Washington DC is all atwitter about White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler’s decision not to notify the president that an Inspector General report on the Internal Revenue Service was going to reveal that the IRS had improperly harassed right-wing groups pretending to be social services organizations. Apparently, the president was supposed to get involved prior to the completion of the report so that he could bias the results. Fortunately, David Plouffe doesn’t have any time for this bullshit.
Clinton White House counsel Lanny Davis said Ruemmler lacks political and media savvy. He said she had “an obligation to give the president a heads-up and generally describe what might be coming down the track [on the IRS] so you can do crisis management planning.”
Plouffe rejected that criticism, saying, “I know blowhards like Lanny Davis have posited this question, but they’re dead wrong.” Obama, he said, has “plenty of people who give him political advice. He needs a top-flight lawyer who’s going to run a good process, and that’s what she’s done.”
There’s basically nothing that could endear me more to Plouffe than him unapologetically denigrating Lanny Davis. That, in a nutshell, is why I preferred Obama to Clinton.
+1. I remember when I first paid attention and saw Lanny spinning fr Clinton on CNN and was like “who the fuck is this guy, and why does anyone take him seriously.” Of course that was when I was 18 and didn’t know who Lanny was, but all I could think was “I question anyone’s judgment for having him on their payroll.”
Good observation and wise thought for an eighteen year old. It gets harder to see and think clearly as we age and become used to accepting spin and spinmeisters as for reality.
Really? I could smell that rat from a mile away. Same reason I didn’t back Edwards; phony through and through. Obama fooled me until about march of 08. Still supported him tho.
My parents loved him and I always said he is a scumbag. I get the same impression about Cantor (and that is aside from his politics). I always say I would not be surprised at all if there is a sex scandal in Cantor’s future. He gives off the same slimey vibe that Edwards did.
Well, not all older people lose that ability to spot a phoney. I honestly never understood how so many people — at dKos no less — couldn’t see through John Edwards. Oh, how they cheered when Kerry chose him for VP and even more jumped on his 2008 bandwagon.
However, must also recognize that young people were taken in by Reagan. The only group that seemed better able to appreciate who Reagan was were actors that weren’t committed GOP partisans.
Obama was too opaque to get a good read on in 2008. Leaving voters with a choice between neo-liberal warhawks and maybe not a neo-liberal warhawk. (He did consult with Joseph Stiglitz during the campaign.) The answer came within days of his election as he named his cabinet, but “liberals” refused to believe their eyes or didn’t bother even to look.
Well, I recall Krugman, as he did with GWB, analyzed Obama’s proposals in depth and developed a lot of doubts about him back in the primary days – mostly based on his lukewarm health care proposals. I know Krugman was tarnished by a lot of people as a PUMA because of that (and frankly I didn’t want to hear it myself, as I was rooting for Obama myself) but his concerns were, as usual, validated after the election.
There were other signs as well. His reversal on FISA in the summer of 2008, for example – probably something he had to do to reassure the Democratic leadership that he wasn’t going to actually do any of those great things he had said with regard to Constitutional rights.
In the end I don’t see Obama as a snake oil guy like Edwards or Bill Clinton, and certainly not a puppet who didn’t understand what his staff was doing in his name like Reagan and GWB. I think his natural role has always been mediator – he is most comfortable sitting in the middle, building trusting relationships with all sides, and coming to a consensus agreement even if it’s not what he personally would have wanted. Like a mediator his positions evolve as different input is received – consider his positive evolution on the topic of Gay rights or his negative evolution on the topic of Constitutional rights with regard to potential and accused terrorists – in both cases as the people surrounding him changed and he started hearing different inputs his own positions changed.
This is a great personality for roles like editor of the Harvard Review or community organizer or state legislator or even US Senator. In the last three examples he can pick and choose issues to focus on and involve stakeholders to come to a decision. In the first example he instead has to deal all issues presented, but the stakeholder group is small enough that everyone gets a voice and they have a strong set of common interests to keep them grounded.
As President … or any lead adminstrator role … this personality doesn’t work as well. First, in such a role you aren’t going to be allowed to be the disinterested mediator, no matter how much you may want to be. You are best served by having and establishing a clear vision, and if you don’t do so your opponents will define your vision for you in the most negative way possible.
Second, it’s very hard as President to hear from all stakeholders – the issues are too many, the country too huge, the filters too easily manipulated by those around you. In this manner he can be persuaded to follow a HAMP administration strategy that favors banks and hurts the mortgagees – who weren’t seated at the stakeholder table.
Third, this can easily lead to inconsistent decision making. One set of stakeholders comes to the table on one decision and a different set on another related decision. Thus we can have CO2 being classified as a pollutant followed by the state department advocating for the keystone pipeline, or CAFE requirements boosted while deep sea offshore drilling permits are increased.
I don’t agree it doesn’t work as well. While George Washington followed most of Alexander Hamiltons policies, he was very much the same personality. Maybe it doesn’t work in these times, or with this Congress — tho I’m not sure what would — but it can work well. He problem are the actors to be mediate with: far-right loons and neoliberals. And of course the loons want to burn it down.
Agree. Must also recognize that lack of vision is valuable in assuming a mediator-in-chief role.
Recall Krugman bashing Obama over Obama’s inability to understand that Social Security wasn’t broken and he still doesn’t get that. wrt health care during the 2008 primary wasn’t it Obama that rejected the individual mandate and Clinton that supported it? For me that remains a horrible component of the ACA.
See my recent “Consigliore” post.
Are You Familiar w/the “Consiglieri” Concept? Obama is.
This is exactly what I was referencing.
Now…i wonder if there is a recording of some sort…a memo, an email, anything tangible…some kind of evidence that Obama or some of his top underlings actually tasked people like Ruemmler to keep him out of dangerous loops at all costs. Not that I necessarily disagree with the tactic…it’s really just business as usual in this dog-eat-dog empire, up and down the scale…but the way the media is jumping on this scandal a smoking gun of that sort would be nasty!!!
I doubt it…that’s where the teflon comes in…but there it is.
No honor among thieves. At any level.
Bush II got away with stuff that makes this look like playground intrigue, but his dumb act was insulation enough even if it was real.
Add Cheney to the mix and you had some real sleight of mind.
I await a preznit who reaches the level of the famed ’80s NYC mafia don Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, who walked the streets of NYC in his pajamas as proof of his insanity and thus innocence.
Crazy like a fox he was.
What a world.
AG
Nicely done.
Thank you.
AG
Lest we forget, a bit of Lanny Davis’ bio from TPM:
And he is/was a “Fox News contributor.”
you are only scratching the surface.
I’m sure which is why I said “a bit” of his bio. But that “bit” is enough for me to recognize a true snake within US politics.
And Hillary Clinton was Obama’s “choice”…or perhaps more accurately that was part of the deal that was made to allow him be the winner in the 2008 election…as Secretary of State. A much lauded Secretary of State, by the way. Lauded by whom? By the government media complex, of course.
Don’t you get it, folks?
Over and over and over and over again.
THEY’RE ON THE SAME TEAM!!!
The PermaGov team, fer chrissake!!!
As are their “opponents.”
Have you learned nothing from WWA-style fake wrestilng promotions? The good guys and the bad guys are interchangeable. It’s all part of the scam. All part of the soap opera.
Are we still involved in a Middle Eastern/anti-Muslim war? Up to our camouflage caps?
Yes.
Have the banks and financial hustlers who caused the economic breakdown of this country gone to jail?
No.
Have the Ratpublican hustlers who lied us into this war in the first place gone to jail? Have their co-conspirators in the military and the media gone to jail?
No.
Of course not.
Wake the fuck up.
Fundamental change is the only answer. Not “He said/she said,” not “I don’t like his (or her) style.”
They are all on the same fucking team!!!
Sigh.
WTFU.
Sigh.
Later (sigh)…
AG
blinkers [ˈblɪŋkəz]
pl n
Blinkers [ˈblɪŋkəz]
A new word for die-hard DemRats. Every time someone points out that absolutely nothing of any real import..none of the federal actions that have caused this terrific sinkhole into which we have fallen…has been effectively changed, they blink and go “FOUR MORE YEARS!!!”. (Well…3.5 more years now, if you don’t count the lame duck last year or so of an outgoing preznit’s administration. Which I do. But still…
UH oh!!!
And the cry of the blinkers will continue.
Please.
Give me a break.
When’s it gonna happen, Booman?
The countdown is on!
Inquiring minds want to know.
When does the frog-marching begin?
I call bullshit. Some of the criminal forms have been changed…ostensibly out of Iraq, ostensibly a kinder, gentler, more supervised financial sector…but really? Out of Iraq but deeper into many other places in the area. (Again…covert as well as overt operations.)
And those watching the financial henhouse? Please. Foxes all Guilty foxes.
The fix jes’ keeps rolling along. Just as it’s always been.
The fix jes’ keeps rolling along. Just as it’s always been.
You know who’s gonna be next, right?
Ms. Clinton and/or (Not-so-fat-anymore) Chris Christie. (He wants it so bad he’ll have an operation so’s he can curc his gluttony. No, not quite accurate…he’ll actually just transfer it to another appetite. Power. Watch.)
Clinton and/or Christie if we’re lucky.
Whatchoo gonna do then?
If not them?
UH OH!!!!!!!
The “Uh oh” years.
Bet on it.
AG
Hey, BooMan, AG pull-quoted himself. Now, that’s audacious.
Now, addressing you, AG: what’s your plan for getting our government to do what you believe it should? Forget the despair, bag the nonstop massively patronizing disappointment that we won’t face the facts.
What’s the plan for your revolution, AG?
You have to admit that having her within his tent stopped her and her professional and amateur fans from pissing on him during his first term. Savvy political move for a position that was unlikely to go to anyone with a mindset and world view different from Clinton.
It was certainly sold as a “savvy political move.”
But…who did the selling?
The government media complex did the selling.
How can you tell when they are lying?
When they are saying something.
I don’t swallow it.
The position of Secretary of State was “unlikely to go to anyone with a mindset and world view different from Clinton” because the PermaGov will not allow any changes to its strategic and tactical approaches. It won’t allow it in foreign affairs and it won’t allow any domestically either.
As I state below:
Bet on it.
AG
I think we can all agree that any show(or newspaper) that has Lanny Davis on to ask his opinion isn’t worth the time. The only thing anyone should ever do is to mock Davis for the scumbag he is.