Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question."
I hope this puts to rest the notion that this is all some master stroke of kumbayah, of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.
This is about telling you that you mean nothing. That democracy is a nice word, but it should never threaten the entitlement of the most exclusive club in the world.
No matter what Joe Lieberman does, the people who are protecting him hate you much more than they hate him.
There's that. But there's also disdain for the American electorate that voted in overwhelming numbers for change from the discredited Bush/McCain/Lieberman policies. But in a city known for tone-deafness, there clearly isn't a more tone-deaf group than the Senate Dems.
I'm done with Reid as Senate leader.
If you thought that was venomous and slightly unhinged, you should see the comments! For example, this gem at FireDogLake:
And what the dems be saying six months from now when Holy Joe is finally holding hearings in his committee, investigating Obama people for firing DHS & DOJ people planted by the bushies? Dammit, dems, we gave you the White House & both houses of Congress, could you possibly be persuaded to use it for the good of we the people or will you prove for all time that you only serve the same corporate masters as your opposition?
Posted by: Mike ||
11/18/2008 14:52 ||
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#1
They've got a lot to learn, and if I read my cards correctly, they'll be learning it the hard way from Big O.
#2
In other news, the nutroots are apparently plotting full-out political purges of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Will this be on the QT or are we to be enjoying the spectacle of full-on show trials?
Five minute hate session, everybody!
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/18/2008 16:20 Comments ||
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#3
Hey, did I tell you the one about the Polish Missionary who... was eaten by Harry Reid?
52% is an automatic recount, with votes to be taken away, for a Republican.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2008 17:48 Comments ||
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#6
Heck, Salvadore Allende of Chile got a narrow plurality over his opponent. From Wiki:
On 4 September 1970, he obtained a narrow plurality of 36.2 percent to 34.9 percent over Jorge Alessandri, a former president, with 27.8 percent going to a third candidate (Radomiro Tomic) of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC).
He took it as a mandate to start his socialist utopia. He nationalized the el Tiniente copper mine without compensation. I worked for Kennecott copper at the time. Kennecott filed suit and injunctions all over the world and tied up all of Allende's copper concentrates. Eventually Allende took a dirt nap because he pi$$ed off the military. A plurality or slight majority does not a mandate make.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/18/2008 20:47 Comments ||
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Writing in his blog, Mr Czarnecki, an MEP, quoted the foreign minister as saying: "Have you heard that Obama may have a Polish connection? His grandfather ate a Polish missionary."
Posted by: john frum ||
11/18/2008 14:36 ||
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Three blocks from the White House, on the 10th floor of a sleek glass building, young workers pound at computers, with giant flat-screen TVs overhead. It has the look and feel of a high-tech startup.
In many ways it is. The product is ideas.
Thanks in part to funding from benefactors such as billionaire George Soros, the Center for American Progress has become in just five years an intellectual wellspring for Democratic policy proposals, including many that are shaping the agenda of the new Obama administration.
Much as the Heritage Foundation provided intellectual heft for the Republican Party in the 1980s, CAP has been an incubator for liberal thought and helped build the platform that triumphed in the 2008 campaign.
``What CAP has done is recapture the role of ideas as an important political force, something the Republicans had been better at for 25 years,'' said Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute, a non-partisan policy-research organization in Washington.
CAP's president and founder, John Podesta, 59, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is one of three people running the transition team for president-elect Barack Obama, 47. A squadron of CAP experts is working with them.
Some of the group's recommendations already have been adopted by the president-elect. These include the center's call for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and a buildup of forces in Afghanistan, a plan for universal health coverage through employer plans and proposals to create purchasing pools that allow small businesses to spread the cost among a larger group of workers. Obama has endorsed much of a CAP plan to create ``green jobs'' linked to alleviating global climate change.
CAP also is advocating the creation of a ``National Energy Council'' headed by an official with the stature of the national security adviser and who would be charged with ``transforming the energy base'' of the U.S. In addition, CAP urges the creation of a White House ``office of social entrepreneurship'' to spur new ideas for addressing social problems.
To help promote its ideas, CAP employs 11 full-time bloggers who contribute to two Web sites, ThinkProgress and the Wonk Room; others prepare daily feeds for radio stations. The center's policy briefings are standing-room only, packed with lobbyists, advocacy-group representatives and reporters looking for insights on where the Obama administration is headed.
``The center is the premier progressive think tank in Washington,'' said Mark Green, head of the New Democracy Project, an urban-affairs institute in New York.
Just eight days after the Nov. 4 election, CAP released a 300,000-word volume called ``Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President'' that offers advice on issues such as economic revival and fixing the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Work on the book began almost a year ago.
CAP, which has 180 staffers and a $27 million budget, devotes as much as half of its resources to promoting its ideas through blogs, events, publications and media outreach.
The center's future was far from certain in 2003, when wealthy donors such as Soros and film producer Stephen Bing gave $10 million or more to fill what they believed was an intellectual void in the Democratic Party and create a vehicle to produce an agenda for the party's eventual return to power.
Podesta modeled the center on the Heritage Foundation, which became the go-to policy-research organization in 1981 when newly elected President Ronald Reagan embraced its conservative ideas embodied in a book called ``Mandate for Leadership.'' Heritage was just seven years old.
CAP and Heritage have something else in common. ``Others strive to be objective, we don't,'' said Jennifer Palmieri, CAP's vice president for communications.
Podesta likes to say, ``we're not a think tank, we're an action tank,'' said Dan Weiss, an environmental activist who joined CAP last year.
CAP isn't the only Democratic-leaning research organization in Washington with enhanced cachet after Obama's election. The 92-year-old Brookings Institution, for example, has advisers in Obama's inner circle, including economist Jason Furman and foreign-policy expert Susan Rice. Others are working either part-time or full-time in the Obama transition.
Podesta's center isn't even among the biggest or best- funded. Brookings has a staff of more than 400 and an annual budget of $48 million. Heritage has a staff of 200 and a budget of $60 million. The American Enterprise Institute, which has close ties to the administration of President George W. Bush, has about 140 staffers, including Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, and a budget of $28 million.
Yet CAP may be the most influential. In addition to Podesta, at least 10 other CAP experts are advising the incoming administration, including Melody Barnes, the center's executive vice president for policy who co-chairs the agency-review working group and Cassandra Butts, the senior vice president for domestic policy, who is now a senior transition staffer.
``John understood that ideas have power in this town, and he brought in super-bright people whose ideas have become essential reading,'' Isaacson said.
CAP's successes offer a lesson for Republican-leaning groups, said James McGann, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who tracks policy groups. ``They've shown that one has to constantly innovate and be responsible to an ever-changing demographics and electorate, and have policies that are responsive to that,'' McGann said. As the NEOCONs had PNAC, the NEOSOCs have CAP.
#1
Yeah, I went to the site and read the article on immigration. Open borders, it's all our fault because we're not nice to the "undocumented immigrants" who break our laws by coming here and we need to be more "welcoming" and "inclusionary."
Yeah, just let them in. See how great a policy that has been for California? We can have the same problems they have there in EVERY state in the Union!
I guess I'm being bitter again. Better go clean my guns and read my Bible.
#2
PNAC - Project for a New American Century died about 2006. Not a single new paper or research project is listed on their website since then.
Posted by: DanNY ||
11/18/2008 8:34 Comments ||
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#3
I think that PNAC wised up and decided to take a lower profile. They might have even quietly reformed somewhere else, which would have been a good idea.
#7
I love how they can't maintain the conceit of being about ideas for the length of a Bloomsberg puff piece. Fifteen paragraphs in, we have Podesta boasting that he's more about action than thought. And all of their "ideas" are shallow policy prescriptions. You'd think that some study of the actual grown-up think-tanks might have clued them into the distinction between writing up a bill and building a proper policy portfolio. At least the Clintons were genuine wonks.
These guys seem to have confused earnest with erudite and plodding with preparation.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/18/2008 16:28 Comments ||
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Phil Schiliro has spent his entire working life in Congress, doing every imaginable job from drafting arcane legislation to running for a seat himself. Steeped in the culture and traditions of Capitol Hill, Schiliro seemed to be one of those people who'd never leave voluntarily he'd have to be carted out.
But President-elect Barack Obama changed all that Saturday when he snagged Schiliro to be his White House liaison to Congress. Now Schiliro, 52, is tasked with being the bridge between the new president and the lawmakers who have the power to make or break his agenda.
Schiliro, soft-spoken but intense, has had several months of practice for the job. He was the middleman between the Obama campaign and Congress. Schiliro was the one Obama dispatched to closed-door meetings of House Democrats last month to soothe nerves and count noses on the eve of a vote on the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
Now, when lawmakers want to give the president-elect advice solicited or otherwise on anything from Cabinet appointments to legislative strategy, they turn to Schiliro.
After more than a quarter-century on Capitol Hill crafting major legislation and spearheading investigations, Schiliro now toils in an office in downtown D.C. about halfway between the White House and the Capitol where his job is equal parts lobbyist, ambassador and even sometimes psychologist.
"I give Phil Schiliro a great deal of the credit for the smooth working relationship between Obama and the Congress," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Schiliro's former boss.
"He listens to people, he hears what their concerns are, he's very tactful and diplomatic. ... He knows how things can get done," said Waxman, who chairs the Oversight and Government Reform Committee where Schiliro led probes of everything from the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster in India to steroid use in Major League Baseball.
Schiliro, who declined to be interviewed for this report, could not be more different in temperament from the other man at the center of Obama's relationship with Congress: the bombastic, cocky and foul-mouthed Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who will become chief of staff in the new White House.
Colleagues and adversaries uniformly describe the media-shy Schiliro instead as quiet and even-keeled though with sharp political instincts and steely persistence when it comes to getting his way.
"He is a ruthless partisan," said Mark Corallo, a Republican strategist who faced off against Schiliro as a top aide on the government reform panel when the GOP controlled the House. "He is the kind of guy who's going to fight tooth and nail for his side, but he's not going to be odious and disagreeable and hateful."
He's not likely to lose, either. Waxman credits his former top aide with killing a Reagan administration clean air bill on a one-vote margin during the 1980s.
Schiliro set up backers of the legislation, including Democratic Rep. John Dingell, to lose a test-vote during a legislative drafting session on the measure in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Waxman said. That changed the dynamics on the issue on Capitol Hill and eventually yielded a compromise bill in 1990.
It's stories like that that have fueled private speculation by some congressional insiders that Schiliro is quietly working for Obama and with the unspoken encouragement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. to help Waxman, a strong environmentalist, topple Dingell as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The panel will take the lead on climate change legislation that will likely be one of the heaviest lifts of Obama's presidency.
There's no concrete evidence of those efforts, and Obama has taken pains so far to steer clear of intramural party fights about committee chairmanships or policy differences.
But there's little that goes on these days among senior Democrats in Congress that Schiliro a Pelosi favorite isn't intimately involved in, or at least privy to. Last week alone, Schiliro dialed into Democratic leaders' strategy-plotting sessions on a new auto industry bailout, dealt with queries about inauguration tickets and fielded lawmakers' recommendations for whom Obama should tap for his administration.
When Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., had a few picks he wanted to send Obama, he dialed "Phil." Schiliro told him to get the relevant resumes to him and John D. Podesta, who's leading Obama's transition to the presidency.
"I didn't feel the need to go beyond that. I trust his word," Cummings said.
The Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Schiliro studied political science at Hofstra University and landed on Capitol Hill in 1981, fresh out of Lewis and Clark Law School. He took an entry-level job with then-Rep. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., but it wasn't long before he impressed Waxman, who poached him for his own staff. Within a year, Schiliro was Waxman's chief of staff, a position he held for a total of 25 years with a yearlong intermission in 2004 when he became a top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Schiliro made two unsuccessful bids to become a congressman himself, moving back to his parents' home on New York's Long Island in 1992 and then again in 1994 to run.
Schiliro displayed his willingness to use bare-knuckled tactics in the 1994 bid, when he helped engineer a late move to kick another Democrat off the ballot so he could run.
Even though Schiliro lost, many lawmakers still say they regard him as one of them.
"He's basically a member" of Congress, said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., who says Schiliro has "legislative intuition" that can provide lawmakers with a vital roadmap on how an issue is likely to play out, and affect them politically.
"He knows what's a survivable challenge and not," said Cooper, a centrist from a conservative-leaning state. "Instead of just saying 'Vote for the damn thing,' it's like, 'We'll protect you with everything we've got.' You just put total faith in what Phil says," Cooper said.
"I give Phil Schiliro a great deal of the credit for the smooth working relationship between Obama and the Congress," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Schiliro's former boss.
It's been two weeks, Henry. You chowderheads just got back to Washington. How long has that 'working relationship' been in operation, five minutes?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/18/2008 20:56 Comments ||
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#3
Aren't you supposed to put up the monuments and enact the holidays AFTER the results are clear? I guess we're all about to learn what happens when the rewards precede the results.
The New York Times magazine had a story yesterday by Ron Suskind which reconstructed the time in which Barack Obama decided to run for president. Obama was asked by his wife what he wanted to accomplish, and the answer he came up with was that he simply thought it would be a wonderful thing for everyone if he were in the White House.
[Obama strategist David Axelrod] thought back on what he called the original why question, what got all this started, back in December 2006. Barack, Michelle and eight others were in Axelrods office in downtown Chicago. If Barack was going to run, he had to decide quickly, a point the group made by laying out primary schedules and game plans for fund-raising and building an organization. Insights were offered from around the room.
It was Michelle, Axelrod remembers, who stopped the show. You need to ask yourself, Why do you want to do this? she said directly. What are hoping to uniquely accomplish, Barack?
Obama sat quietly for a moment, and everyone waited. This I know: When I raise my hand and take that oath of office, I think the world will look at us differently, he said. And millions of kids across this country will look at themselves differently.
#2
OT: My Belgian wife was reading DeStandaard online today and saw where the diversity visa lottery program has a ten fold increase in applicants in Belgium. Seems, according to the report, a lot of people in Europe want to move to America because they think our social and welfare programs are going to be more liberal than even in Europe. How do you like those red apples?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
11/18/2008 12:05 Comments ||
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#3
That last paragraph is stunning in its blatant narcissism.
Barack Obama's serious flirtation with his one-time rival, Hillary Clinton, over the post of secretary of State has been welcomed by everyone from Henry Kissinger to Bill Clinton as an effective, grand gesture by the president-elect.
It's not playing quite as well, however, in some precincts of Obamaland. From his supporters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, to campaign aides of the soon-to-be commander-in-chief, there's a sense of ambivalence about giving a top political plum to a woman they spent 18 months hammering as the compromised standard-bearer of an era that deserves to be forgotten.
"These are people who believe in this stuff more than Barack himself does," said a Democrat close to Obama's campaign. "These guys didn't put together a campaign in order to turn the government over to the Clintons."
Posted by: Mike ||
11/18/2008 11:07 ||
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#2
Obama will be a uniter - his whackatoid followers will get to experience the same groaning and head-shaking that we on the right have gone through for 8 years with Bush...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/18/2008 11:23 Comments ||
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#3
Keeping your enemies closer is very Arab, isn't it?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
11/18/2008 11:36 Comments ||
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#4
I think Hillary would be a very good Secretary of State and it would keep her enough out of his hair and out of the senate so he can try to get his stuff through.
The only mistake is it might give her enough credentials to make a run for the dhimocrats in 2012 when Obama proves to be a worse president than Jimmy Carter.
#5
Considering how he has appeared to be all things to all his believers, there is lotsa room for disappointment when he fails to live up to their hopey/changey dreams.
Extra butter on my popcorn, please. With a dash of garlic salt and parmesan, thanks.
Hillary Clinton is the epitome of the entrenched Washington political establishment that Obama so effectively challenged and so thoroughly disdained. That's what makes her consideration so puzzling. But it's not just her old politics that should immediately disqualify her. With her out-of-control husband freelancing with foreign governments to raise money for his cronies, his foundation, and for speaking fees for himself, the potential for serious conflicts of interest are incalculable and dangerous. We don't know precisely what the former president has been up to; it's all secret. For more than eight years, Bill Clinton has adamantly refused to disclose the fat-cat donors to his library and foundation. Because of a computer error in the Clinton Library, the New York Sun inadvertently learned that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai, the U.A.E, Kuwait, and Morocco have chipped in. But what about other governments or businesses?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
"Kos" @ "Daily Kos"
[Byron York]
It's not playing quite as well, however, in some precincts of Obamaland. From his supporters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, to campaign aides of the soon-to-be commander-in-chief, there's a sense of ambivalence about giving a top political plum to a woman they spent 18 months hammering as the compromised standard-bearer of an era that deserves to be forgotten.
