I like Steve Clemons even though he occupies a place in Washington that I distrust pretty deeply. Clemons is a progressive-minded fellow who successfully maintains relationships on both sides of the aisle and gets along well with some people like Grover Norquist who I have no respect for whatsoever. But, these are the kinds of things you have to do to have a place at the table on foreign policy issues. To have your voice mean something to our permanent establishment, you have to become part of it in some ways. Clemons’s reward is not only influence, but access. I think there are some serious compromises that have to be made to play that game, but I understand those compromises and respect them. In any case, I wouldn’t say that I read Clemons with a jaundiced eye, just with a certain detachment. I don’t want to shake hands with people like Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and Zbigniew Brzezinski because I see all three of them as causing America to make some pretty disastrous foreign policy blunders that we’re still paying for. I think they all share a fatally flawed view of American power and its proper role in the post-Cold War world. It’s true that they aren’t neo-conservatives, but they’re not terribly different in the larger picture. Yet, they do represent a kind of center-right position when you compare them to loonies like John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham. And if you want any kind of bipartisan agreement on foreign policy…if you want any kind of cover from the right for tough decisions…these are folks you need to respect and cultivate. I get that.
On the other hand, Clemons’s decision to sign-on with Richard Luce’s Financial Times (subscription required) criticism of Obama’s inner sanctum on Chicago advisers strikes me just a tad too Sally Quninish for my tastes. It wouldn’t be so hard to take the criticism if the solution wasn’t to listen more to Katrina vanden Heuvel, Arianna Huffington, and Fareed Zakaria. Not to be a rube, but Obama isn’t going to benefit from listening to those creatures of Washington so much as he’d benefit from listening to his Secret Service detail, or the White House pastry chefs and florists. He should spend a little time (not too much) reading political commentary from people who live outside the beltway and have no pretensions to power. That’s the beauty of the internet. The opinion gatekeepers are long gone.
It may be that Obama’s closest advisers (Axelrod, Jarrett, Emanuel, and Gibbs) are mucking things up. Maybe they are better at campaigning than governing. Maybe they have too much influence. That’s a conversation I’m willing to have. But the solution ain’t to listen to more Washingtonian old-hands. Old hands are invaluable for some things and can be of some assistance in helping you figure out how to strategize getting stuff through Congress. You can’t come to Washington without massaging some of the egos around town because you’ll pay a price that hurts your agenda and the people who are depending on your help. But you can take it too far. I’m happier having some new blood in the president’s inner circle. If there’s a problem with Emanuel it wouldn’t surprise me. He’s not new blood. He’s there because he is supposed to know how to get things done. And he didn’t do it on health care. I just don’t know how much he is to blame for that. I do know that almost no one seems to like the guy and the long knives have been out for him since the day he took the job.
Boo:
Did you read this:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/02/08/nixon-the-obama-campaign-goes-to-china/
yeah .. yeah .. I know where the link leads … I could have swore that Marcy wrote about, or at least linked to, a Jane Mayer piece basically saying the same thing .. though not the part about hiring some other Washington, D.C. hands .. because a lot of people he picked are insiders .. like people that worked for Baucus and Tom Daschle … and
And he didn’t do it on health care. I just don’t know how much he is to blame for that. I do know that almost no one seems to like the guy and the long knives have been out for him since the day he took the job.
It’s only fair that the knives are out for Rahm .. after all .. he has no compunction about tossing people under the bus(or getting enjoyment out of punching hippies) .. so worrying that people have it out for him is kind of silly .. if you treat people like dog crap .. it’s pointless to wonder why karma comes back to bit you in the ass
Here is the Jane Mayer article I was talking about:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/15/100215fa_fact_mayer
Marcy was writing her article about torture. So I guess the point remains though. Rahm is a bad influence.
Eric Holder is trying to do the right thing. Emanuel is trying to do the right thing, too, but he’s lacking the moral compass of Holder. That happens frequently when your job is to navigate the politics and Lindsey Graham is what passes for reasonable.
Emanuel is trying to do the right thing? Really?
I don’t know how you can say Emanuel is trying to do the right thing. If by right thing you mean, “close Guantanamo,” then I would agree. However, closing Guantanamo was never the issue for me: it’s what it stands for. And from what I can tell, Emanuel opposes trials for these people because of what it might mean for climate legislation: opposition from Lindsay Graham.
Again, screw the Republicans. Expose them as the frauds that they are, air out their ideas, but Jesus H. Christ, give up on getting their votes!
You know as well as I do that Graham might support climate legislation, but the chances of him backing away from it at the last minute are very high. He’s from South Carolina, with essentially a tea partier as governor and side-kick Senator. The tea partiers will go after him for that vote; he knows it, and Obama should know it.
Use the EPA until you have the votes. Coaxing Republicans is, and always has been, a lost cause.
Lindsay Graham on climate change is doing what Olympia Snowe did on healthcare — delay, report to McConnell, recycle.
The idea that he is serious is ludicrous. He has not policy history with climate change legislation. About the only thing that SC could want is not to drill off Myrtle Beach.
Steve can be an idiot, but it’s also the case that Obama has politicked atrociously in the last 12 months.
But I have to wonder, was the empty suit thing more accurate than we gave it credit for?
I read all this stuff, and my takeaway from it is that Emmanuel is a clod. He seems to have a default mode of abusive behavior that is guaranteed to have your allies alienated sooner rather than later. It’s one thing if you’re winning contests and have a clear sense of why the various fights are worth fighting. In that case people will put up with negative personality traits, even find them endearing. But the White House is not winning fights and I think that a lot of times there is no sense that the White House continues to push the philosophical principles of the argument forward when they hit a political wall. That, coupled with Emmanuel’s denigrating behavior in public makes him an easy scapegoat: “Maybe we’re losing because of that guy I hate.”
Short version: Right now it’s just about getting some wins, but having assholes on your team makes it harder to rally for a win when you’re down.
What I see going on are some hints that cabinet members who were governors and know how to run state government and cabinet members who have run large institutions are seeing problems with the way the White House has been dealing with the departments and agencies. Now that the legislative agenda that Rahm was brought in to muscle through Congress has stalled, the internal discussion about how to proceed is afoot. And Rahm, who lives by the leak and has had almost total control over government leaks now finds that other players are beginning to challenge his control through leaks.
But I see some issues already. Who made Paul Begala the spokesman for the administration? Gibbs has underperformed because someone has given him too controlled a communications strategy on sensitive issues; he keeps repeating talking points mindlessly. No wonder Ed Schultz went off on him.
Of all of the advisers to Obama, Jarrett is reputed to have the most influence on checking ideas. No one has said exactly how that works.
So it comes back to Axelrod, who has reasserted himself in recent weeks and Emmanuel, who as ever tries to stay out of the limelight. And now Plouffe has been brought back. There is some question about who now is running the show, whereas before it was universally assumed that the day-to-day and the leaks were from Emmanuel.
Does anyone remember Mack McLarty? He was new blood. He was replaced after one year by Leon Panetta, who had analyzed the problem at the White House was a lack of order. McLarty was Clinton’s lifelong friend.
How about Marvin Watson? He was LBJ’s “unofficial” chief of staff until 1968, when he was named Postmaster General. LBJ moved his own legislation.
JFK did not have a chief of staff. Kenneth O’Donnell was Kennedy’s Appointments Secretary. The Kennedy Cabinet and Democratic leadership (through LBJ) did a lot what Rahm Emmanuel has been doing.
The chief of staff currently has the role of managing the Executive Office of the President, which has approximately 2000 employees. It would be possible for Rahm Emmanuel to remain chief of staff but have his role changed to more of an operating manager’s role.
The best chiefs of staff have been neither seen, heard, or had their existence noted much in the press. At those times, the job was considered too boring for note. But those times were often those of greatest legislative success.
Obama said Emanuel “had his back” at the time of the appointment. I took that to mean that Obama trusted Emanuel to play defense for him, and (to mix metaphors), to put out fires before they became unmanageable.
He seems to be ineffective at the politics of defense. Every report says he advocates pulling back and making the agenda smaller in response to setbacks, or even giving up some goals entirely. He doesn’t go to the mat and defend the policies with the vigor we know he’s capable of.
In addition, he seems to cause as many fires as he’s put out. He’s a focus for the dissatisfaction of the base, and now we get a report saying he’s angering the cabinet. Others have said he’s been counterproductive with the Senate.
Maybe the “long knives” account for all these reports, and maybe those knives are held by enemies of the President’s agenda. I’m willing to grant that it’s possible, although there are so many negative reports by so many different journalists that it would take a lot of knives to generate them – and they don’t account for all the on-record, poorly considered direct quotes.
Either way, though, I think the optics of the situation are getting really, really bad. Whether the knives have won a PR battle or Emanuel’s demeanor is truly damaging the administration is an interesting question, but either way looks terrible for Obama if Emanuel continues in his current role.
Exactly.
He had my attention ’til I got to his recommendation that the President seek advisement from Arianna Huffington. Is he serious?! Can’t be!
He had my attention–and agreement– because I’ve long been critical of Axelrod, Gibbs and Jarrett. It was my hope they would stay in Chicago. It was candidate Obama who said regularly on the campaign trail, “Republicans no how to win campaigns, but they don’t know how to govern”. I wonder if he laughs to himself at the irony. I’m most critical of Jarrett who I believe to be the most self-serving; whereas, the other two aforementioned are just incompetent. Anyone who has never served in elected office and never submitted herself to the scrutiny of voters but nonetheless thought she could parlay her friendship with the President into a Senate seat by getting into bed with a governor under federal investigation has no business advising the President. NONE!
Jarrett is partcularly dangerous for the President because she has undue influence over the President’s most trusted adviser: Michelle. That Olympics debacle had Jarrett’s and Michelle’s fingerprints all over it.
I agree on Jarrett but for a different reason. From everything I’ve seen, she is just not smart enough or knowledgeable enough to be advising a president. The personal in she seems to have with the First Family is the kind that is especially difficult to push back on, simply because there’s not enough intellectual content there to argue with — she’s all “feeling” and cliched thinking.
With somebody like Emanuel at least you know his predilections and patterns and can accept or dismiss his pressure based on something real. Axelrod strikes me as a closed book — his background suggests a pretty far left-lean, but he seems more than willing to go along with tepid compromise.
The real question that nobody can answer though remains: does what Obama decides really have much to do with his advisors, or is it all him? I think there’s a lot of truth in the latter. Still, his circle seems disappointingly light on thinkers who can put issues and policies in a coherent philosophical context. That may be the core flaw in the Obama regime to date when compared to administrations like FDR’s and LBJ’s.
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It’s been an erratic year for Obama and his administration. It seemed like the right hand wasn’t aware what the left hand was doing. Especially on foreign policy, too many different people were explaining US foreign policy. From the military generals, defense minister Gates to the special envoys and Secretary of State Clinton. The China policy is a mess, Obama will forgo the annual US-EU Summit and the Middle-East negotiations are in complete disarray. The only sensible policy going forward is the Af-Pak war, thanks to applied pressure on the new Pakistan government to counter the Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements in the tribal areas. Some excerpts from your link:
The Obama White House is geared for campaigning rather than governing …
“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.”
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.”
CHINA POLICY
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.”
Recent examples:
Has Hillary become a ceremonial figurehead at State, doing the compulsory visits with Foreign Ministers of lesser Nations? China policy is erratic after Obama’s visit, arms sales to Taiwan, trade disputes and the planned meeting with the Dalai Lama. China is already world’s second largest economic power. Will China continue support for sanctions on Iran? No coordination creating problems and a grave concern going forward.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I read both the Clemons and Luce articles and agree with both to some extent. I am really glad that they’re bringing David Plouffe back into the organization. During the campaign, he ran that giant Chicago operation, made good use of all the talents everyone brought to the table and strongly enforced his “No Leaks” and “No Assholes” rules. He also accurately predicted the delegates they’d win in each state from the start.
I don’t know who should be Chief of Staff but Rahm really should go somewhere away from the White House. He’s a control freak in an organization that must delegate alot more than these guys have been willing to do.
In the related thread at Cole’s place was something to the effect of “cue the morning cable show appearance 3..2..1..”.
That B list is embarrassing. ‘Nuff said.
emanuel rahm: mr. congeniality. how’s that worked so far, eh?
All I gotta say is Rahm must be doing something right to have all these folks pissed at him. Keep kicking butt and taking names Rahm!!!!!!!!