February 11, 2010 .com



February 11, 2010

Veronique de Rugy says it is time to stop blaming Bush.

... In his latest budget request, President Obama added roughly $1.6 trillion in spending over the next ten years on top of what he requested last year. Can President Obama blame that extra $1.6 trillion on former President Bush? ...

 

Pickings is unusually mono-focused today as it looks at some of the firestorm of criticism of members of the administration. Calls for resignations of Holder and Brennan have now led to detailed portraits of the "Chicago Four"; Axelrod, Jarrett, Emanuel, and Gibbs. The catalyst for this was an article by Edward Luce in Financial Times about the people surrounding the president who, while good at winning the job, apparently have no clue how to govern. This piece, which is below, and related items are being followed in the blogospere with intense interest. We start with a Daniel Foster Corner Post on the subject.

There is a great deal of back-and-forth in the blogosphere today on the subject of a Financial Times piece (subscription required) that lays the blame for Obama's floundering first year in office on an advisory staff geared for campaigning, not governing.

Based on extensive anonymous interviews with people around the Obama White House, the Financial Times' Edward Luce paints a picture of an administration run almost entirely from within the president's political machine — with campaign-managers-turned-advisers David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Robert Gibbs, along with Chicagoan legislative tactician Rahm Emanuel, in the room for every major decision. ...

 

 

Jonah Goldberg is next. We'll keep pull quotes short so we don't get too long.

... it seems to me Obama is to blame for his current woes and in a way that is unique to him. The upshot of the Luce article is that Obama is still in campaign mode. That's a point conservatives have been making for a year, so it's a bit funny to hear liberals suddenly credit this analysis. ...

 

 

Steve Clemons of the Washington Note introduces the article.

... 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.' ...

Here is the Edward Luce piece in Financial Times.

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? ...

 

Andrew Malcolm of LA Times also weighs in on the subject.

... In the last few days at least three major outlets have published well-informed evaluations of Obama's first year in office. All are well worth reading. The dominant themes: disappointment and disillusionment with the Chicago way.

In one respect it's not surprising that a capitol city with its own style of take-no-prisoners politics should find a professed outsider's style of smoother-spoken take-no-prisoners discomforting.

But now, no less than the Huffington Post headlined its Obama evaluation by Steve Clemons: "Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama presidency."

The devastating Financial Times report by Edward Luce: "A fearsome foursome"

And the Washington Post story by Ann Gerhart: "A year later, where did the hopes for Obama go?"  ...

 

Streetwise Professor rhetorically asks why he can never remember Gibbs' first name.

I know that his name is “Robert,” but I always find myself calling him “Dick.”  I wonder why that is?

Actually, I don’t.  He is the most insufferable, appalling, obnoxious, dishonest, and thuggish press secretary in memory.  And stupid, too.  What is his mission in life?  To make Scott McClellan look good?  One would have thought that Mission Impossible, but Gibbs has succeeded beyond anything Tom Cruise could ever aspire to. ...

... the coalescing conventional wisdom is that these jokers are responsible for Obama’s cliff dive.  (A competing explanation is that you idiotic people are to blame for not recognizing the wonderfulness that is the modern Washington political class.)

Surely, they have contributed.  But this explanation wreaks of the old story of the Czar being betrayed by his boyars and officials.  The Czar, of course, is faultless: it is his underlings that have failed him.

It’s an old explanation/rationalization/excuse, and almost always wrong.  It’s wrong in this case.  As usual, responsibility ultimately rests at the top–with Obama. ...

 

 

Jennifer Rubin picks up on the Czar/Boyar analogy with a piece titled with the age old cry of Russian reformers, "If the Czar Only Knew."

Democrats are loathe to say outright what a political disaster Obama has been for their party. So they have seized upon his right-hand man:

"Democrats in Congress are holding White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel accountable for his part in the collapse of healthcare reform.The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority. ..."

In a follow-up, Rubin introduces Doug Wilder's essay in Politico.

Former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder vividly writes:

"Indeed, even before Bob McDonnell’s resounding victory, the canary had been dead on the floor for months. In Virginia’s most Democratic-friendly regions, the Democrats had been narrowly winning — or outright losing — special elections that should have been taken easily. ..."

 

Summing up this look at Obama's administration we have the Doug Wilder piece mentioned by J. Rubin above. More on Wilder with this from November 5, 2008 Pickings upon the election of the kid president;

"Americans have much to be proud of today. The election of an African-American to the highest office in the land is an outstanding achievement. A testament to the open-minded tolerance of this country's citizens; at least, the majority of them.

 

Do you think the press and the rest of the world will stop telling us how racist we are? Maybe now they'll notice that the American people have already moved on.

 

Nineteen years ago Virginia elected the first black governor in the country Then, Pickerhead was proud to vote for the Democrat Doug Wilder over the hapless Marshall Coleman. This time however, it is discouraging to see a doctrinaire leftist selected by the voters. Nothing but trouble, follows in the wake of officials who use the state's power to compel and direct behavior."

 

Here's Wilder today;

... It would be a grave mistake for the president and those around him to misread the current polls and analyses. They suggest that 1) the American people do not like the direction in which the country is heading; 2) they do not believe that either Democrats or Republicans are showing that they get the message and are doing the business of the people; 3) they hold Congress in very low regard; but 4) they really like the president. Yet, they keep going to the polls to rebuke him resoundingly every chance it is presented.

Unless changes are made at the top, by the top, when the time comes for voters to show how they really feel about Obama, his policies and the messages he sends directly or through the people around him, the president will discover that Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts were not just temporary aberrations but, rather, timely expressions of voters who always show that they are ahead of the politicians.

The president should keep uppermost in his mind the biblical admonition as to what happens to those trees that do not bear "good fruit": The ax is already at the tree.

 

Dilbert makes peace with his shop vac.

Now that I have a manly garage, with a manly workbench, I was delighted to receive for Christmas a Shop Vac. It's a magical device that sucks up all sorts of debris, even liquid. It has attachments for everything. I think one attachment is for haircuts, but I haven't tried it yet. The Shop Vac is gray and black and reminds me of R2D2 so much that I expect it to jack into my breaker panels and reprogram my DVR. ...

 

Very good cartoons tonight.

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The Corner

'The Limits of Blaming Bush'   [Veronique de Rugy]

President Obama never tires of blaming President Bush for the deficit our nation faces. To be sure, the Bush-era deficits were bad. I spent a great deal of time in the last eight years protesting our last president’s lack of fiscal responsibility (here and here, for instance). And yes, a large part of the fiscal 2009 deficit was the result of policies instituted by Bush during his last year in office.

However, FY2009 is over. In fact, the president just requested funding for FY2011. It is time for Obama to act like an adult, and as the president, and stop blaming his predecessor for the fiscal irresponsability in Washington.

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In my article in The American, I suggest the following: Let's assume that all the spending before this year is Bush's fault. Then, using data in President Obama’s budget request for fiscal 2010 and data from the fiscal 2011 budget request, I made this chart that projects spending each year from fiscal 2010 until fiscal 2019. The purple bars represent the spending amounts the president requested in February 2009. The orange bars represent the growth in the projected spending request between February 2009 and February 2010.

In his latest budget request, President Obama added roughly $1.6 trillion in spending over the next ten years on top of what he requested last year. Can President Obama blame that extra $1.6 trillion on former President Bush? No.

 

 

The Corner

The Four Horsemen of the Obamacalypse   [Daniel Foster]

There is a great deal of back-and-forth in the blogosphere today on the subject of a Financial Times piece (subscription required) that lays the blame for Obama's floundering first year in office on an advisory staff geared for campaigning, not governing.

Based on extensive anonymous interviews with people around the Obama White House, the Financial Times's Edward Luce paints a picture of an administration run almost entirely from within the president's political machine — with campaign-managers-turned-advisers David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Robert Gibbs, along with Chicagoan legislative tactician Rahm Emanuel, in the room for every major decision.

Many of Obama's highest-profile cabinet members are, by contrast, largely disconnected from both policy creation and messaging decisions:

Perhaps the biggest losers are the cabinet members. Kathleen Sebelius, Mr Obama’s health secretary and formerly governor of Kansas, almost never appears on television and has been largely excluded both from devising and selling the healthcare bill. Others such as Ken Salazar, the interior secretary who is a former senator for Colorado, and Janet Napolitano, head of the Department for Homeland Security and former governor of Arizona, have virtually disappeared from view.

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.” . . .

In addition to hurling frequent profanities at people within the administration, Mr Emanuel has alienated many of Mr Obama’s closest outside supporters. At a meeting of Democratic groups last August, Mr Emanuel described liberals as “f***ing retards” after one suggested they mobilise resources on healthcare reform.

“We are treated as though we are children,” says the head of a large organisation that raised millions of dollars for Mr Obama’s campaign. “Our advice is never sought. We are only told: ‘This is the message, please get it out.’ I am not sure whether the president fully realises that when the chief of staff speaks, people assume he is speaking for the president.”

The same 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.

Luce and his subjects also blame the campaign mentality for Obama's policy failures, from stagnating health-care reform to a nascent Arab-Israeli peace push that died on the vine:

An outside adviser adds: “I don’t understand how the president could launch healthcare reform and an Arab-Israeli peace process – two goals that have eluded US presidents for generations – without having done better scenario planning. Either would be historic. But to launch them at the same time?”

Again, close allies of the president attribute the problem to the campaign-like nucleus around Mr Obama in which all things are possible. “There is this sense after you have won such an amazing victory, when you have proved conventional wisdom wrong again and again, that you can simply do the same thing in government,” says one. “Of course, they are different skills. To be successful, presidents need to separate the stream of advice they get on policy from the stream of advice they get on politics. That still isn’t happening.”

While Luce curiously and conspicuously avoids laying any responsibility for the administration's failures at the feet of the president himself, it is still an important piece to read, both for those wishing to understand the pathologies of the Obama administration and for our friends on the left hoping (perhaps naively) to fix them. And while there has been some general pushback from Dems on the regime of David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel — Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.) reportedly read Axelrod the riot act at a closed-door meeting last week, and many Congressional Democrats blame Emanuel for bringing the "Australian-rules football" mentality from his House days to Senate negotiations on health-care — the narrative of an insular and increasingly incompetent White House painted by the Luce piece has yet to get any major play in the MSM. So far, the conversation has largely been among hardcore politicos.

Steve Clemons at the Washington Note, who has written a lengthy commentary on the Luce piece, thinks the story has gotten less love than it deserves, due in part to fears of reprisal from the very White House insiders it posits are at the root of Obama's problems:

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.'

 

 

The Corner

Re: The Four Horsemen of the Obamacalypse    [Jonah Goldberg]

So I finally read the Luce piece Dan Foster mentioned below. Mickey's take strikes me as basically right, particularly the bit about how such pieces never blame the president.

But it seems to me Obama is to blame for his current woes and in a way that is unique to him. The upshot of the Luce article is that Obama is still in campaign mode. That's a point conservatives have been making for a year, so it's a bit funny to hear liberals suddenly credit this analysis.

The "permanent campaign" is a temptation for lots of presidents. But Obama's circumstances are special. He's never really run anything of significance save his presidential campaign (all praise and honor to Harvard Law Review notwithstanding). He's never governed. Even his limited Senate experience was really just another way of campaigning for president. I remember arguing with liberals about his qualifications during the general election and you'd often hear: He's run such a brilliant campaign!

Yes, yes he did. But that's not governing. Obama's using the one experience in his life where he successfully ran a significant enterprise — his own campaign — and he's designing his presidency around it, because that's all he knows. It's fine to blame the four horsemen, or to scapegoat Rahm. But the problem starts at the top.

 

 

Washington Note

Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama Presidency

by Steve Clemons

 

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(Obama's Core Team at press conference on Obama administration's 100th day; photo credit: Bill O'leary, Washington Post)

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.

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It's a vital article -- a brave one -- that interviews "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, adminstration-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 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.

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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.

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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."

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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, Arianna Huffington, 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.

And take action to fix the dysfunction of your office.

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

 

 

Financial Times

A fearsome foursome

by Edward Luce

[pic]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.

The Hollywood touch

Political scientists credit Ronald Reagan with having managed the best transition from campaigning to governing when he moved to the White House in 1981. While lacking in intellectual skills, Reagan was often a shrewd judge of character. Following his victory in a bitter primary campaign with George H.W. Bush in 1980, Reagan promptly hired his defeated opponent's campaign manager, James Baker, to be his first chief of staff. Understated but authoritative, Mr Baker is considered one of the most effective performers in that role, to which he brought a good managerial background and an ability to play honest broker.

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.

Among the broader circle that Mr Obama also consults are the selfeffacing Peter Rouse, who was chief of staff to Tom Daschle in his time as Senate majority leader; Jim Messina, deputy chief of staff; the economics team led by Lawrence Summers and including Peter Orszag, budget director; Joe Biden, the vice-president; and Denis McDonough, deputy national security adviser. But none is part of the inner circle.

"Clearly this kind of core management approach worked for the election campaign and President Obama has extended it to the White House," says Mr Podesta, who managed Mr Obama's widely praised post-election transition. "It is a very tight inner circle and that has its advantages. But I would like to see the president make more use of other people in his administration, particularly his cabinet."

This White House-centric structure has generated one overriding - and unexpected - failure. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Mr Emanuel managed the legislative aspect of the healthcare bill quite skilfully, say observers. The weak link was the failure to carry public opinion - not Capitol Hill. But for the setback in Massachusetts, which deprived the Democrats of their 60-seat supermajority in the Senate, Mr Obama would by now almost certainly have signed healthcare into law - and with it would have become a historic president.

But the normally liberal voters of Massachusetts wished otherwise. The Democrats lost the seat to a candidate, Scott Brown, who promised voters he would be the "41st [Republican] vote" in the Senate - the one that would tip the balance against healthcare. Subsequent polling bears out the view that a decisive number of Democrats switched their votes with precisely that motivation in mind.

"Historians will puzzle over the fact that Barack Obama, the best communicator of his generation, totally lost control of the narrative in his first year in office and allowed people to view something they had voted for as something they suddenly didn't want," says Jim Morone, America's leading political scientist on healthcare reform. "Communication was the one thing everyone thought Obama would be able to master."

Whatever issue arises, whether it is a failed terrorist plot in Detroit, the healthcare bill, economic doldrums or the 30,000-troop surge to Afghanistan, the White House instinctively fields Mr Axelrod or Mr Gibbs on television to explain the administration's position. "Every event is treated like a twist in an election campaign and no one except the inner circle can be trusted to defend the president," says an exasperated outside adviser.

Perhaps the biggest losers are the cabinet members. Kathleen Sebelius, Mr Obama's health secretary and formerly governor of Kansas, almost never appears on television and has been largely excluded both from devising and selling the healthcare bill. Others such as Ken Salazar, the interior secretary who is a former senator for Colorado, and Janet Napolitano, head of the Department for Homeland Security and former governor of Arizona, have virtually disappeared from view.

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."

In addition to hurling frequent profanities at people within the administration, Mr Emanuel has alienated many of Mr Obama's closest outside supporters. At a meeting of Democratic groups last August, Mr Emanuel described liberals as "f***ing retards" after one suggested they mobilise resources on healthcare reform.

"We are treated as though we are children," says the head of a large organisation that raised millions of dollars for Mr Obama's campaign. "Our advice is never sought. We are only told: 'This is the message, please get it out.' I am not sure whether the president fully realises that when the chief of staff speaks, people assume he is speaking for the president."

The same 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."

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.

An outside adviser adds: "I don't understand how the president could launch healthcare reform and an Arab-Israeli peace process - two goals that have eluded US presidents for generations - without having done better scenario planning. Either would be historic. But to launch them at the same time?"

Again, close allies of the president attribute the problem to the campaign-like nucleus around Mr Obama in which all things are possible. "There is this sense after you have won such an amazing victory, when you have proved conventional wisdom wrong again and again, that you can simply do the same thing in government," says one. "Of course, they are different skills. To be successful, presidents need to separate the stream of advice they get on policy from the stream of advice they get on politics. That still isn't happening."

The White House declined to answer questions on whether Mr Obama needed to broaden his circle of advisers. But some supporters say he should find a new chief of staff. Mr Emanuel has hinted that he might not stay in the job very long and is thought to have an eye on running for mayor of Chicago. Others say Mr Obama should bring in fresh blood. They point to Mr Clinton's decision to recruit David Gergen, a veteran of previous White Houses, when the last Democratic president ran into trouble in 1993. That is credited with helping to steady the Clinton ship, after he too began with an inner circle largely carried over from his campaign.

But Mr Gergen himself disagrees. Now teaching at Harvard and commenting for CNN, Mr Gergen says members of the inner circle meet two key tests. First, they are all talented. Second, Mr Obama trusts them. "These are important attributes," Mr Gergen says. His biggest doubt is whether Mr Obama sees any problem with the existing set-up.

"There is an old joke," says Mr Gergen. "How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one. But the lightbulb must want to change. I don't think President Obama wants to make any changes."

The team seen most often in the Oval Office

David Axelrod, senior adviser A former journalist on the Chicago Tribune who quit to set up a political advertising firm, Mr Axelrod, 54, is Barack Obama's longest-standing mentor, from his days in Chicago politics. Always at the candidate's side during the election campaign, he is the chief defender of the Obama brand. Still a journalist at heart, he describes himself as having been "posted to Washington".

Robert Gibbs, communications chief

The most visible face of the White House for his sardonic daily briefings. Mr Gibbs, 38, is perhaps the least likely member of the circle - he is a career Democratic press officer from Alabama who quit John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign and shortly afterwards went to work for Senator Obama. A constant presence during the campaign, he is also seen as a keeper of the flame.

Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff

The best story about Mr Emanuel, 50, concerns the dead fish he delivered to a pollster who displeased him. The least honey-tongued politician in Washington, he is also one of the most effective. Friends say he is relentlessly energetic, critics that he has attention deficit disorder. He has enemies but even detractors concede he may well achieve his aim of becoming the first Jewish speaker of the House of Representatives.

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser

An old friend of the Obamas, having hired Michelle to work in Chicago politics in the early 1990s, Ms Jarrett, 53, is probably the first family's most intimate White House confidante. A former businessperson and aide to Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, she was briefly considered as a candidate to fill Mr Obama's Senate seat. She was part of the circle he consulted before running for president.

 

 

 

LA Times - Top of the Ticket

President Obama Day 386: What's happened to him?

by Andrew Malcolm

 

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A favorite story about Chicago politics involves Roman Pucinski, who served six long terms of political apprenticeship in the Washington minor leagues of the U.S. House of Representatives before the Windy City's vaunted Democratic political machine allowed him to step up and serve on the City Council.

The late Pucinski then served for 18 years as a loyal operative assigned to the 41st Ward (of 50).

It's always useful for Chicago pols to have White House connections if, say, they'd like to dispatch someone famous to fly off to Copenhagen to lobby the International Olympic Committee for their city's 2016 summer games bid.

But the Chicago Daley machine, which is actually a ruthless coalition of urban Democratic factions united by the steel reinforcing rods of self-interest, didn't much care about this Barack Obama fellow before, as long as he was quiet, obedient and headed on a track out of town. How he acquired a reform label coming out of that one-party place is anyone's guess.

But now that the sun has risen on the 386th day of the Obama White House, many political observers are coming to see that the ex-state senator from the South Side is running his federal administration in Washington much the way they run things back home: with a small....

...claque of clout-laden people from the same school who learned their political trade back in the nation's No. 3 city, named for an Indian word for a smelly wild onion.

That style is tough, focused, immune to any distractions but cosmetic niceties. And did we mention tough. A portly, veteran Chicago alderman once confided only about 40% jokingly, that he had taken up jogging to lose weight but quickly gave it up as boring because "you can't knock anyone down." That's politics the Chicago way.

For instance, remember how much we heard all last year about the need for healthcare legislation before early August, before October, before Thanksgiving, before Christmas, before the State of the Union? And how spanked the White House was by the Massachusetts Senate upset that Obama said his laser-vision for 2010 was on jobs and the economy?

So, what did he announce during a Super Bowl interview? More healthcare meetings, designed to politically box Republicans into the No-Nothing corner.

In the last few days at least three major outlets have published well-informed evaluations of Obama's first year in office. All are well worth reading. The dominant themes: disappointment and disillusionment with the Chicago way.

In one respect it's not surprising that a capitol city with its own style of take-no-prisoners politics should find a professed outsider's style of smoother-spoken take-no-prisoners discomforting.

But now, no less than the Huffington Post headlined its Obama evaluation by Steve Clemons: "Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama presidency."

The devastating Financial Times report by Edward Luce: "A fearsome foursome"

And the Washington Post story by Ann Gerhart: "A year later, where did the hopes for Obama go?"

The Post story focuses on a handful of Obama supporters, so fiercely motivated and hopeful in 2008 and through the inauguration, now largely drifting back to normal lives lacking fulfillment of so many promises.

The other two fascinating accounts examine Obama's close-knit team of Chicagoans: confidante Valerie Jarrett, who's so intelligent she once hired Michelle Obama; Rahm Emanuel, the diminutive, acid-tongued

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chief of staff with overwhelming energy and ambition; David Axelrod, the ex-Chicago Tribune politics reporter-turned-consultant who's been coaching Obama forever; and Robert Gibbs, who isn't from Chicago but that's OK because he's only the mouthpiece and the others keep a close eye on him.

Clemons focuses on how dead-on the Luce piece is and how the FT Washington bureau chief had to assiduously hide his sources as everyone was properly so fearful of retribution from the quartet around the mayor, er, president.

And Clemons attributes the lack of online link love to the Luce item Monday to the same fears among D.C. journalists dodging disfavor from the same four.

Quoting "administration insiders," Luce says "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."

And both articles note, accurately, how savvy cabinet secretaries like Kathleen Sebelius at Health and Human Services and Ken Salazar at Interior have been marginalized because putting a media face on the Obama Oval Office can only be entrusted to the likes of Gibbs and Axelrod.

Another Luce source talks about the difference between campaigning, which is easier, and governing, which is the ultimate goal but takes a more refined skill-set:

'There is this sense after you have won such an amazing victory, when you have proved conventional wisdom wrong again and again, that you can simply do the same thing in government,' says one. 'Of course, they are different skills. To be successful, presidents need to separate the stream of advice they get on policy from the stream of advice they get on politics. That still isn’t happening.'

Also noted, how most everything coming out of the executive office is filtered through a political prism above all. i.e. the Afghanistan troop surge speech that touched all the political bases in 4,582 words without once saying "victory."

Warning that Obama needs to take action quickly, Clemons adds that needed advice from a broader range of advisers "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."

David Gergen, who helped guide Bill Clinton out of not dissimilar troubled waters, tells Luce: "There is an old joke. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one. But the lightbulb must want to change. I don’t think President Obama wants to make any changes.”

 

 

Streetwise Professor

Why Do I Always Forget WH Press Secretary Gibbs’s First Name?

by The Professor

I know that his name is “Robert,” but I always find myself calling him “Dick.”  I wonder why that is?

Actually, I don’t.  He is the most insufferable, appalling, obnoxious, dishonest, and thuggish press secretary in memory.  And stupid, too.  What is his mission in life?  To make Scott McClellan look good?  One would have thought that Mission Impossible, but Gibbs has succeeded beyond anything Tom Cruise could ever aspire to.

But Gibbs is just the most visible member of the Chicago Creepocracy that infests this Administration.  And I say that as a native Chicagoan.  The whole gang is repulsive.  I have known of Axelrod since the ’80s.  He was appalling then.  He is worse now.  And it goes downhill from there.

I remember with some fondness the Old School Chicago pols of the 70s and early 80s.  They were unseemly, to be sure.  But they had a roguish charm, a comedic element, a shot-and-a-beer down-to-earthiness that the current crowd lacks completely.  Gibbs, Emmanuel, Axelrod, Jarret, and the rest are haughty, arrogant, supercilious.  All the thuggishness, with none of the roguish charm. You could laugh reading Royko send up the Daley-era pols and flunkies. There are few things more comic than the Council Wars of the early-80s, or the circus that resulted in the selection of Alderman Sawyer to replace Harold Washington.  There is nothing funny about this bunch.

And one thing you could say about the old Chicago gang is that it stayed in Chicago.  The new Chicago gang is inflicting itself on the entire country.  Less humor.  Bigger stage.  Bad combination.

The show is getting very bad reviews.  Indeed, the coalescing conventional wisdom is that these jokers are responsible for Obama’s cliff dive.  (A competing explanation is that you idiotic people are to blame for not recognizing the wonderfulness that is the modern Washington political class.)

Surely, they have contributed.  But this explanation wreaks of the old story of the Czar being betrayed by his boyars and officials.  The Czar, of course, is faultless: it is his underlings that have failed him.

It’s an old explanation/rationalization/excuse, and almost always wrong.  It’s wrong in this case.  As usual, responsibility ultimately rests at the top–with Obama.  Whatever dysfunctions of the modern Chicago political culture Axelrod reflect, Obama reflects too.  They were all marinated in the same juices.  They all evolved in the same political swamp.  They share a mindset.  And an attitude.

Which means that getting new advisors will have absolutely no effect.  It’s not like Obama is a hostage of a cabal of Chicago schemers, and that liberating him from their clutches would restore sanity and class.  He’s a part of the cabal, not its prisoner.

Reader rtyb makes the comparison between Obama’s Chicago gang and Russian politicians.  I think that there is a definite comparison between the new Chicago crowd and the Putin crowd (although Obama and Putin are quite different.  I hope.)  The combination of arrogance and thuggishness, and the utter disdain for any who dare oppose them, are shared defects.  Perhaps the common denominator is one-party political systems rife with criminality.  That’s Moscow, and that’s Chicago.  Our saving grace is that our system is more capable of change, and it is possible to throw the bums out, or to neuter them, without revolution.  Historically, revolution has been Russia’s only way out–or rather, out of one mess into another.  We have the opportunity to use Constitutional and peaceful political means to send Dick, I mean Robert, and the others back to the political cesspool from whence they came.

 

 

Contentions

If the Czar Only Knew

by Jennifer Rubin

Democrats are loathe to say outright what a political disaster Obama has been for their party. So they have seized upon his right-hand man:

Democrats in Congress are holding White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel accountable for his part in the collapse of healthcare reform.The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

The share of the blame comes as cracks are beginning to show in Emanuel’s once-impregnable political armor. Last week he had to apologize after a report surfaced that he called liberal groups “retarded” in a private meeting.

He had to apologize because some liberal in that meeting ratted him out, counting on the political-correctness industry to storm into action. (Little did those liberals know that their arch-villainess of the Right would help them by calling for Emanuel’s firing.) The Democrats’ criticisms are admittedly contradictory. Liberals think Emanuel sold them out on the public option and health care, while Senate insiders think he blew it by playing to the Left. (”‘Their plan was to keep all the Democrats together and work like hell to get Snowe and Collins. The Senate doesn’t work that way. You need a radius of 10 to 12 from the other side if you’re going to have a shot.’”)

That’s not to say that Emanuel doesn’t deserve criticism. He is the chief of staff in an administration sinking below the waterline. He reportedly mucked around in the Afghan war-strategy process, prolonging it and causing the president to look irresolute and weak. He has been front and center in the “bully Israel” approach to the Middle East, which ranks up there with the most lame-brained ideas of this administration. And he has set a tone of crass partisanship, arrogance, and plain mean-spiritedness that has not served the administration well.

But let’s face it: the president is thrilled with him. If David Brooks has it right, it’s a lovefest over at the White House. Everyone is on the same page, and nary a word of internal dissention is heard. (”Yet the atmosphere in the White House appears surprisingly tranquil. Emanuel is serving as a lighting rod for the president but remains crisply confident in his role as chief of staff.”) But that bit of Obama insidery might not be all that helpful in the long run. It undermines the theory — and the hope of Democrats — that the extreme policy, the tone deafness, and the ham-handedness are not Obama’s doing or his fault. You see, there’s little room for Obama to maneuver, shift the blame to errant aides, and maintain his deity-like status if all of this left-wing policy and the political faux pas festival stem from Obama’s policy vision and reflect his political instincts. Oops. Maybe not the most helpful column, after all.

Let’s get real. An administration reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the president. He sets the tone and controls policy. If Democrats and the country at large are unhappy with the results, there is only one person responsible. And it’s not Rahm Emanuel.

 

Contentions

Re: If the Czar Only Knew

by Jennifer Rubin

Former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder vividly writes:

Indeed, even before Bob McDonnell’s resounding victory, the canary had been dead on the floor for months. In Virginia’s most Democratic-friendly regions, the Democrats had been narrowly winning — or outright losing — special elections that should have been taken easily.

He reminds us of the Democratic losses in New Jersey and Virginia, continuing:

After both these debacles, people at the DNC and the White House insisted these were local results with no deeper meaning. Then came Massachusetts. When Scott Brown promised voters he would be the 41st vote in the U.S. Senate to halt the Obama agenda, generally, and the health care plan, in particular, his rise in the polls was meteoric. It’s not rocket science where the American public wants the president to concentrate his energies. In all the above elections I cited, voters were practically screaming one word with four simple letters: Jobs.

His solution: fire DNC Chairman Tim Kaine and a bunch of Obama’s West Wing advisers. He warns: “Unless changes are made at the top, by the top, when the time comes for voters to show how they really feel about Obama, his policies and the messages he sends directly or through the people around him, the president will discover that Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts were not just temporary aberrations but, rather, timely expressions of voters who always show that they are ahead of the politicians.”

But so far, there is little indication Obama has learned anything from the string of losses. Yes, he’s holding a health-care summit with Republicans, but only to resell for the umpteenth time the same noxious, publically rejected ObamaCare plan. He’s telling everyone he isn’t “starting over” on health-care reform. His national-security team is berating Republicans for daring to criticize the Obama anti-terrorism approach. The Obama budget is an embarrassment to fiscally sober Democrats and Republicans alike. And not a single key adviser has gotten the axe.

You see, so long as the president remains perfectly content with his harmonious team of advisers, nothing much will change. It is all just as Obama would like it. Well, except for his crater poll numbers, the absence of a single legislative achievement, broad-based opposition to his ultra-liberal domestic agenda, a string of foreign-policy debacles, and the risk he will lose one or both houses of Congress.

 

 

Politico

Obama needs to fire DNC Chairman Kaine, W.H. advisers

by L. Douglas Wilder

 

During the 2008 campaign, I strongly endorsed Barack Obama for president. I did so early, when many Democratic leaders — including many prominent African-American politicians — believed the safe bet was to back then-front-runner Hillary Clinton. 

I backed Obama not because of skin color but because he convincingly made the case that he stood for “change” that this country needs. Now, across many fronts — in public policy and politics alike — people have rightly been questioning whether the change has been for the better. Unfortunately, the answer so far is clear: not yet. 

I still believe Obama can stand for positive change. But first he must make some hard changes of his own. 

The need is becoming more obvious by the day: He must overhaul his own team, replacing the admittedly brilliant advisers who helped elect him with others more capable of helping him govern. Getting elected and getting things done for the people are two different jobs. 

I am an admirer of Tim Kaine, whom I backed in his current position as one of my successors as Virginia governor and even recommended for the vice presidency. But a spate of recent losses in races that Democrats should have won underscores what has been obvious to me for a long time: The chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee is the wrong job for him. 

The changes must go much deeper. Obama’s West Wing is filled with people who are in their jobs because of their Chicago connections or because they signed on with Obama early during his presidential campaign. 

One problem is that they do not have sufficient experience at governing at the executive branch level. The deeper problem is that they are not listening to the people. 

Hearing is one thing; listening is another. 

Some are even questioning whether Obama has forgotten how he got elected and the promises he made to the people who elected him. 

Don't take my word for any of this. Look at the clear message the American people have been sending at the polls these past few months. 

In my native Virginia, voters went to the polls and turned the Democrats out of the Executive Mansion with more votes and by a higher percentage than had ever happened since we ended one-party government rule 50 years ago. I told the president that this could very well happen and did not support his candidate.

Indeed, even before Bob McDonnell’s resounding victory, the canary had been dead on the floor for months. In Virginia's most Democratic-friendly regions, the Democrats had been narrowly winning — or outright losing — special elections that should have been taken easily.

The same trends that are evident in Virginia are obvious elsewhere — even in states that historically are much more Democratic. New Jersey voters, given a chance to reelect a Democratic governor who promised to be the president's partner in the state capital and for whom Obama vigorously campaigned, instead chose a Republican prosecutor who had been appointed to his job by George W. Bush.

After both these debacles, people at the DNC and the White House insisted these were local results with no deeper meaning.

Then came Massachusetts. When Scott Brown promised voters he would be the 41st vote in the U.S. Senate to halt the Obama agenda, generally, and the health care plan, in particular, his rise in the polls was meteoric.

It's not rocket science where the American public wants the president to concentrate his energies. In all the above elections I cited, voters were practically screaming one word with four simple letters: Jobs.

People will rightly hold Obama accountable. Obama must in turn hold the people on his own team accountable.

Tim Kaine is a friend whom I respect. I personally pushed for his consideration by Obama for the vice presidency because he was the first governor outside of Obama's home state to endorse him, and it was a bold step away from our state's past history. 

Though I discussed with Tim what I was doing relative to the vice presidency, he and I never had any discussions as to whether he should be the national party chairman. There are several reasons why I felt then, and do now, that it is not a good fit for Tim, the party or Obama.

Positioning Democrats as "tax and spend" has been a favorite pastime of Republicans. Another has been "soft on crime."

Republicans are surely going to remind voters, nationwide, that Chairman Kaine tried to balance his budget in his last days as governor by proposing a $1 billion-plus personal income tax increase. This measure was "shot down" in the first week of the legislative session with not a single person, including Democrats, voting for it (0-97). Even the patron of the bill abstained.

Kaine's recommendation to the Justice Department to transfer one of Virginia's inmates to a federal jurisdiction, and ultimately to Germany, for possible parole in two years was almost immediately withdrawn by the incoming Republican governor and Republican attorney general. Because of the serious nature of these heinous murders and the clearest evidence of guilt, many are still asking why.

Is that who this president wants to be arm in arm with as we enter a pivotal election year? For his sake, it shouldn't be. The president has enough to worry about and defend without this detracting sideshow as to feckless party leadership.

The president was the one elected to lead, not the people around him. He was elected to be in front, to take charge. Leadership is a tautology; it defines itself.

Obama's job approval ratings are sliding, but we Democrats are told not to worry. We are told that he remains personally popular with the American people.

It would be a grave mistake for the president and those around him to misread the current polls and analyses. They suggest that 1) the American people do not like the direction in which the country is heading; 2) they do not believe that either Democrats or Republicans are showing that they get the message and are doing the business of the people; 3) they hold Congress in very low regard; but 4) they really like the president. Yet, they keep going to the polls to rebuke him resoundingly every chance it is presented.

Unless changes are made at the top, by the top, when the time comes for voters to show how they really feel about Obama, his policies and the messages he sends directly or through the people around him, the president will discover that Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts were not just temporary aberrations but, rather, timely expressions of voters who always show that they are ahead of the politicians.

The president should keep uppermost in his mind the biblical admonition as to what happens to those trees that do not bear "good fruit": The ax is already at the tree.

L. Douglas Wilder was the nation’s first African-American to be elected governor. He served as governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994

 

 

 

 

Dilbert's Blog

My Shop Vac

by Scott Adams

 

Now that I have a manly garage, with a manly workbench, I was delighted to receive for Christmas a Shop Vac. It's a magical device that sucks up all sorts of debris, even liquid. It has attachments for everything. I think one attachment is for haircuts, but I haven't tried it yet. The Shop Vac is gray and black and reminds me of R2D2 so much that I expect it to jack into my breaker panels and reprogram my DVR.

My point is that my Shop Vac is totally awesome. That is, unless I try to move it. It has wheels, but at the first sign of movement, the Shop Vac starts squirming and tossing off attachments like a balloonist heading into a volcano. The hose becomes like a spastic elephant trunk. It will find all of the loose objects in your garage and fling them one-by-one into oil spills and darkened spider nests. If you focus your attention on the flailing vacuum hose, the power cord will wrap itself around your legs and try to trip you into the pyramid of old paint cans. And the screaming. Good lord, the little wheels scream on the concrete floor. It's Shop Vac language for "LEAVE ME ALONE! DO NOT MOVE ME! I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY TENTACLE!"

The worst of it, if I can pick just one thing, is that the situation totally ruins my manly vibe. I live in fear that Shelly will come into the garage and see me losing a cage match to R2D2. That would totally suck, ironically.

Anyway, I've developed a truce with my Shop Vac. Now I sweep the debris from wherever it falls all the way to where the Shop Vac lives, and directly under its waiting nostril. I gingerly press the ON button along a direct vertical line so I don't awaken the tentacle of death. I still plan to use the Shop Vac for haircuts, but I'll have to put the kids on towels on their backs and slowly drag them towards the Shop Vac's waiting hose and hope for the best.

I searched the Internet for what I imagined would be the obvious set of third-party add-ons for the Shop Vac, but found none. What I want is some sort of pole attachment from the top of the Shop Vac upon which I can drape the power cord and hose while moving the Shop Vac against its will. Sort of like an IV drip scenario, but with a power cord and vacuum hose. Would one of you go invent that and get back to me?

 

 

 

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