'Chicago School' Dons Give Obama High Marks (JUSTIN LAHART, 11/07/08, Wall Street Journal)
One reason for the alliance among economists at Chicago and elsewhere with Mr. Obama is that they feel he is a fellow traveler, sharing their empirical, data-driven bent. [...]Many economists were cheered in April when, amid higher gasoline prices, Mr. Obama opposed a gas-tax holiday -- an idea supported by Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, who was competing with Sen. Obama for the Democratic nomination. Textbook economics said in response to the tax cut, demand would simply raise gas prices to their previous level, and so the benefit of the cut would flow to energy producers rather than consumers.
"The gas-tax episode was a very good sign," said Princeton University economist Jose Scheinkman, who spent most of his career at Chicago and was chairman of its economics department from 1995 to 1998.
Mr. Scheinkman, an Obama supporter, says that insofar as economics has changed, so has politics. "There are many things that used to be very common to the left that the left is no longer interested in," he said. "They moved closer to the way economists tend to think."
Still, a number of Mr. Obama's pronouncements have made many economists wince. His sometimes strident views on trade protection during the campaign weren't only troubling to Chicago's free-trade backers. A 2005 survey of Ph.D.s randomly selected from the American Economics Association found that 87.5% of economists agreed that the U.S. should eliminate tariffs and barriers to trade.
In March, when a Canadian government memo surfaced citing Mr. Goolsbee saying that Obama campaign statements on the North American Free Trade Agreement amounted to "political positioning," Mr. Obama took some lumps, but many economists were relieved.
'No More Mr Nice Gay' as Mormons face vote backlash: Protesters vent fury after church funds successful effort to ban gay marriages (Guy Adams, 8 November 2008, Independent)
Daniel Ginnes carried a banner declaring: "No More Mr Nice Gay." Brian Lindsey held up a sign billing Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, as a "prophet, polygamist, paedophile." Hundreds of others simply chanted: "Mormon scum."
Details here from AP:California's black and Latino voters, who turned out in droves for Barack Obama, also provided key support in favor of the state's same-sex marriage ban. Seven in 10 black voters backed a successful ballot measure to overturn the California Supreme Court's May decision allowing same-sex marriage, according to exit polls for The Associated Press.
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McCain Campaign Autopsy (Ana Marie Cox, 11/07/08, The Daily Beast)
When did you know it was over?The moment that I will look back at as the moment deep in my gut that I knew, was September 29th when I was flying on a plane with Gov. Palin to Sedona for debate prep, watching the split screen on the TVs, because she had a Jet Blue charter, and it showed the stock market down seven, eight hundred points; it showed the Congress voting down the bailout package on the other side, and then, House Republicans went out and, told the world that the reason that they voted against this legislation, allowed the stock market to crash, allowed the economy to be so injured, was because Nancy Pelosi had given a mean and partisan speech on the floor. And this was their response.
The butler sees a new White House: Now retired, he started when blacks were in the kitchen. (Wil Haygood, November 7, 2008, LA Times)
President Truman called him Gene. President Ford liked to talk golf with him. He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week."I never missed a day of work," Allen said. [...]
First Lady Nancy Reagan came looking for him in the kitchen one day. She wanted to remind him about the upcoming state dinner for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. She told him he would not be working that night.
"She said, 'You and Helene are coming to the state dinner as guests of President Reagan and myself.' I'm telling you! I believe I'm the only butler to get invited to a state dinner."
Husbands and wives don't sit together at these events, and Helene was nervous about trying to make small talk with world leaders. "And my son said, 'Momma, just talk about your high school. They won't know the difference.'
"The senators were all talking about the colleges and universities that they went to," she said. "I was doing as much talking as they were.
"Had champagne that night," she said, looking over at her husband.
He just grinned: He was the man who stacked the champagne at the White House.
Colin L. Powell would become the highest ranking black of any White House to that point when he was named Reagan's national security advisor in 1987. Condoleezza Rice would have that position under President George W. Bush.
Gene Allen was promoted to maitre d' in 1980. He left the White House in 1986, after 34 years. President Reagan wrote him a sweet note. Nancy Reagan hugged him tight.
Interviewed at their home last week, Gene and Helene speculated about what it would mean if a black man were elected president.
"Just imagine," she said.
"It'd be really something," he said.
"We're pretty much past the going-out stage," she said. "But you never know. If he gets in there, it'd sure be nice to go over there again."
They talked about praying to help Barack Obama get to the White House. They'd go vote together. She'd lean on her cane with one hand, and him with the other, while walking down to the precinct. And she'd get supper going afterward. They went over their election day plans more than once.
"Imagine," she said.
"That's right," he said.
On Monday, Helene had a doctor's appointment. Gene woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged Helene again.
He was all alone.
"I woke up and my wife didn't," he said later.
Some friends and family members rushed over. He wanted to make coffee. They had to shoo the butler out of the kitchen.
The lady he married 65 years ago will be buried today.
The butler cast his vote for Obama on Tuesday. He so missed telling his Helene about the black man bound for the Oval Office.
The Gitmo Dilemma: Four reasons Obama won't close the controversial prison soon (Dan Ephron, 11/07/08, NEWSWEEK)
The NIMBY Problem: The U.S. will continue holding a few dozen suspects it intends to put on trial or deems too dangerous to release. But where? A secret study conducted by the Pentagon in 2006 outlined alternative sites within the U.S., including the military facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and at Charleston, South Carolina, according to a former Pentagon official familiar with the details. But congressmen representing those and other districts with military brigs have already vowed to fight the move. [....]Miranda This: Once moved, the high value detainees already indicted for their role in the attacks of 9/11 or other crimes would presumably be tried in either federal criminal courts or in military courts—a suggestion put forth by Obama in a statement earlier this year. But it's not at all clear that convictions could be won against even top Al Qaeda suspects like the alleged 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. Federal and military courts are much more protective of a defendant's rights than the military commissions operating at Guantanamo. In a federal court, an Al Qaeda defendant held for years at a secret CIA site could complain that his right to a speedy trial was violated, that he was never read his Miranda rights, that the evidence against him did not go through a proper chain of custody and that confessions were gleaned through coercive interrogations, according to retired Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor in the Guantanamo trials. "Any one of these issues could jeopardize the prospect of a conviction," he said.
But, of course, he had his first security briefing yesterday, so the notion of releasing jihadists, like JFK's that there was a missile gap, will disappear down the memory hole.
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Palin's Mole at The Times: Did Bill Kristol use the Gray Lady to fight the McCain campaign's civil war? (Scott Horton, 11/07/08, The Daily Beast)
Was John McCain’s senior foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann fired for leaking sensitive information to his friend, the long-time McCain backer and New York Times columnist William Kristol? Were Kristol, Scheunemann, and deputy communications director Michael Goldfarb at the heart of a feud inside of the McCain camp over the Palin candidacy—with Kristol fighting the battle in his Times column? McCainiacs associated with the campaign tell The Daily Beast that whatever happened between Scheunemann and McCain on a formal level, it’s clear that there was a serious rift in the week before the election, and that the cause of the split boils down to one word: “Kristol.”Kristol’s New York Times column—written inside what the McCain campaign considered enemy territory—was read with great interest. As Kristol used column after column to boost Sarah Palin, suspicions built inside the campaign that Kristol and McCain staffers close to him had written off McCain and were now determined to salvage Palin as a vehicle for Republican politics in the future, possibly the Republican nomination in 2012. Michael Goldfarb—who left Kristol’s Weekly Standard to work on communications for the McCain campaign—also repeatedly came under suspicion among McCain insiders for his close ties to Kristol and his “manic zeal” in fending off questions over the Palin candidacy.
McConnell reaches out to Lieberman (RYAN GRIM, 11/7/08, Politico)
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has reached out to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) about the prospect of joining the Republican Conference, but Lieberman is still bargaining with Democratic leaders to keep his chairmanship, according to Senate aides in both parties.“Sen. Lieberman’s preference is to stay in the caucus, but he’s going to keep all his options open,” a Lieberman aide said. “McConnell has reached out to him, and at this stage, his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable.”
A Republican Senate aide said Friday morning that there was little McConnell could offer in terms of high-ranking committee slots, which is why Lieberman is resisting overtures from the Republican side.
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Senate Finance Chairman Gets Jump on 2009 Health Care ‘Goals’ and ‘Options’ (Congressional Quarterly, 11/07/08)
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus , who has a history of going his own way on major policy matters, Friday announced plans to unveil his own “specific goals and policy options for comprehensive health care reform in 2009” next week — without waiting for the detailed proposals of President-elect Barack Obama .Baucus, D-Mont., a centrist who works closely with Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Finance’s ranking Republican, will have jurisdiction over a huge chunk of any health- care overhaul Congress tackles next year. Finance controls policy for Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, taxes and Social Security, among other issues.
Baucus has an independent streak that often irks Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate. He supported President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, unlike most of his fellow Democrats, and helped write the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law, which most of his party opposed as inadequate and too generous to private health insurers.
In a letter to Obama on Thursday, Baucus said: “Next week I will present to you and to the country my plan to move forward on health care reform in the early days of the 111th Congress and of your administration.”
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Here's a soccer player attempting a kid's ride at an amusement park:
The Surprising Absence of an October Surprise: How did we get through the election without an al-Qaida attack? (Daniel Byman, Nov. 5, 2008, Slate)
Terrorism watchers repeatedly warned that al-Qaida might strike in the days leading up to the election, but—thankfully—Nov. 4 has come and gone without incident. Al-Qaida's logic for striking at election time seems straightforward: An attack would dominate media coverage at a time when the entire world is focused on the United States. In a tight race, a terrorist attack might even tip the balance, enabling Osama Bin Laden to claim that American politics dances to his tune.Democratic strategists in particular feared that an al-Qaida attack might play to Sen. John McCain's perceived national-security advantage and that Bin Laden would want to bolster McCain in the belief that he was more likely to entangle the United States militarily in the Muslim world. Spain's March 2004 general election was the precedent Democrats feared. The bloody attacks on commuter trains (and the Spanish government's bungled response) led to a surprise opposition victory, which in turn led to a Socialist government that withdrew troops from Iraq, as al-Qaida had sought.
But with the clarity of hindsight, we know that al-Qaida did not strike the U.S. homeland, nor did we hear of a serious attempt to do so during the months before the vote.
Darwin's specimens go on display (BBC, 11/07/08)
Two mockingbirds, which are said to have helped Charles Darwin develop his theory on evolution, are to go on public display for the first time. {...]
One of the birds was captured on the island of Floreana, while the other was gathered from another Galapagos island, which is now called San Cristobal.
As a result of an earlier visit, Darwin knew that there was only one species of mockingbird in South America, yet he found a different species on each of the islands in the Pacific Ocean archipelago he visited.
Likud's Netanyahu, Begin present united front: Benny Begin rejoins Likud nearly decade after quitting politics, says 'politics is about compromise'. Bibi: I want to make use of his experience, integrity and leadership to effect change in Israel (Attila Somfalvi, 11.04.08, Israel News)
On Sunday Begin, a former Likud cabinet minister who dropped out of politics and public life in 1999, announced his plans to compete for a place on the party's list for the 18th Knesset in the upcoming general elections.Speaking at the Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv with Netanyahu at his side, Begin, son of deceased prime minister Menachem Begin said, "The public has undergone a process of disillusionment twice – once in 2000 (second intifada) and again after the illusion of peace that followed the (Gaza) disengagement. We must prevent a third disillusionment.
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First Religious Lefty Lambasts Obama (Lerner on Rahm Emanuel) (Steve Waldman, November 7, 2008, BeliefNet)
Well that didn't take long.Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun and founder of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, has the honor of being the first member of the "religious left" to lambast the new President. [...]
Rahm Emanuel has a long history of militarist ideology behind him. His father was a member of the ultra-right-wing terrorist organization Etzel that killed British civilians as part of their anti-British struggle in Palestine in the 1940s. Emanuel, himself a citizen of Israel as well as the United States, has been one of several Congressional leaders enforcing the "Israel Lobby" concensus on the Democrats, in the process shutting out the peace voices that believe Israel's security would be better served by the U.S. putting pressure on Israel to end the Occupation, move the Wall to inside the pre-67 boundaries, and remove the settlers from the West Bank or tell them to live there as Palestinian citizens.
It's not just the pro-peace and reconciliation forces that are unlikely to be given a serious hearing in a White House in which Rahm Emanuel controls who gets to talk to the President. Emanuel will almost certainly be protecting Obama from all of us spiritual progressives and those of us who describe ourselves as the Religious Left-so that our commitment to single-payer universal health care, carbon taxes for environmental protection, a Homeland Security strategy based on generosity and implemented through a Global Marshall Plan, will be unlikely to get a serious hearing in the White House.
When these issues were avoided by Obama during the campaign, most of us spiritual progressives told ourselves, "He's just being political, but once elected he'll reveal himself committed to the values that he whispered into our ears privately over the course of the past many years." The Rahm Emanuel selection is an early warning that the peace and justice agenda dropped by Obama after he won the Democratic nomination may be permanently on hold, and the progressives themselves may have to settle for "access" and flowery words at an inauguration address rather than the substance of change.
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69% of GOP Voters Say Palin Helped McCain (Rasmussen Reports, November 07, 2008)
Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable.When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year -- Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.
Three other sitting governors – Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Charlie Crist of Florida and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota – all pull low single-digit support.
These findings echo a survey earlier this week which found that Republicans were happier with their vice presidential candidate than with their presidential nominee. Seventy-one percent (71%) said McCain made the right choice by picking Palin as his running mate, while only 65% said the party picked the right nominee for president.
The key for the 44-year-old Palin will be whether she can broaden her base of support. An Election Day survey found that 81% of Democrats and, more importantly, 57% of unaffiliated voters had an unfavorable view of her.
Am I the only one who sees the recent spate of rumors about that Palin woman being a ditz and a diva as sort of, you know, sexist?Thank God, the bad-mouthing isn't emanating from a bunch of Right-Wing, middle-aged, white guys who ran the McCain campaign. And it's a good thing that Left-leaning feminists--especially my colleagues in Academe--have rushed to the defense of a woman whose politics they may abhor but whose character is being assassinated along blatantly misogynistic lines.
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The Decency of George W. Bush (Michael Gerson, November 7, 2008, Washington Post)
Initial failures in Iraq acted like a solar eclipse, blocking the light on every other achievement. But those achievements, with the eclipse finally passing, are considerable by the measure of any presidency. Because of the passage of Medicare Part D, nearly 10 million low-income seniors are receiving prescription drugs at little or no cost. No Child Left Behind education reform has helped raise the average reading scores of fourth-graders to their highest level in 15 years and narrowed the achievement gap between white and African American children. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has helped provide treatment for more than 1.7 million people and compassionate care for at least 2.7 million orphans and vulnerable children. And the decision to pursue the surge in Iraq will be studied as a model of presidential leadership.These achievements, it is true, have limited constituencies to praise them. Many conservatives view Medicare, education reform and foreign assistance as heresies. Many liberals refuse to concede Bush's humanity, much less his achievements.
But that humanity is precisely what I will remember. I have seen President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends. Again and again, I have seen the natural tug of his pride swiftly overcome by a deeper decency -- a decency that is privately engaging and publicly consequential.
Before the Group of Eight summit in 2005, the White House senior staff overwhelmingly opposed a new initiative to fight malaria in Africa for reasons of cost and ideology -- a measure designed to save hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly of children under 5. In the crucial policy meeting, one person supported it: the president of the United States, shutting off debate with a moral certitude that others have criticized. I saw how this moral framework led him to an immediate identification with the dying African child, the Chinese dissident, the Sudanese former slave, the Burmese women's advocate. It is one reason I will never be cynical about government -- or about President Bush.
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The Right's Wrong Bet (Dan Gerstein, 11.06.08, Forbes)
Yes, Obama is a progressive who believes in government as an agent of change. But look closely at his policies. They are almost no different than those of Hillary Clinton, whom you lionized as a moderate until the day she lost. He's against gay marriage, pro charter schools and voted for tort reform. He tells parents to turn off the TV set and calls for the biggest Democratic tax cut since John F. Kennedy. This is hardly the second coming of Trotsky.And if you still have doubts, consider his first statement-making act as president-elect. He offered the job of chief of staff to Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, the pragmatic poster child of the next-generation Democratic Party. In his prior life, Emanuel was one of the architects of Bill Clinton's third-way repositioning of the Democratic brand. In his current one, he engineered the Democratic takeover of the House in the 2006 by pursuing a big-tent candidate-recruiting strategy and is widely heralded for his reformist instincts and influence as chair of the party caucus. This is not the guy you bring in to run your administration if you are planning on being redistributionist-in-chief.
Now overlay that track record on the current political context. You have a new president who is a) acutely aware of how unfamiliar he still is to most Americans and of the damaging missteps Bill Clinton made in the early days of his presidency; b) inheriting the worst financial crisis in more than 70 years and two complicated ground wars; and c) intent on winning the confidence of an electorate that is exhausted with the partisan excesses of the past 20 years in Washington, not to mention the campaign hysterics of the past 22 months.
There's no doubt that Obama, as he himself acknowledged in his victory speech, will make his share of false starts. He's got his blind spots, and in fairness, no amount of campaigning or work in the Senate can prepare even the most natural political talent for the meat grinder in a fishbowl that is the modern presidency. Plus, he certainly will be tested in his relations with the Hill and the interest groups that too often drive its agenda (a subject I will explore in more depth in a coming column).
But I would ask my conservative friends the following questions. Is it realistic to believe that all that skill, instinct and discipline is going to magically evaporate on Inauguration Day? And that after Obama puts his hand on the Bible he will unmask himself as the tone-deaf liberal lovechild of Michael Dukakis and Jimmy Carter? Or that, the next day, he is going to replace Robert Rubin, Paul Volcker and Warren Buffett as his top financial advisers with Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and Maxine Waters? Or that he will let himself get rolled by Congress and casually violate his pledge to not raise taxes on families making less than $250,000?
Up to 14 dead in suspected US missile strike in Pakistan: officials (AFP, 11/07/08)
Up to 14 militants were killed on Friday when a suspected US missile strike destroyed an Al-Qaeda training camp in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials said.Four missiles are thought to have been fired at the camp, in Kumsham village, some 35 kilometres (22 miles) south of Miranshah in North Waziristan province.
Security sources said the village is dominated by Wazir tribes and is near the border with South Waziristan, another hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives.
THE NEW SILK ROAD: Trade Is Booming between Asia and Middle East: Historic bonds between the Middle East and Asia are being revitalized in a torrent of trade and investment in energy, infrastucture and manufacturing. (Stanley Reed, Dexter Roberts and Nandini Lakshman, 11/07/08, Der Spiegel)
The Arab world and Asia have a legacy of trade ties dating back to caravans that transported textiles and spices across the desert on the so-called Silk Road and to Gulf traders that sailed the blue waters of the Indian Ocean in chunky ships known as dhows. Today a new Silk Road leads from the busy ports of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore to the Persian Gulf—and from sparkling airport lounges in Dubai and Riyadh back to Asia's bustling cities. The merchants on this new route are Arab investors looking for smart places to park their petrodollars and Asians seeking to lock up energy supplies and find markets for the goods churned out by their factories.Trade between the two regions has been expanding at a 30 percent annual clip. Since 2006, Asia has been the largest trading partner of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a group of six wealthy Arab countries, according to data compiled by Standard Chartered Bank. As of last year, Asia accounted for 55 percent of the GCC's total trade of $758 billion, the bank says. The mainstay of Gulf exports to Asia is oil, but some energy-intensive manufactured goods such as aluminum are also joining the mix. In return, China and Japan send to the Gulf products ranging from cars to computers while India and other Asian countries supply much of the food consumed in the Middle East. And while the scale of investment lags the trading ties, investors from the Gulf are buying stakes in everything from Asian banks and department stores to hotels and office buildings. Standard Chartered estimates that the Gulf countries invested $60 billion in Asia from 2002 to 2006.
It's easy to find evidence of the growing links. Delhi newspapers advertise homes built by Emaar Properties, a Dubai developer. Smaller companies from Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and elsewhere have factories in China to make shoes, toys, and the like. And so many Middle Eastern traders visit the wholesale markets in the southern Chinese town of Yiwu that road signs are posted in Arabic as well as Chinese and English. "Power is moving from West to East," Al-Muhairy says. "It is a huge opportunity."
The Asians are getting a foothold in the Middle East, too. China has plowed billions of dollars into North Africa's oil sector, especially in Sudan and Algeria. Along with the energy investment comes work for Chinese companies building roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure. Goods from Chinese appliance manufacturer Haier and electronics maker TCL are available across the Middle East. Indian engineering outfits Larsen & Toubro, Voltas, and others help out on real estate and industrial projects in the Arab world. And Malaysian developer MMC is working on a vast new city in Saudi Arabia. "We are seeing serious investment flows from Asia to the Middle East," says Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Egypt's trade & industry minister.
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Obama Victory Alters the Tenor of Iraqi Politics ALISSA J. RUBIN, 11/07/08, NY Times)
Barack Obama may have been elected only three days ago, but his victory is already beginning to shift the political ground in Iraq and the region.Iraqi Shiite politicians are indicating that they will move faster toward a new security agreement about American troops, and a Bush administration official said he believed that Iraqis could ratify the agreement as early as the middle of this month.
Crude touches 20-month low (Tamsin Carlisle, November 07. 2008, The National)
Crude touched a 20-month low below $60 a barrel after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its 2009 oil price forecast by nearly one third, citing softening global energy demand.
A team at RMIT University here in collaboration with the Fachhochschule Ingolstadt in Germany has designed the car which will be bidding for the title of the world's fastest hydrogen-powered racer in 2009 when it attempts to break the Guinness World Records for speed by a vehicle of its class.Powered by an internal combustion motorcycle engine that has been modified to run on hydrogen, the racing car is expected to reach speeds of up to 170 kmh in its world record bid, to be held in Germany.
According to lead researcher Prof Aleksandar Subic, the hydrogen car project could radically change the world's approach to automotive technologies.
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Does Rahm Emanuel's Pick Mean the Chicago Machine Is Coming to Washington: A look at Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama's relationships to the Daley machine. (Ben Joravsky, November 7, 2008, American Prospect)
The key to understanding the differences between Emanuel and Obama is to analyze the circumstances under which they joined Daley's team.For his part, Emanuel hooked up with Daley just about as soon as he could -- back in the late 1980s, when he was barely 30 years old. In 1987, Mayor Harold Washington -- the city's first and only elected black mayor -- had died in office. The city council named former Alderman Eugene Sawyer to fill Washington's vacancy, but from the get go Daley geared up to run in the 1989 special election.
Emanuel was no dummy. He knew Daley would defeat Sawyer and, once in office, would probably rule for life -- just like his father, the late Richard J. Daley. So Emanuel did what any bright and ambitious politico young would do -- he signed on with Daley. By all accounts, he made himself indispensable to the boss as a fundraiser, badgering, bullying, or guilt tripping the locals into giving money to Daley's campaign. It was then that Emanuel established his reputation as Rahmbo -- the brash, arrogant, and tempestuous assistant that political bosses use to get things done.
After helping Daley win, Emanuel made himself just as indispensable to Bill Clinton, first as a fundraiser and later as a key White House aide. Emanuel managed to piss off nearly everyone in Washington, but when Clinton's term was up, Daley, apparently still grateful for the money raised, welcomed him back to Chicago with open arms. In 2002, Daley endorsed Emanuel to fill the congressional seat left vacant when Rod Blagojevich ran for governor.
It was sort of funny to watch Emanuel in that first campaign. He was on his very best behavior. No brashness, arrogance, tempestuousness or impatience -- he was actually charming, almost nice. You'd see him hanging out under the el stops in the morning, politely shaking the hands of commuters rushing to catch the train for work. I once watched make the rounds of a senior citizens center in a white ethnic neighborhood on the city's far northwest side. He feigned interest in their bingo games and laughed at their jokes. He only looked at his watch once or twice before bolting for his next stop.
Frankly, I don't know why he even bothered to be so sweet. With Daley's backing, Attila the Hun could have won that election. The mayor brought out the pay rollers to make sure that Emanuel steamrolled his opposition. I happen to live in the district and I remember the fellows on the sidewalks outside the polling places on Election Day. Beefy boys with thick necks and fat bellies, they passed out palm cards that pretty much said vote for Emanuel -- or else!
So thanks to Mayor Daley, Emanuel got to go to Congress, where he railed against Republican corruption and scandals, conveniently overlooking all the corruption and scandals in his hometown.
In contrast, Obama's what passes for a reformer in Chicago -- at least he took a longer, more circuitous path to winning Daley's good graces.
Of the three brothers, Rahm is the most famous, Ari is the richest and Zeke, over time, will probably be the most important. Zeke is also, according to his brothers, the smartest. Rahm, naturally, gets the most press attention. Last term he managed the President's campaigns to pass the crime bill and the North American Free Trade Agreement, but this term he has taken over the job and close-to-the-Oval-Office cub-byhole of his friend Stephanopoulos. Now chief promoter of Clinton's small-bore issues like stopping teen-age smoking and requiring trigger locks on guns, Rahm has been singled out in recent profiles as the centrist, hyperactive counterreaction to the Stephanopoulos liberal cool. The articles are more colorful than is typical of the genre (the dead fish helps), but Rahm is more interesting, and reflective of his time, in the context of his brothers. [...]Growing up, Zeke and Ari were at each other's throats, with Rahm acting as mediator. ''Rahmie was the calmest,'' says his mother, aware of how strange this sounds given his reputation as a barracuda.
''I was the classic middle child,'' Rahm says, talking in his White House office one morning. It is a peaceful Tuesday, with not a crisis in sight, although you would never know it from Rahm's boby language. He is lean, handsome, wired. Earlier, the President had wandered through the door connecting the Oval Office to Rahm's little digs. ''Where is he?'' the President asked. Rahm was in an adjoining office talking to his secretary, but at Clinton's words he sprang up and disappeared into the President's dining room like a rabbit. He returned to sit on the ege of his seat, his face inches from the television, mouthing the words along with Clinton as the President announced, before live cameras in the Oval Office, a ban on the use of Federal money for cloning humans.
''This is discovery that carried burden as well as benefits,'' Clinton and Rahm said in unison.
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Could Obama be the saviour of sport? (Evan Fanning, November 7 2008 , Guardian SportsBlog)
Now that the Unicorn Rider is president, NFL players will be able to tackle, pitchers will throw strikes, and NBA players will hit jumpers once in awhile....
Dems split over Treasury choice (LISA LERER & VICTORIA MCGRANE, 11/7/08, Politico)
As Barack Obama faces mounting pressure to announce his economic team, Democrats are split over two of the leading candidates for Treasury secretary: New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. [...]Summers, who is widely acknowledged to be seeking the top Treasury post, has a strong connection to the Obama team and a long history of government service. Obama economic aides said that Summers was one of ten advisers on a weekly conference call with the campaign over the past few months.
His experience, however, has a downside for a campaign that sold Americans on a message of change. In the Clinton administration, Summers was a major proponent of free trade, deregulation and free market-oriented policies, which have come under fire in recent months as the economy has spiraled downward.
But even former critics note that in the seven years since he’s left government, Summers has taken a more progressive stance on economic issues. In a regular Financial Times column, he’s pushed for greater financial regulation, restrictions on trade and closing the income gap.
“He didn’t understand that stuff five years ago, but he does now,” said a liberal economist and distant Obama adviser. “A lot of times you have the Greenspan problem, where you get to a point in your economic life and you can’t evolve even if the data tells you too.”
While Summers is widely acknowledged to be a brilliant economist, he carries a history of public relations dust-ups that stem from a prickly interpersonal style, according to friends and colleagues.
He was forced out as president of Harvard University after a series of statements that angered affirmative action proponents, environmentalists and feminist activists. The final straw was when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers
While not a disqualifying factor, the incidents would certainly lead to some tough confirmation hearing questioning and could undermine the new administration’s judgment on critical personal.
Mr. Geithner, 47, is two weeks younger than the president-elect but has served in top Treasury and Federal Reserve positions since the late 1980s. He joined Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to oversee the Bush administration's effort to contain the crises in the world's credit and financial markets. [...]The New York Fed is considered the most influential of the regional Federal Reserve Banks. By virtue of his position, Mr. Geithner serves as vice chairman of the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee, the key body guiding monetary policy.
Like Mr. Obama, Mr. Geithner is described by colleagues as even-tempered and wonkish at times, comfortable debating abstract financial concepts and not likely to break the bureaucratic crockery as an administrator.
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Obama's JFK Playbook: Barack Obama & JFK The remarkable parallels between Obama's rhetoric and Kennedy's. (Thurston Clarke, 11/07/08, The Daily Beast)
Caroline Kennedy titled the January 2008 New York Times op-ed in which she announced her support for Barack Obama, “A President Like My Father.” It will be years before we will know if, and how, the Obama presidency resembles that of John F. Kennedy’s. But the first clue will come on January 20, 2009, when President Obama delivers his inaugural address.The comparisons between Kennedy and Obama have fallen into four categories: their style, their “cool,” unflappable, and somewhat dispassionate demeanor; their families, their attractive wives and young children; a charisma that excites young voters; and their symbolic, “transformational” nature—the first Irish Catholic president and the first black one. One important similarity has gone unnoticed: the fact that both have understood the organic connection between a campaign and the presidency that follows it, recognizing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to follow an immoral, deceitful, and divisive campaign with a high-minded, transformational, and inspirational presidency.
Actually, that's the compelling argument that Thomas Reeves has made in the best bio of JFK, He Was No Jack Kennedy: a review of A QUESTION OF CHARACTER A Life of John F. Kennedy. By Thomas C. Reeves (Robert Dallek, NY Times Book Review)
In "A Question of Character," Thomas C. Reeves, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, and the author of biographies of President Chester A. Arthur and Senator Joseph McCarthy, comes down emphatically on the side of the iconoclasts. Mr. Reeves's Kennedy is a compulsive womanizer, a liar, a bully, an amphetamine addict -- a ruthless, lazy, corrupt, self-indulgent hypocrite. He was America's first successful television politician. Television magnified his surface attributes -- his good looks, warmth and humor -- and helped turn him into a national hero leading the country on to a new frontier.The Kennedy in "A Question of Character" was, like his father, Joseph Kennedy, a man of bad character. He was the product of an emotionally impoverished childhood. He suffered from an "inability to love or express feelings." He grew up "hostile . . . toward marriage and the family. Women were at best sex objects." Chasing women became "a career." His Navy heroics on PT 109 during World War II were the invention of publicists. He was not a particularly good commander and, Mr. Reeves says, his poor judgment contributed to the sinking of his boat and the death of two crewmen.
Though Kennedy emphatically denied it throughout his life, his father played the decisive part in pushing him into politics. He was a lazy Congressman, Mr. Reeves says, who spent much of his time seducing secretaries and airline hostesses. His father had to manage his finances; he surrounded himself with obsequious friends, whom he bullied, and he showed no interest in any political issue. When he ran for the Senate in 1952, his only concern was winning: "Jack, like his father and his brother [ Robert ] , was without any guiding intellectual, philosophical, or moral vision in his pursuit of office. Politics, like life, was about winning, and little else."
Spurred by his father's ambition to run for President, he pulled out all the stops to win. His successful campaign in 1960, Mr. Reeves writes, "involved the cynical manipulation of issues, unrestrained spending, vote fraud, the Mafia, ceaseless adultery, and dishonesty about Kennedy's intellectual achievements and physical condition."
Mr. Reeves's portrait of Kennedy as President is no less scathing. In the White House, his bad character played a major part in making him a poor President. He had little interest in domestic affairs, made a number of bad judicial appointments, demonstrated cautious opportunism in dealing with pressing civil rights questions and fouled up royally in dealing with the Bay of Pigs invasion and escalating American involvement in Vietnam. Whatever his superficial attributes, as President, Kennedy "was pragmatic to the point of amorality; his sole standard seemed to be political expediency. . . . Jack's character . . . lacked a moral center, a reference point that went beyond self-aggrandizement."
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Obama Rahms His Agenda (Jay D. Homnick, 11.7.08, American Spectator)
Barack Obama sent a reassuring signal to Jews who doubted his commitment to Israel by choosing Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Rahm's father is an Israeli who fought for the Irgun under the late Menachem Begin. Rahm himself went to Israel to volunteer on an army base during the Gulf War of 1991, making sure the weaponry was in a functional state.To the Palestinians, hearing that a Jew was the first pick can't be encouraging. To hear he's an Israeli must be galling. But to hear he comes from an Irgun family will enrage them to a fever pitch.
The Arabs, even the most simpatico among them, are not fans of the Zionists who liberated Israel from British rule. The fact that Ben-Gurion, Weitzmann and their Haganah force were political leftists endears them but little. Still, through gritted teeth they learn to tolerate. But try and mention Begin's Irgun or Yitzhak Shamir's Lehi to any non-Jewish Middle Easterner and watch smoke coming out of their ears. The Irgun and Lehi were the right-wing, and a much tougher crew.
