… and into hyperpartisanship. Looks like Obama’s first appointment, the Chief of Staff, will be Rahm “winning is everything” Emanuel, the notoriously vicious Dem strategist.
This is the equivalent of Bush appointing Karl Rove as Chief of Staff, a move which quite possibly would have had Democratic heads literally exploding, creating a terrible burden on the Capitol cleaning staff and getting C-SPAN slapped with an NC-17 rating.
Well, that’s one major campaign promise down, and we’re barely a day past the election. Who still thinks Obama will cut federal spending and give everyone making less than $250K a tax cut?
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I’m sure we’ll all get "tax cuts" in the usual Democrat sense of the phrase, namely that they won’t increase our taxes by quite as much as they’d like to.
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Conservative writer Daniel Larison addressed this and basically points out that Rahm is a get-things-done guy, and partisanship is irrelevant to the job description of Chief of Staff.
One thing we can take away from this is that Obama’s White House is going to be run competently, and staff, appointments and policy proposals are going to be handled effectively. Obama will still be patient and deliberative before moving, but when he does move having Emanuel as his chief of staff suggests that they will move quickly and aggressively to advance their agenda. Pelosi’s loss is definitely Obama’s gain, and evidently Emanuel concluded that he could be more effective and influential as chief of staff.  Of course, it will help Obama enormously to have both a veteran of a previous administration and a former member of the House leadership working at his side.
Aziz:
How much does Obama pay you to offer excuses for everything he does?
This is a message from Obama to Republicans saying "forget about partnership." It is also a message to his "change" supporters saying "Yeah, I talked about change, but when push came to shove, I put the Clinton White House back in charge."
It’s more or less exactly what I expected. I expect we’ll see more of the same as people start to see the real Obama, not the mirage they voted for.
It is going to be fun seeing how far you will go to rationalize his actions Aziz, before you finally realize that you (and a majority of other Americans) voted for an image, but unfortunately got an actual human being into office. A human being you were thoroughly and repeatedly warned about, I must add.
Sad days for this nation.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Winter is definitely coming
I don’t dislike Rahm Emanuel. That said, here’s what I actually think:
The Left won. They won completely and utterly and absolutely. Now they’ve got to govern. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Emanuel is a good choice in that regard. He’s a no-holds-barred advocate for his beliefs. He’ll be a right-hand-man for our nation’s new President. He could learn a lesson or two from Andy Card, because he’s in charge now. I wish him (sincerely) every luck in that regard.
By the way, on an historic matter:
Calvin Coolidge created the office of Chief of Staff, which is not a Constitutional office but which is indispensable to the modern Presidency. Indeed, Constitutionally it’s an almost irrelevant office. Unlike Secretary of State, or Secretary of War, or other Constitutional authorities, it has no clearly defined roles. Yet it has enormous powers: of all the Cabinet Secretaries, he’s the guy who gets to be the gatekeeper to the President. I wish him every luck. It’s an often thankless task.
CC, I wish! I could use the money. I envy you your deal.
Emanuel on Petraeus’s report to Congress in 9/07 that indicated violence was trending downward:
To Representative Rahm Emanuel, the general’s written report deserved to win “the Nobel Prize for creative statistics or the Pulitzer for fiction.â€
Classy. Smart.
"CC, I wish! I could use the money. I envy you your deal."
ROTFLMFAO!!!! That’s about the cleverest thing you’ve ever said Aziz! ;)
I wish I had a deal too. I don’t even have google ads on my blog….
Seriously though Aziz, you make me wonder what abuse Obama could commit that would actually get past your blinders… It’s scary.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Winter is definitely coming
ROTFLMFAO!!!! That’s about the cleverest thing you’ve ever said Aziz!
sadly, this is probably true. :P
as far as google, after about 4 years of having them on my various blogs, I now make the kingly sum of about 25 cents a day on average.
I honestly don’t see myself as having blinders on, any more than you do. In fact whenever I am tempted to think YOU have blinders, I remind myself of your attitude towards me, and it gives me humility. So thanks for that, anyway.
The bottom line is that I fundamentally agree with Liberal political ideas, including a distrust of the free market profit motive, an aversion to “trickle down” economic policies, a preference to grow the economy rather than try to optimize it by paring down spending, a belief that government spending is not inherently bad (when coupled with good transparency and oversight), etc. You disagree on all ofthis and more. So expecting me to “put my blinders away” is basically expecting me to stop believing in these things and adopt your beliefs instead (and vice versa as far as your “blinders” go). Thats ridiculous, why should we change our opinions? They arise from our rational assessment of issues and facts.
Contrary to what many believe, I think rationalism is not deterministic; there’s no such thing as super-rationality. In other words, its a feature, not a bug, that two people will sit down and look at the same set of facts and conclude two different things. Then, factor in the fact that we probably arent looking at eth same set of facts, and the expectation of agreement is even more absurd. Fundamentally, I think you may be wrong, but I don’t think you are irrational.
I am reasonably sure from yoru statements of disdain towards me and liberals in general that you don’t accord me that benefit of the doubt that I accord you, which is fine. You don’t have to like me or respect me, and thta doesn’t mean you are racist or an islamphobe or even a bad person. I do critique Republicans heavily but I do not and never have said that they are as a group flawed or irrational – my examples of ODS, for exmaple, are intended to highlight the extreme so that the moderates see it and recoil (as you have). That recoil is my purpose in in pointing out.
I could turn your question around and ask you under what circumstances could Obama do something that would please you. But what sthe point – for Obama to meet your approval he’d have to be a center-right politician at least, or further right than that. Its a pointles excercise. I will note that I have praised Bush however many times, including defending him from teh charge that he is waging a war against islam. Most of my defenses of Bush take place in front of liberal audiences – my record at Dailykos in my diaries there speaks for itself. Though I have in my years of posting to DW praised Bush as well.
I also will note that I have already heavily critiqued Obama on numerous issues. And I have many critiques in the queue, especially once he takes office. Right now however I am more interested in laying out my expectations, especially on foreign policy, than critiquing him for campaign rhetoric. You will doubtless accuse me of being soft on him, and that my critiques are on unimportant matters whereas on the issues that count I give him a free pass; fair enough, your weighting of the issues is different than mine.
I fully understand where you come from because (and you’l hate the comparison) I’ve many friends like you on teh leftist end of the spectrum who critique me in almost rpecisely the same manner. I’m not overly concerned. I follow my own conscience and logic and Im not afraid to be shown wrong, apologize when necessary, or even change my mind. I’ve done all three things here at DW on teh frontpage, too.
Aziz:
Fair enough. I certainly have been a frequent and harsh critic of GW Bush and I still get accused (as you did above) of being a Bush minion.
And I have offered Obama sincere praise where I feel such praise is warranted, which has been rare, but not nonexistent.
As far as whether two people viewing the same facts and reaching different conclusions is a "bug" or a "feature" I suppose you and I will have to disagree, but I think it depends a lot on the facts themselves. The recent housing/credit crisis meltdown is a perfect example. I think the "facts" are INCONTROVERTABLE that the whole mess was created by Democrats, was protected by Democrats and Democrats profited greatly from that protection until the whole thing blew up, at which time they blamed Republicans. I guess you can claim it is "rational" to view the facts that exist and reach the conclusion that Republicans are to blame for the mess, but frankly Aziz, I DO believe that conclusion to demonstrate fundamental partisan irrationality. In fact the main "blame" that I do give to Republicans is that they were too cowardly to fight the Democrats on the subject due to unfair cries of "racist! racist!" when one of them asked "gee, is it really a good idea to legally require banks giving loans to people who demonstrably can not pay them back?"
In short Aziz, rationality LEADS me to conservatism. Not my wishful thinking.
We will both have to see how Obama does. I sincerely hope that he transcends his history, his voting record, his education, his job history, his associations with radical leftists, both professionally and personally, and his record of breaking major promises to the country.
I really do. History and RATIONALITY though, compel me to consider the likelihood that his past actions are the best measure of his future actions.
And as I said, so far as President-elect, he is doing exactly what I would expect those past actions to predict.
I’ll let you know when he does something that surprises me Aziz. So far it hasn’t happened.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Ruminations on an Obama administration?
I didnt say you were a bush apologist. i said that whenever i am tempted to think you are one, i am reminded how you think I am an Obama apologist, and then that gives me humility. In other words, I am stopped from believing you to be one. perhaps that wasnt clear.
sure, of course rationality leads yo to conservatism. But your mistake is your insistence that theres only one outcome of rationlaity. You’re buying into teh superationality argument which has been conclusively proven false, as a simple excercise in game theory. You keep invoking reason as an absolute but its not.
Nice man. From Slate on 11/6:
"And Emanuel’s partisanship—after winning back the House in 2006, he recommended that Republicans "go fuck themselves"—could undercut Obama’s promises to reach across the aisle."
Classy, too….
Aziz:
You are selectively choosing which of my comments to listen to. I said that whether a conclusion can be rationally said to be driven from facts DEPENDS ON THE FACTS.
Sure there are many, many cases where observation is so clouded by perception and reality that you can’t actually get to clear enough FACTS to make a demonstrably RATIONAL decision.
Your argument with me is that you and I disagree when the FACTS are clear.
I see this as an inability for you to see reality based on preconceptions that are so steeped in ideology that you literally can’t see the forest for the trees.
No doubt you see me the same way.
Oh well. I guess the final analysis will be done by history, not by you or me.
I try not to claim a rational basis for a conclusion unless the facts are clear. 2+2 = 4, etc. When the facts are not clear one has to fall back on principle. This is where you necessarily get into a bit of circular reasoning, no matter which ideology you adopt. I claim that my conservatism comes from a rational analysis of incontrovertable facts, and now that I AM conservative, when the facts are not incontrovertable, I lean on conservative principles BECAUSE I think they are demonstrably more in accord with historical fact. But there is no way to deny that once I’ve reached that position I am using conservatism as an ideology to lead me to a conclusion when facts alone can’t get me there. That’s life.
I have been hard on you Aziz, but I think you have deserved it. I do see you as a rational, reasonable person, and one who can discuss things without ALWAYS descending into vitriol, and as such I really need to give you more credit for that.
But right now I think you are being driven by ideology and wishful thinking more than by history and facts. And you no doubt view me the same way.
I stand by my analysis of GW Bush and Bill Clinton and think that it has stood up well when confronted with reality and history. We’ll see how things go with Obama. As I said, it is conceivable, if unlikely, that he will actually transcend his past history and become a great President. But so far I’ve seen nothing but a flim-flam man who has promised the world to the world.
It is going to be interesting watching to see how he manages to navigate his way through reality. Which promises will he break? Or will he attempt to fulfill all of them, and break the country in the attempt?
Some are saying that the reason he chose Rahm as his Chief of Staff is so that he doesn’t have to be the one to bring the bad news to those special interests who are going to be asking for their piece of the pie now, while Obama can continue to publicly espouse the empty platitudes he campaigned on. Perhaps so, and perhaps he will get away with it.
But I doubt it. I think Obama is going to discover that he has made a very difficult bed to sleep in. And that some of his bed partners aren’t really that interested in maintaining an illusion of the Messiah’s infallibility.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Ruminations on an Obama administration?
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