009
Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act
• Signed on August 06, 2009
Cash For Clunkers Extension
• Signed on June 22, 2009
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
• Signed on May 22, 2009
Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009
• Signed on May 22, 2009
Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act
• Signed on May 20, 2009
Helping Families Save Their Homes Act
• Signed on May 20, 2009
Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
• Signed on April 21, 2009
Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act
• Signed on March 30, 2009
Omnibus Public Lands Management Act
• Signed on March 20, 2009
Small Business Act Temporary Extension
• Signed on February 17, 2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
• Signed on February 11, 2009
DTV Delay Act
• Signed on February 04, 2009
Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act
• Signed on January 29, 2009
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act


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This is a terrible article. In the first place, Obama has been president for a year. He hasn't lost yet, his presidency isn't sinking, and this kind of hysterical bullshit doesn't do anybody any good.

The very premise of Luce's article is pretty specious:

Just over a year into his tenure, America’s 44th president governs a bitterly divided nation, a world increasingly hard to manage and an America that seems more disillusioned than ever with Washington’s ways. What went wrong?

What went wrong? The economy sucks, the Republicans have obstructed everything, and centrist Democrats are preening, self-satisfied assholes. That accounts for most of the problems. Not that Obama's been perfect, but the basic problems here are not of his making. There may have been some tactical mistakes, but it's ridiculous to imagine any administration that didn't make some tactical mistakes in its first year.

A lot of the points being made are total nonsense. We're really supposed to be concerned that the HHS, Interior, and Homeland Security secretaries don't go on TV much?? Cabinet members never go on TV much, except the Secretary of State, maybe. This same complaint could be made about every administration since FDR or so.

I'm utterly unimpressed with the Luce article, and even less impressed by Clemons's gloss on it.

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"centrist Democrats are preening, self-satisfied assholes"

And who exactly do you think make up the Obama Team including Obama himself but these very self-satisfied, preening assholes?

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What a stupid response. If Obama shares the Blue Dogs' agenda, why does he refuse to simply let them dictate the legislation that will be passed?

The progressives have been on board for this president's agenda so far, and I assume the House Progressive Caucus will come around on the health bill once it extracts some face-saving concessions after being screwed out of a chance to negotiate the bill due to the loss in MA.

The obstacles to every progressive effort this administration has made have come from conservative Democrats aligning with a lockstep Republican minority. But don't let facts ruin your certainty that it's Obama who's the true enemy of progressive change here.

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You are even thicker than I supposed. Are you so blinded by your loyalty to any and all things Obama you don't see that he is one of the Blue Dog/Corporate/Conservadems? Jesus! Spare me your sophistry. His bootlicking and ass kissing of those people is the problem. Yes progressives have supported Obama and they have gotten nothing in return for that support but more kowtowing to the people closest to Obama's own politics: the people who have been obstructing everything. Get a clue will ya?

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I don't think you can read. If Obama is one of these Blue Dogs, who the hell is refusing to vote for his legislation? Bernie Sanders? Voted Aye. Sherrod Brown? Voted Aye. House Democrats? A majority voted aye. Why would these people vote against legislation they support?

Your claims of mendacity on the part of the administration don't make any sense except as the paranoid ravings of someone who hasn't picked up a newspaper anytime in the last thirteen months.

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Have you paid any attention whatever to developments in Washington this past year nitwit?

Obama has spent his entire Presidency kowtowing to the assholes who won't vote for his program and every time he offers them even more they right see that as a sign of his weakness and foolishness and demand more. In response President dumbass gives them what they want and doesn't understand why they don't then support him so he keeps giving away the store and never asking for or demanding anything in return even from the Republicans who serve in office as Democrats. Obama has done nothing if not allow the Republicans and conservadems to completely derail everything he says he is for and he has done so by attempting to kiss their asses until they finally are satisfied but he's so incredibly stupid he doesn't understand they will never support him as long as he is weak and doesn't stand up to them. But fundamentally he has o quarrel with them. Look at his own statements and record for God's sake. He is one of them in all but name.

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How does he get anything passed without their votes?

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By going out and giving them cover by explaining forcefully why reform needs to be passed with a public option. He prefers to take positions where he doesn't need to provide cover...and they still balk at supporting his reforms (as Blanche Lincoln moves hard right). By saying it is outrageous that everything he proposes must pass a filibuster. Everything is now judged by whether he can get 6o votes in the Senate. That is insane. Never in the history of the republic did every piece of legislation need 60 votes in the Senate. But instead we hear how he doesn't have the 60 votes to pass what he needs to. He needs to push back...but he won't, and that does not bode well for his agenda, the dems prospects in the midterms and his prospects in 2012.

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yep.

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This is nonsense. It's perfectly coherent to attack Obama as a corporatist who is not sufficiently leftist.

It makes no sense to say that his agenda is the same as that of Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and the rest of that sad crew.

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He kowtows to them, why is it that you don't understand that he fundamentally doesn't disagree with them? He famously called Joe Lieberman "my mentor" in the Senate. Yes, he is one of them.

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I have to fully agree with oleeb dude. HCR in its current state is what the Blue Dogs and R's want. In fact it is almost exactly the proposal the R's put forward for HCR when Clinton tried it in the early 90's. It isn't the blue dogs who need to be accomodated...in fact Obama is part of that segment of the political spectrum.

The American people want HCR with a public option and polls time after time bear that out, in fact I think if polled on it they would really prefer single payer. They want to be able to import their drugs from Canada. They are under economic siege and all Obama does keep the best economic interests of the wealthy first and foremost. In this economy the economics of centrist/blue dogs is their electoral Achilles Heel.

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It's not the legislators who support a public option who have been trying to kill the bill. It's the ones opposing the progressive provisions of the reform bill that have opposed it on the floors of their respective chambers. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

I'm not even trying to argue that Obama has played the legislative game perfectly, or even very well. But the reason the bill has not passed in any form has been the opposition from conservative Democrats in the Senate.

Those are the facts. I'm sorry they don't fit your preferred narrative, but they remain the facts.

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Then why isn't he turning up the heat on them? To help them stay in power instead of passing good legislation? I understand perfectly well what is going on...blue dogs and R's are trying to protect their own personal political fiefdoms and Obama is down with that plan. What the hell most of the progressives have 'safe seats', right? Who cares what they think or want? Meanwhile the whole Obama administration is going down the toilet because nothing is getting done while the parochial interests are being placated. Business as usual...

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So he's willing to sacrifice his presidency in order to allow blue dogs to stay in power? Again, your argument makes no sense.

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Yes, that is what he is doing. And, yes again, it doesn't make any sense.

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I think any all criticisms of the 4 advisors mentioned is fair game. They have done a shitty job. They have made Obama virtually into a Republican and for their sacrifice of Obama's bonafides as a Democrat what have they gotten in return? Birthers. Tea baggers. An emboldened crowd of Republicans in both houses of Congress and a completely deflated majority of Americans who expected change and got a bunch of corporate sellout politics as usual bullshit in return.

Having said this it appears to me that the author completely misses the point that the great weakness is that there are zero liberal voices advising Obama---or put another way---very few actual Democrats. You have three hacks who would sell their own souls and that of their mothers for position and power and then you have Gibbs a smug, smarmy, obnoxious guy who has kissed asses all the way to the top but who offers little in the way of insight or creativity. The author here seems to simply want a different set of the same flavors in hopes that then the circle of influence will be more to his liking and the liking of those factions his part of DC prefers.

What the author and the White House have to understand and pronto is that the last thing we need is more Washington insiders and wannabes. What we need are people who are committed to the kinds of dramatic changes the people voted for in 08 and which they continue to expect from our craven, calculating, cowardly corporate Democratic elected and appointed officials in Washington DC.

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I've been around a long time and while there are many elements I agree with....getting rid of Geitner, Summers, and Emmanuel, I can't help but wonder about Clemmon's own agenda for himself.

Unequivacally I can state that the last people Obama needs around him are Mike F'ing Alllen and John "Harris.....they are both conservatives and for God's sake when is Allen coming out of the closet once and for all? he was a mediocre reporter at time and he was about to get the boot from there.

But Zbig Brezinski? In typical Clemmons fashion, it is all about him ......and Steve, I spent a lot of time in DC and you're not the only one in the world who also "functioned at a very high level". You were never with Obama...you were with Clinton....what are you still whizzed off that you didn't get a gig with her but Holbrook did (granted he is a major league asshole).

If you count Mike Allen and John Harris as your friends.....well that s peaks volumes about you.

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Bingo. Thank you.

This is nothing but a hit piece that started with the Financial Times, the most conservative newspaper around.

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And Rahm has done a helluva job?

Hit pieces sometimes hit the mark, you know.

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Are you thinking of the Washington Times, not the FT?

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No I am not confused. Since when is the Financial Times a liberal newspaper? Clue me in please.

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I think you are confused. The FT is more liberal than the either the NYT or WaPo and, save for Luce, it's columnists are fans to one degree or another of Obama and want his presidency to succeed.

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Also Steve, many of us do get and read Foreign Affairs and Zbig has an article that goes something like " foreign policy in tatters" am I not correct?

Geez, you really are easily impressed aren't you?

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The democrats have for the last year had between 58 and 60 senators. With those kind of numbers the administration and the senate leadership should have been in a position to pass anything and everything they could find 50 votes for. That would have meant: a larger stimulus package, healthcare reform with a public option as accomplished fact, and every other priority easier to deal with in a meaningful way.

The decision to focus on Senate back room dealing to get around the filibuster instead of trying to eliminate it is the story here. Everything else is just insider bickering.

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With those kind of numbers the administration and the senate leadership should have been in a position to pass anything and everything they could find 50 votes for.

How? There is no evidence they had 50 votes for the nuclear option, or even for very aggressive use of reconciliation, and without such aggressive use, reconciliation can only be used for very limited purposes.

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I submit to you that they have, in fact, passed everything they wanted to pass. The storied defeats were not the disappointment to them that they are to the nation and it's people. They just don't care that much if the people are not well served. What they care about is servicing their corporate clients who, even in the event of a one term Obama Presidency, will take care of them when they need jobs after their service is done.

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Well, yeah. The Obama White House is set up for campaigning more than governing. I told Steve Clemons this when it started.

The problem, really, is that all of Washington is set up for campaigning more than governing. The campaign is the main event; it's what the movers and shakers are really interested in. Look at the guests on television political shows, and note how many of them are described as "strategists" -- they're all election campaign consultants. Party-line voting in Congress isn't a product of ideology. It's done in service of the message discipline essential in election campaign politics. And let's face it: a President who screws up as many things as George Bush did, and Congressmen and Senators who do as little work as the ones we have now do, never get reelected without an intense focus on the mechanics of the permanent campaign.

This is American politics today, the politics that made Barack Obama President. For someone as smart as Obama obviously is, he seems to lack self-awareness on this point. He also lacks a sense of what makes the Presidency different. Many politicians are utterly dependent on their campaign consultants (some of them even appear to enjoy this dependency). A President can keep his or replace them; to him, they're just the help. To a candidate, finding ways to gain the spotlight is a constant preoccupation; a President is always in the spotlight unless he chooses not to be.

There's also the question of whether campaign professionals are the people a President ought to be relying on for support on government business. Usually the answer is "absolutely not," for the simple reason that they are no good at it. Look, for just one example, at the Obama administration's habit of sending David Axelrod on television interview shows to discuss things like foreign policy. He's awful. At his best, he sticks with grim determination to prepared talking points, often repeating them over and over. He doesn't inform, and he doesn't persuade, because he is not responsible for implementing policy in this area and because he brings to the subject rank, putrid pig ignorance. God only knows what advice he and people like him are giving to Obama in private.

But, as long as they are Obama's closest advisers, policy decisions will always seem to have originated with him. In Campaign World, this is what you want; the candidate should be seen as the font of all wisdom and initiative. In government, it's not only a bad practice substantively, but bad politics as well. Presidents have always enjoyed the privilege of being able to announce good news, while letting subordinates in the Cabinet take the heat for bad news. If all news comes from the Obama White House, Obama will always get the blame whenever anything unpopular is done or anything unfortunate happens.

It's easy enough for me to point this out. I have not been campaigning for one office or another for nearly a decade, nor is a Presidential campaign lasting nearly two full years the defining event of my professional life. It would take, perhaps, a more private man than Barack Obama is -- someone with strong views about the details of public policy and few strong personal attachments -- to come naturally to the understanding that the people who helped him become President are, inherently, disposable.

He's clearly not there yet. The campaign remains what he knows best, and so what works in Campaign World tends to be what gets attempted in the Obama White House. I hope Obama has the capacity to grow past this stage. I don't know if he does.

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Well, crap, let's just make the TPM Cafe regulars the B team.

At least then Obama would get the message: take a look at what's making ordinary people (including the tea partiers) mad, then dance with the folks that brung ya (not my phrase, by the way) to change what you can.

Nobody expects the president to do everything immediately--ordinary people, of all people, know how hard it is to get any little thing done in this world. But the president sets the tone, for Chrissakes--and if the president--and his closest advisors--aren't setting the tone, then what are they doing, and what are they doing it FOR?

OK, so the Obama team is good at campaigning--if that's a strength, let them continue to campaign. God knows, there's plenty of campaigning to do--keeping the people who got them elected by knocking on doors for them in the door-knocking business for the next 3 years would be a legitimate enterprise for the Obama campaign circle--and for that matter, why did they stop?????

Obama didn't get into trouble by having an effective campaign, he got into trouble by ending it. Which left the people who worked so hard for him to wander off in disappointment and dismay. The president is not a glorified congressperson, and he's not a mute puppet or figurehead. He needs to set the tone, and if that means being community organizer in chief, well, that's what it means.

Obama could pick any random twenty of the people who post here--who could give him great advice, maybe not about how to deal in Washington, but about how to help the people who will, in turn, richly reward him and the Democrats by keeping them there, with votes--and it's worth remembering that the price of the average Democratic vote is way higher than the price of the average Republican vote, if it can be bought at all.

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The biggest problem, as I see it, is that they did an awful job at selling HCR. If that had passed, the perception of the Administration would be far more favorable despite any other flaws.

If Emanuel is the person most responsible for that failure, he needs to go.

To avoid that problem in the future, Obama needs someone like Reagan had in Mike Deaver.

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At the tender youg age of eighteen when I entered the service of our country and became interested in the political aspects of our country and the world and which I have continued to observe for these forty plus years since, I have never witnessed so thoroughly a unified and synchronized effort to undermine a presidency.

I speak of the persons, far and wide, who occupy a space to the right of the political divide. No matter the shortcomings of the team comprised of those persons who are the advisors to Obama, the achievements or lack thereof of this administration are easily more to be attributed to those who seek to see the Obama administration fail. No presidency is without its warts and diffiulties but to be so thoroughly undermined as we have witnessed, at such a difficult time, is an unprecendeted event in our history.

Having served this nation proudly and honorably for tweleve years I see neither in those persons who have mounted a no less than treasonous effort to bring about the failure of the Obama presidency. I see it as a ridiculous comparative evaluating the merits of the Obama staff and what has been done by persons on the political right.

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I need to add the obvious comment that anything coming from a perspective of the financial sector of this country or the world at this particular time, when that sector is rightfully under fire, is highly suspect in its motivation.

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I could not agree more. I have been saying the same thing (although not as eloquently as you) for a year now.

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What happens now? Call David Gergen?

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Just a few weeks ago the meme was how much Obama has accomplished in his first year, even without health care. Now, 2 weeks later, with still 3 years to go, Obama's Presidency is not only being sunk, but it's being sunk by his core team. How does such a ridiculous claim backed by ridiculous evidence qualify as news?

I hope this isn't the sign of a trend for TPM. It would be sad to see TPM start buying into all the beltway hype ad turn into just one more sensationalist crap publication.

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Congressional Democrats, combined with the economy, are sinking Obama's popularity and therefore his ability to implement his agenda. Ignoring those basic facts to over-analyze Obama's inner circle will produce flawed conclusions.

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If I weren't a staunch Democrat, I'd find it amusing the extent to which history repeats itself.

Change some of the names, and you've got Carter and his big majorities in 76-78 or Clinton and his smaller majorities in 92-94.

Up and down the line, same song... reform-minded Democratic president sweeps into office, Democratic/Washingtonian insiders bitch and moan about said President bringing along too many insiders from 'back home', Democratic-controlled congress complains because White House either isn't doing their job or IS doing their job (just not the way they want the White House to do their job).... all the while, a GOP that by all rights should be on the road to extinction, weighed down by either corruption or asinine policies (or both) gets yet another lease on life.

You can talk staffing this or so-and-so- is mean to this person all you want -- if Obama wants a second term, there's probably no other option than to have an affair. That seems to be the only thing that wises up Democrats to the prospect of the alternative.

Sometimes I almost wonder why Democrats don't just cede the White House to the GOP every 4 years because the party seems nearly incapable of functioning when they control it.

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It's a lightweight article, and short. A few paragraphs. Some insight; some restating the self-evident. Nothing remotely to inspire the word "granular."

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Let's hope the Daily Show crew picks up on this and runs... then maybe the MSM will follow.

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The MSM will pick it up because it is trivial bitchy nonsense by a wanna be insider. The Daily Show covers real issues.

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I like C lemons but he spent the whole campaign fretting that Obama was just about to be done in. I doubt that this is any more accurate.

Oh sure, we have problems and only a total moron would expect perfection anyhow. The biggest problem is really the hysterical shrillness of both the loyal opposition and their counterparts on the left. The later ,labeled so aptly by Al Giordano as "poutrage", is really the bigger problem. The big governing failure of Republicans in this day and age is their complete inability to engage in self criticism and hold "their" guys accountable for anything. No matter how bad they fucked up "the base" had Bush/Cheney's back. It sucks as a governing philosophy but works much better for getting and keeping power. The Democrats do the complete opposite, every little disagreement with "their guy" is a reason to to start pelting "their guy" with sour grapes from the stands. How the hell do you every expect to win anything that way? I mean sure, its good to keep on your toes and all but I have a hard time coming up with any real life examples where shrill recriminations helped straighten anything out.

Right now ,for anyone who's paying attention, the folks who value government functionality over partisan ideology and media narratives tend to be releasing reports noting how well the administration has actually been running the government. Actual competence has returned but nobody notices.

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Poutrage.

I like that.

It also has the advantage of being surrounded by a lot of other words arranged in an order that I agree with 100% and then some.

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I'm from Chicago & was devastated the moment Obama announced Rahm Emanuel (AKA: Rahmbo) as his COS!

Rahm had been known for years around here as a Republican Wannabee. His disdain and abhorrence for Progressives and for any kind of progressive thought was both legendary and well-documented. To paraphrase a commenter from a Daily Kos Diary (and I apologize for not remembering the person's name): CHANGE ended the moment President-Elect Obama announced Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff while they were STILL cleaning up the streets of Chicago and Grant Park from the 2008 Election Celebration.

Like so many people, it's very difficult to say all this. I worked (that is volunteered) my butt off to get our President elected--campaigning across state lines from the moment he announced his candidacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago in early 2007.
And one of the best parts about that moment at the UIC was that Rahmbo was NOT present with then Senator Obama on stage amidst the tens of other Illinois and Chicago Democrats--or if he was, he was not visible. I know since then that many Rahm-defenders have said that Emanuel's allegiance was torn between the Clintons and Obama in the early stages of the campaign. That simply doesn't matter. As almost everyone here at TPM is stating, it's been nothing short of tragic that Rahmbo and his Wall Street/Bankster friends have been given such seemingly exclusive privileges to Obama's inner-most circle.

No matter what happens from here on in, it seems as if this Administration will be forever tainted by the President and Rahm's endless meetings back in Spring 2009 with Big Pharma, the Insurance Industry and all of Geithner's & Summers' so-called "friends." And they did this all while completely turning their backs against the Progressive Caucus that had worked so hard to actually put Obama in office!

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My impression at the time was that Obama picked Rahm to be the bad cop. I thought it was transparent & still do.

On the other hand, I never saw great differences on a policy level between Obama and Hillary (and by extension, Bill). I figured Obama would be slightly less centrist than Clinton. Rahm fits that mold pretty well.

But so far, Rahm's not nearly as effective as his vaunted reputation. Unless you consider defending the status quo effectiveness. If so, Mitch McConnell should be sending Rahm a fruit basket about now.

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This post was the most unmitigated piece of whining drivel by a Washinton wanna be insider who is not that I have read here.

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Pants on the ground, pants on the ground!

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Something smells here Steve. IF you would like the Hope to more closely follow your prescriptions, fine, say so. This insider whispering crap has the same aroma of what it purports to describe. That Rahm is an asshole is not revelation. That you choose the Daschle in the basement episode as an example (out of so many to chooose) means that you don't get that
A. Daschle's corporate proximity to both the White House and health reform is one of Obama's real debilitating blind spots/ governance problems.
or
B. You think its great that Daschle's hanging around the white house giving health care advice.

Also, that the comparison is made between two particular instances of Valerie Jarrett's and Bill Clinton's behaviour at constituent service/foreign policy events and then use this particular apple and that particular orange (with caveats..of course..."things happen in politics"-ha!) to create a particular impression of Obama's efforts in those areas means that:

A. You don't care what you're saying as long as your impression is rendered. (I've seen you use far more intelligence and nuance to describe any number of diplomatic and political efforts and regimes).
or
B. You don't know what you're saying and you've become just another ignorant, establishment court whisperer.

I say this not to defend the administration, which has a mixed record that deserves far more insight and analysis in these times than this Team B crap.

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Sometimes I wonder if someone(s) on Obama's team, like Rahm Emanuel, is censoring the news that gets to Obama, so that he doesn't even know that his base is evaporating, and why. He certainly seems not to know that it's an issue.

I, too, have wondered why cabinet members like Sibelius were getting no air-time. James Watt, by himself, probably got 3 times as much air time than all of Obama's cabinet taken together. Getting your cabinet out there, making bold policy statements and keeping your actual accomplishments alive in peoples' minds, is part of governing; it adds to, not subtracts from, the President's "aura". Robert Reich's pronouncements always reflected positively on Bill Clinton and amplified his prestige. Keeping them under wraps sends the message that they're either stupid or untrustworthy- and what would that say about the person who appointed them?

Obama's too cautious; he knows too little about governing compared to campaigning; he learned the wrong lessons from Clinton; he has limited time to turn things around and needs to employ the whole team, not just the core few, to do so.

If you think this in insider whining, then why does it echo the thoughts of most of us, who are not connected and not in Washington D.C.? Do you really WANT Rahm Emanuel to keep running the show? If so, WHY- I want to know!

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Is the re-entry of Plouffe on the scene a notice to this "Obama Inner Circle" that their mistakes have not gone unnoticed by their President?

Maybe Plouffe's more than just a political advisor, he may be something of a shot across the bow of Obama's much-too-encapsulated inner circle.

If someone else already offered this question, forgive me, I have not read all the comments.

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He apparently came back to take charge of the On-line part of the 2010 elections. It was always his baby in the Presidential Campaign. Plus, his book's been published.

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Obama's decision to hold a truly "open" and bi-partisan meeting on health care reform at this late stage of the game reiterates how misinformed and out of touch his advisers truly are.

In theory, bringing Democrats and Republicans together for televised meetings on health care reform is a good idea. Maybe even a great idea.

Problem is, it's far too late in the game to pull a maneuver like this.

First and foremost, the Republicans have already won the "spin game". As they always do. The GOP has successfully made their case that the Obama administration, and the Congressional Democrats, have worked secretly behind closed doors while deliberately shutting them out of all substantive health care talks. The electoral victory of Scott Brown all but proves the American people have bought into this line of thinking, no matter how flawed it may be.

If political spin were a basketball game, the Republicans would be the Harlem Globe Trotters and the Democrats would be that club's punching bag, the Washington Generals

But the most egregious miscalculation by Obama's inner circle will be felt at these hearings. The working theory among Democrats is that the Republicans have been in bed with the insurance industry and were therefore strictly opposed to health care reform. Then, the thinking goes, as Obama and the Democrats pushed forward, the Republicans were forced to accept the reality of health care reform, but sought to kill any sort of public option or government option.

Has Obama called one of these bi-partisan, televised meetings right from the get-go last summer, he surely would have caught the GOP with their pants down on this issue. That group would have been unprepared and disjointed in vision. That spectacle would have played out for everyone to see. But, alas, Emmanuel and Axelrod wagered incorrectly that they had enough support within their own party to get it done on their own.

As it stands now, the GOP has had over 6 months to develop a strategy complete with talking points. Hell, most Republicans, when asked, are now openly saying that, yes, they too, are in favor of health care reform.

Too late for Obama. Much too late.

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Ya know we don't always agree on everything in terms of the best policies Gettysburg, but I usually find your analysis of the political realities we face to be spot on...and you really nailed it with this comment. They, the D's, had their chance on HCR and they blew it. They got beat by people who are masters of the message...

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nice analysis. it certainly resonates with my take too.

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sorry. response is to Gettysburg's comments.

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No problem Victor. I thought it was intended for Gettysburg or you were just agreeing with me praising his take on it.

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Too late if he was ever serious about it. Maybe all he wants is some "bipartisan" cover for failure. Heck, he can agree with the Republicans that no bill is possible! That's what passes for bipartisanship these days.

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Here's an interesting article from everyone's primary news source, Fox News.

Hell, I could write for that outlet. On Tuesday they make the same argument I made on Sunday. Do I get credit for scooping them?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/09/gop-wary-obama-health-trap/

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I am curious why it's too late???? Do you have a concrete answer for that? Do you know something no one else does?

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It's too late for the current pair of bills currently stalled in purgatory, err, conference committee. In theory the Democrats could still opt to use a gimmicky procedural vehicle called reconciliation to achieve parts of the current proposals, but after discussing that possibility in the days following the State of the Union address by the president, it's looking increasingly remote. Quite simply, there are not nearly enough Congressional Democrats willing to stick their political necks out any further on this thing than they already have.

So where does that leave us?

I don't know, but these bi-partisan meetings should be awfully interesting. At least now the Republicans WILL have to offer something other than complaints. But rest assured, they'll be ready.

If both sides are truly willing to play ball, perhaps new bills could be written and debated on. That, however, remains highly unlikely given how much time has already been spent on this issue during the current legislative session. Not only that, but I, for one, have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the notion that sufficient common ground could be attained to pave the way for an agreement. In either chamber.

In my opinion, I think it's within the realm of possibility that the Democrats, out of desperation to pass SOMETHING, would be willing to work with the other party no matter how begrudgingly. And I think there are some Republican elements in the House that might be willing to negotiate. But I have not seen one iota of evidence at all that would lead me to believe the Senate Republicans are serious about getting health care reform done.

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I'll go read Luce's article, but if the criticism is campaign mode rather than governing mode, I don't really buy it.

If they were in campaign mode, they'd've done the Reagan/Deaver thing: Obama would've been out in the country in pastoral photo ops using his popularity and charisma speaking optimistically selling health care (or whatever), and Axlerod would've been setting the day's talking point on the news cycle.

Instead, they've lost control of the message, then the narrative & now the agenda. That's campaign mode?

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I agree--the problem is not that Obama continued his campaign, but that he ended it.

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You know, I been noticing something. Every time people say health care is dead, it passes another vote...and another....and another...Now, here we are, a few paper shuffling from lowering cost and expanding coverage to something we can call universal health care, we already want to tear Obama to pieces. The mentality was the same even when the PUBLIC OPTION was on the table. We must be the only aspect of the political spectrum that wants something, can scientifically say it is beneficial, and still actively work against it. There must be a chapter missing in my psychology textbook.

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'There must be a chapter missing in my psychology textbook.'
Hence, the name you gave yourself.

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an endorsement for barack obama for president from the financial times
posted on october 28, 2008

this is an endorsement for barack obama for president from the financial times.
note: the financial times is the company that publishes the economist.
they have also traditionally endorsed republicans.
republicans keep trying to call obama a 'socialist'(personally i thought that name calling was left behind in the 4th grade...), but i don't see how the financial-times would endorse a socialist(nor would a socialist get the support of warren buffet, ben bernanke, or larry hunter(reagan's chief economist, and a lifelong republican)).
the FT endorsement is not a ringing endorsement, but it makes some clear and rational points about why obama should be the next president.
and the fact that the financial times is an old and venerable capitalist newspaper gives their endorsement of obama even more weight.
moby

Obama is the better choice
-Financial Times Endorsement for Barack Obama
Published: October 26 2008
US presidential elections involve a fabulous expense of time, effort and money. Doubtless it is all too much – but, by the end, nobody can complain that the candidates have been too little scrutinised. We have learnt a lot about Barack Obama and John McCain during this campaign. In our view, it is enough to be confident that Mr Obama is the right choice.

At the outset, we were not so confident. Mr Obama's policies are a blend of good and not so good. Since the election will strengthen Democratic control of Congress, a case can be made for returning a Republican to the White House: divided government has a better record in the United States than government united under either party.

So this ought to have been a close call. With a week remaining before the election, we cannot feel that it is.

Mr Obama fought a much better campaign. Campaigning is not the same as governing, and the presidency should not be a prize for giving the best speeches, devising the best television advertisements, shaking the most hands and kissing the most babies.

Nonetheless, a campaign is a test of leadership. Mr Obama ran his superbly; Mr McCain’s has often looked a shambles. After eight years of George W. Bush, the steady competence of the Obama operation commands respect.

Nor should one disdain Mr Obama’s way with a crowd. Good presidents engage the country’s attention; great ones inspire. Mr McCain, on form, is an adequate speaker but no more. Mr Obama, on form, is as fine a political orator as the country has heard in decades. Put to the right purposes, this is no mere decoration but a priceless asset.

Mr Obama’s purposes do seem mostly right, though in saying this we give him the benefit of the doubt. Above all, he prizes consensus and genuinely seeks to unite the country, something it wants. His call for change struck a mighty chord in a tired and demoralised nation – and who could promise real change more credibly than Mr Obama, a black man, whose very nomination was a historic advance in US politics?

We applaud his main domestic proposal: comprehensive health-care reform. This plan would achieve nearly universal insurance without the mandates of rival schemes: characteristically, it combines a far-sighted goal with moderation in the method. Mr McCain’s plan, based on extending tax relief beyond employer-provided insurance, also has merit – it would contain costs better – but is too timid and would widen coverage much less.

In responding to the economic emergency, Mr Obama has again impressed – not by advancing solutions of his own, but in displaying a calm and methodical disposition, and in seeking the best advice. Mr McCain’s hasty half-baked interventions were unnerving when they were not beside the point.

On foreign policy, where the candidates have often conspired to exaggerate their differences, this contrast in temperaments seems crucial. For all his experience, Mr McCain has seemed too much guided by an instinct for peremptory action, an exaggerated sense of certainty, and a reluctance to see shades of grey.

Mr. McCain has offered risk-taking almost as his chief qualification, but gambles do not always pay off. His choice of Sarah Palin as running mate, widely acknowledged to have been a mistake, is an obtrusive case in point. Rashness is not a virtue in a president. The cautious and deliberate Mr Obama is altogether a less alarming prospect.

Rest assured that, should he win, Mr Obama is bound to disappoint some people. How could he not? He is expected to heal the country’s racial divisions, reverse the trend of rising inequality, improve middle-class living standards, cut almost everybody’s taxes, transform the image of the United States abroad, end the losses in Iraq, deal with the mess in Afghanistan and much more besides.

The challenges facing the next president will be extraordinary. We hesitate to wish it on anyone, but we hope that Mr Obama gets the job.

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This article by Clemons provides nothing new, but for repeated attempts at self-aggrandizement by the writer. No, Mr. Clemons, you are not one of the "nation's top news anchors and editors," and this article won't propel you to that stratosphere.

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Nomination for Team B: Jeffrey Sachs

How to Tame the Budget Deficit

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

essay for Time Magazine's Feb. 15 issue

With our economy on the brink, Americans need to cut spending and raise taxes. Sound impossible? Here's a way to forge a grand compromise between two warring parties

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1959029,00.html

Not the least of which it just seems to me he is real simpatico with Obama's own nature, aims, goals and world views. Whether or not people like the latter, isn't it the case that you aren't going to get good results from a president who is doing stuff he doesn't really have his heart in?

(Side note: Many liberal blog commenters seem to want to see the post-partisan thing with him to go away; I think that's just ridiculous, like wanting a magic pony. You can go waaay back and find him pushing that, that's not going to go away, that's him, a major part of him, it might even be that he cares about starting to make that happen more than doing anything elee because he thinks making a little headway in changing the direction of partisan politics is the best legacy he could have. Those wanting a different kind of president all should have aware of that about him when he started running for president. I did, and so did many others, all you had to do was read things like his commentary on DKos in 2005 or his books or his keynote speech for the Kerry nomination convention. Can't blame him for who he is. I myself would have preferred someone a little different, but he was "the one" who caught on with the public at large, and I do think that the post partisan thing was a major selling point that helped him clinch it, especially among the crucial Independents who are more upset with Congrees now than they are with him. Remember his first big win: Iowa caucus, a bunch of white heartland folks, probably quite simpatico to the idea of a new postpartisan world.)

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Steve,

If you're still reading this thread, I think you should check out this excerpt from Hank Paulson's book which was in the Feb. 6-7 Wall Street Journal:

When Mr. McCain Came to Washington; Inside the White House meeting where Obama called McCain's bluff: 'I could see Obama chuckling'

Paulson was obviously impressed with Obama's ability to work in tandem with the Congressional Dems to blindside both McCain and the GOP's that were at the meeting. The anecdote is a bit contrarian to the points you and Luce make, and might help you refine your thoughts on this whole thing further as to what's wrong or what went wrong in the top level administration. And it didn't really have to do only with campaign politics, he was directly working Congress there.

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Facts and details are lost on the Obama haters here, but thank you

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Republicans -- Not Obama -- More Often on Wrong Side of Public Opinion
by Nate Silver @ 7:23 AM
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One of the more commonplace assertions among pundits on the center-right -- made rather carelessly by Victor Davis Hanson and more thoughtfully by Jay Cost, is that agenda put forward by Obama and the Democrats is overwhelmingly unpopular and that Democrats are simply getting their comeuppance for having pushed such a liberal set of reforms forward. These claims, however, rely on selective evidence, invariably citing policies like health care and the GM bailouts which are indeed unpopular (strongly so, in some cases), while ignoring many other issues on which Obama has been on the right side of public opinion.

In fact, a more objective and equivocal evaluation of public opinion on more than two dozen specific issues finds that the Republican Congress has far more often been on the wrong side of it. Attempting to be as comprehensive as possible, I've identified 25 issues that Obama and the Democrats have made an affirmative effort to push forward since taking office a year ago, and summarized public opinion on each of them. Most of the numbers that I've cited come from PollingReport.com.

Afghanistan Troop Escalation. An average of seven polls taken since President Obama's speech on Afghanistan in December show a 54-41 majority of the public in favor of escalating troop commitments. However, Obama appeared to get a bump from his speech, as an average of four polls conducted in November, prior to the speech, had shown a 49-46 plurality opposed to greater troop commitments.

Bank Tax. An NPR poll found a 57-39 majority in favor of the bank tax proposal, which the Congress has yet to consider, after being read arguments both for and against the program. (An ABC/Post poll found a 73-26 majority in favor of taxing financial sector bonuses over $1 million dollars, although the White House has not advocated for that measure.)

Ben Bernanke. The only poll on Ben Bernanke, from NBC/WSJ, found a 37-34 plurality opposed to his reappointment; Bernanke was approved by 22 of 40 Senate Republicans and 48 of 60 Senate Democrats.

Bush Tax Cuts. Although this polling is somewhat out of date, a CBS/NYT poll in April found 74 percent in favor, and 23 percent opposed, to raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year, as Obama's budget would do. A Newsweek poll in March, with somewhat different phrasing, found 49 percent in favor of letting the tax cuts on the wealthy expire and 42 percent opposed.

Campaign Finance. The only poll to have asked directly about the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision is from FOX News, which found voters disapproving of the decision 53-27. A Gallup poll conducted last month found that, while most Americans consider campaign finance to be a form of free speech, they nevertheless by a 52-41 margin felt that the ability to place limits on political contributions was the higher priority.

Cap-and-Trade. The last five organizations to release polls on cap-and-trade (AP/Stanford, ABC/Post, CNN, Pew, Rasmussen) actually show it favored by the public by a 51-40 margin, on average. It is likely that a significant fraction of the public does not understand what cap-and-trade is; nevertheless most of these polls provided descriptions of the bill's contents. Eight House Republicans voted for the climate bill in June; the Senate has yet to consider the measure.

Cash-for-Clunkers. The only organization to poll on this was Rasmussen, which found voters opposed to the program 35-54 in June, but a 44-38 plurality favoring the program in retrospect after it had been implemented.

Credit Card Protections. 77 percent of respondents favored the Credit Card Protection Act, according to a poll by Open Congress. The bill was approved 90-5 by the Senate in May, as well as by a 105-69 majority of House Republicans.

D.C. Voting Rights. 58 percent of the public favored, and 35 percent opposed, giving an a House seat to D.C. in a nationwide Washington Post poll conducted last February. The Senate approved D.C. voting rights by a 61-37 margin last February, with 6 Republicans voting in favor and 2 Democrats voting against, although the measure subsequently died in the House.

Fair Pay. Congress approved the Liddy Ledbetter Fair Pay Act last January; it received the support of 3 Republicans in the House and 5 in the Senate. A Rasmussen poll conducted shortly after the legislation passed found that Americans by a 66-24 majority do not believe that women earn equal pay for equal work, although it did not ask about the legislation specifically.

Financial Regulation. A Time/SRBI poll in October found that 59 percent of the public favors more regulation of Wall Street versus 13 percent favoring less and 22 percent the same amount. A CNN poll two weeks ago found 62 percent in favor of greater regulations and 35 percent opposed. House Republicans opposed the financial regulation bill unanimously.

Gays in the Military. Four organizations -- FOX, Gallup, Quinnipiac, and CNN -- have released polls on Don't Ask Don't Tell since Obama's inauguration. They show an average of 58 percent saying that Don't Ask Don't Tell should be repealed and that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military, and 35 percent opposed. No votes have yet occurred on DADT in either the House or the Senate, although the House's repeal legislation has just one Republican co-sponsor.

GM/Chrysler Bailout. Quite unpopular: an NBC/WSJ poll in early June showed 39 percent of the public in favor and 52 percent opposed to the bailout, and a CNN poll in April found that 22 percent of the public favored additional assistance to GM and Chrysler while 76 percent would have preferred to let them go bankrupt. (There was no specific vote on GM in this Congress; instead, its funds came by way of the TARP program.)

Guantanamo Bay. Four organizations to release polls on Gutantanamo Bay between last February and last June found an average 55 percent of Americans opposed to closing the detention facility and 39 percent in favor, with the number of those opposed tending to increase over time.

Hate Crimes. Although there have been no recent polls on the subject, a Gallup survey in May 2007 found a 68-27 majority in favor of expanding hate crimes statues to include sexual and gender identity. The Matthew Shepard act, a hate crimes measure, passed the Congress last year, receiving the support of 18 House Republicans and 5 Senate Republicans.

Health Care. It has clearly become unpopular; the latest Pollster.com trendlines show 38 percent in favor of the bill and 55 percent opposed. One Republican voted for the health care bill in the House and none did in the Senate.

Jobs Bill. A CNN poll in December found 74 percent thought Obama should concentrate on creating more jobs "even if it means less deficit reduction." A Bloomberg/Selzer poll, also in December, asked about specific measures that might be undertaken as part of a jobs bill and found 68 percent in favor (and 28 percent opposed) to tax credits, and 66 percent in favor (versus 32 percent opposed) of spending on public works projects, although just 48 percent were in favor of additional assistance to state and local governments. House Republicans unanimously opposed a $100 billion jobs bill in December.

Mortgage Relief. Senate Republican unanimously voted against the Durbin Amendment to provide mortgage relief in April, as did 12 Senate Democrats. However, four organizations which polled on mortgage relief in February through April found an average of 60 percent of Americans in support of additional assistance versus 34 percent opposed.

PAYGO. There is no specific polling on Congressional pay-go rules, which Senate Republicans recently voted against 40-0., but in the abstract moves toward balancing the budget are almost always popular, such as a CNN poll in November which found 67 percent preferring balanced budgets to deficits "even when the country is in a recession and is at war."

SCHIP. Although there have been no recent polls on SCHIP (children's health care), an ABC/Post poll in September, 2007 found it supported 72-25 by the public, and a CNN poll in October, 2007 found that the public wanted by a 61-35 margin for the Congress to override President Bush's veto of the program. Nine Republican Senators voted to extend SCHIP in February as did 40 House Republicans.

Sonia Sotomayor. The last five polls to be released on Sonia Sotmayor in advance of her confirmation showed 52 percent in favor of her confirmation and 30 percent opposed, on average. Senate Republicans opposed her confirmation 31-9.

Stimulus. The stimulus has become somewhat unpopular now -- although most individual elements of the program remain popular. However, the stimulus was somewhat popular at the time of its passage. An average of the last five organizations to release polls in advance of the Senate's vote on the stimulus on 2/9/09 showed 50 percent in favor of the bill and 38 percent opposed. House Republicans opposed the stimulus unanimously; Senate Republicans gave it 3 votes.

TARP. The TARP program began under Bush and was extended before Obama took office, but Obama nevertheless actively lobbied Democrats for its extension. TARP was unpopular from the get-go, and Americans opposed its extension 56-32 last January, according to a poll then from Diageo/Hotline. All but 6 Senate Republicans voted not to extend TARP.

Terrorist Trials. An average of two recent polls from Rasmussen and CBS had 38 percent of the public in favor of terror trials in civilian courts, but 55 percent opposed.

Torture Memos and Investigations. Four polls conducted in April showed an average of 43 percent of Americans in favor and 51 percent opposed into an investigation of Bush-era torture policies. The only poll to ask about the release of the Bush torture memos, from ABC/Post, found 53 percent in favor and 44 percent opposed.

*-*

Of these 25 issues, Obama's position appears to be on the right side of public opinion on 14: the bank tax, repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, campaign finance, the credit card bill, D.C. voting rights, fair pay, financial regulation, gays in the military, hate crimes, the jobs bill, mortgage relief, PAYGO, SCHIP, and Sotomayor. It would appear to be on the wrong side of public opinion on five issues: the GM/Chrysler bailout, Guantanamo Bay, health care, the extension of the TARP program, and terrorist trials. On the other six issues, the polling is probably too ambiguous to render a clear verdict.

Republicans, on the other hand, have been overwhelmingly opposed to almost all of these measures with the exception of Ben Bernanke and Afghanistan troops, both of which poll ambiguously, and the credit card bill, which polled well.

Obviously, this analysis is superficial in certain ways. All issues are by no means created equal, and health care in particular, which is unpopular, has weighed heavily upon the public's perception of the Democrats. In addition, there is probably another layer of 'meta-argument' that goes beyond specific issues, and at which the GOP has tended to excel.

Nevertheless, it runs in contrast to the objective evidence when one asserts, as Hanson does, that "On every issue ... the Obama position polls 5-15 points below 50 percent." Rather, the votes taken by the Republican Congress have far more often been out of step with those of the median voter.

This is not to give a mulligan to the White House or to the Democrats -- as I've written before, their meta-strategy has necessarily had to be somewhat terrible so as to take what has been a fairly popular and centrist agenda and have it regarded as overwhelmingly contentious and partisan by so much of the public.

EDIT: What about EFCA/card check? I didn't forget about it; rather, I excluded it because it's something which the Democrats abandoned early on and which the White House never lifted a finger for. Obviously, there are a lot of policies that the Democrats theoretically have in their arsenal -- card check, legalizing pot, gay marriage, nationalizing the banks, a radically more progressive tax code, etc. -- which are both quite liberal and (with one or two possible exceptions) quite unpopular. But the Congressional Democrats didn't spend much of any effort on those issues, and the White House spent essentially none. The agenda they've spent their political capital on, rather, has been quite centrist -- which is sort of the whole point of this article.

If you did include card check, by the way, the verdict would be rather ambiguous. Ignoring some amazingly crappy (and contradictory) partisan polling on both sides of the topic, the closest we have to a neutral poll is this one from Gallup, which shows 53 percent in favor of a "new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers" but which is probably too vague to be useful. To be clear, my hunch is that card check would indeed prove to become unpopular if it were debated more vigorously -- but that's just a hunch, and we're trying to rely on the objective evidence for this exercise.

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There is definitely too much criticism going on with obama. I do not understand this at all. We have to give Obama a chance and give him time to do right.
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There is definitely too much criticism going on with obama. I do not understand this at all. We have to give Obama a chance and give him time to do right.
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There is definitely too much criticism going on with obama. I do not understand this at all. We have to give Obama a chance and give him time to do right.
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There is definitely too much criticism going on with obama. I do not understand this at all. We have to give Obama a chance and give him time to do right.
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