It really is no surprise that John McCain and Joe Lieberman like each other so much. They’re cut from the same cloth of standing on whichever side of an issue seems most advantageous at the moment. McCain was asked whether he would support his former running mate Sarah Palin if she ran for president in 2012.
“I can’t say something like that. We’ve got some great other young governors. I think you’re going to see the governors assume a greater leadership role in our Republican Party,” he said.
He then mentioned governors Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Jon Huntsman of Utah.
McCain said he has “the greatest appreciation for Gov. Palin and her family, and it was a great joy to know them.”
“She invigorated our campaign” against Barack Obama for the presidency, he said.
McCain was pressed on why he can’t promise support for the woman who, just months ago, he named as the second best person to lead the nation.
“Have no doubt of my admiration and respect for her and my view of her viability, but at this stage, again … my corpse is still warm, you know?” he replied.
And that political corpse was largely blamed on Palin after their defeat. Which- as vile as she is as a politician- was a bit unfair since he was the person that put her in that position in the first place. Don’t blame the employee for your lousy hiring practices.
Further attempting to distance himself from the shenanigans of the later stages of his campaign, McCain has chastised the Republicans for their treatment of President Elect Barack Obama regarding the Blago fiasco. So sayeth McCain:
“I think that the Obama campaign should and will give all information necessary. You know, in all due respect to the Republican National Committee and anybody — right now, I think we should try to be working constructively together, not only on an issue such as this, but on the economy stimulus package, reforms that are necessary. And so, I don’t know all the details of the relationship between President-elect Obama’s campaign or his people and the governor of Illinois, but I have some confidence that all the information will come out. It always does, it seems to me.”
Uh oh. Looks like someone is trying to get back their (completely fabricated) Maverick credentials.
For the last couple months, many members of my generation (known as The Youth) have been feeling an odd sensation, correlating closely with Obama’s rise in the polls and subsequent election win.After being raised on a steady diet of Simpsons, irony and cynicism, and after 8 years of Bush, we’ve started to feel something I understand is called “Hope.”Hope for our future, hope that we may not be irreversibly screwed, even hope that there may be jobs available next year.It’s a really great sensation, and I’ve been really enjoying it.Marc Ambinder wants you to know there’s no reason for that to last.
It’s quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama’s transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse… a lot worse. As in — double digit unemployment without the wiggle factors. Huge declines in aggregate demand. Significant, persistent deficits. That’s one reason why the Obama administration seems to be open to listening to every economist with an idea and is stocking the staff with the leading lights of the field. In one sense, the general level of concern among Obama advisers and transition staffers is reassuring; they get the magnitude of the problems, and they’re not going to assume that, just because the bottom has never dropped out before — certainly not in the lifetimes of most people doing policy these days, the bottom will never drop out.
Where the discussion isn’t going, at least in public, (or the PR level ), is the possibility that the first foreign policy crisis the administration will face will be the complete economic collapse of a large, unstable nation. To be sure, Pakistan is nearly broke, and U.S. policy makers seem to be aware of that; but a worldwide demand crisis could lead to social unrest in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, Singapore, the Ukraine, Japan, Turkey or Egypt (which is facing an internal political crisis of epic proportions already). The U.S. won’t have the resources to, say, engineer the rescue of the peso again, or intervene in Asia as in 1997.
…
The question: what’s the administration’s policy in this area? Which countries can we afford to let fail? Which unstable states would concern us the most? Is there something the U.S. can do, in advance, should do, in advance, to forestall the collapse of other economies?
One of the problems, of course, is that whatever the US can or should do, we should probably be doing it right now, but instead we’ll have to wait two months to have real action.The Republicans can’t seem to find themselves willing to bailout three of the largest corporations in the United States right now, despite the fact that their failure would lead to thousands upon thousands of people in an economically marginalized area to be without jobs, and even more people to suddenly see their pensions disappear.*Our president has all but disappeared, and certainly isn’t doing much presidenting,†so I doubt we’ll be seeing anything done on a global scale.Being in the middle of the worst economic crisis most of us have ever seen, facing a global depression, a couple wars, and a growing environmental catastrophe, all while being without any actual government is enough to make the most Polly Ann-ish lose hope.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Barney Frank: “[Obama's] going to have to be more assertive than he’s been. At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time. I’m afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He’s got to remedy that situation.”
*No matter what your position on unions, surely we can all agree that depriving a good number of people of their expected income when we’re in a recession and consumer spending keeps falling is a Bad Idea.
†Although let’s face it, Bush being MIA is probably for the best.
The election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden and the appointments following have left some Senate seats open. And there are still Senate races left to be decided. Politics- it’s fluid.
A brief rundown on the seat shifting:
Hillary Clinton’s Seat
Former President Bill Clinton doesn’t want the spot . Governor David Paterson has taken himself out of contention, as has Robert F. Kennedy Jr (who was rumored to be under consideration for the EPA spot) and Rep. Nita Lowey. A long list of names are being floated around as a potential replacement- including Andrew Cuomo and Caroline Kennedy- but it seems that it is mostly speculation. Gov Paterson will make an official announcement in January when Clinton formally leaves her seat for her new job as Secretary of State.
Joe Biden’s Seat
Biden didn’t offer his resignation at the same time as Obama, which struck some as odd. It appeared that Biden might be holding on to his seat until incoming Delaware Governor Jack Markell took office in January. Markell and current Governor Ruth Ann Minner are both Democrats but it was believed that Markell would be more comfortable with replacing Biden with someone who would not want to run again in 2010, thus leaving the seat open for Joe’s son, Beau Biden (who is currently serving in Iraq).
But the wait for Markell wasn’t needed. Gov. Minner announced that Ted Kaufman- friend and former aide to Biden Sr.- would take over the seat until 2010. Kaufman has already stated that he has no plans to run for the seat in two years.
In other words: they’re holding your seat for you, Beau. (Yes, Beau will actually have to run for the seat but since there’s been a Biden in the Senate since humans rode on dinosaurs, it is a sure thing.)
Barack Obama’s Seat
Though Obama gave up his seat a couple of weeks ago, Illinois Gov. Rod “Blago” Blagojevich has yet to put a new body in that position. He formed a vetting committee and rumored candidates include Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., State Sen. Kwame Raoul and V.A. Direcotr (and wounded Iraq vet) Tammy Duckworth
Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) will not run for reelection in 2010 and the competition for his seat is likely to be fierce. Speculated Democratic contenders include Rep Ron Klein, Sen. Dan Gelber and possibly State CFO Alex Sink (who had decided not to run before the Martinez announcement and now may change her mind). Potential Republican candidates: Rep. Connie Mack, State A.G. Bill McCollum and- in the long shot column- former Gov. Jeb Bush.
It seems like Obama is appointing someone to an office every 30 seconds so we’re a bit behind on covering them as they happen. C’mon, most of them don’t even officially have jobs for another two months. We’ll get to them before then (probably).
Anyway, if you’d like a cheat sheet as to who is filling up Obama’s cabinet, CNN has a handy little guide. Not all of them have been confirmed yet but evidence has shown that the leaks that come from the incoming administration are accurate ones.
Getting to play the token Republican is current Defense Secretary Robert Gates. No real opinion on that at this time other than “he’s better than Rumsfeld”. Of course, the reanimated corpse of Hitler might be able to give Rumsfeld a run for his money on the ethics front.
Obama to the (Economic) Rescue? Obama-Biden press conference today to introduce soon to be Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council chief Larry Summers. Obama will also discuss in further details the economic rescue plan he mentioned on Saturday.
This $700 Billion Offer Sounds Better Than the Last One: That’s the number that’s being speculated in conjunction with a two year economic stimulus plan the Democrats are working on. Better than just spending that much bailing out the banks/financial institutions.
Speaking of That…Citigroup is getting a $300 billion guarantee and $20 billion injected in. Poor Lehman Brothers. Having to die so that others may live.
Seriously, isn’t it amazing just how impressive the people being named to key positions in the Obama administration seem? Bye-bye hacks and cronies, hello people who actually know what they’re doing.
For myself, I had no illusions that I would be writing this post, asking the Obama administration where are the progressives, I just didn’t expect to have to write it this early on. I did expect at least a “token” progressive to be part of the Obama administration, but, apparently progressives aren’t going to be given eve that small bone to chew on.
She definitely has a point, especially when she points out that the reason to choose progressives isn’t so much tokenism as it is a recognition that the progressives were actually, y’know, right about all the crap that’s popped up this decade. I likewise had no illusions, though — nobody who followed the campaign closely should, as Obama made his positions and intentions very clear
Finally, our good friend Cangrejero reminds us of someone who used his last 14 years a bit more productively than Axl Rose — for which, in this season of gratitude, we should all be thankful.
If you’re like me (and God help you if you are), you’ve been wondering why the Obama camp, so disciplined and tight-lipped before the election, now seems to be leakier than a sieve made of Kleenex. First there was the leak of Emanuel’s CoS appointment not only before the guy’d even made up his mind but before Obama had even won the election, then we get leaks of the contents of the Bush-Obama meeting at the White House, and now we get the leak that Hillary Clinton may be the new Secretary of State.
So what’s the deal? emptywheel over at firedoglake is of the opinion that it’s Rahmbo, who always was a leaker extraordinaire. If true, that would mean it’s strategic on the part of Obama. But over at The Field, Al Giordano posits that, at least in the case of the Hillary-as-SoS rumors, it may not be coming from the inside at all:
The whole thing is a media freak show being served up by members of the Clinton factions in the Democratic party and obliged by a national media (some of them also Clinton noisemakers) in search of a story. The speculation is not because Senator Clinton wants the job, but because her people so desperately want to muddy the waters and throw up a roadblock to either New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson or Massachusetts Senator John Kerry - two of the leading contenders - serving in the post, whom they consider turncoats for having endorsed Obama vs. Clinton earlier this year.
While there’s a somewhat heavy dollop of chip-on-the-shoulder conspiracy smoke going on there, Giordano’s on the nose in that, in the absence of actual news to report, the national media will print any random thing it can manage to pull out of its collective ass. In such an atmosphere, there’ll naturally be a lot of finger-pointing and rampant speculation as to who’s responsible.
This merely obscures the larger, more pathetic fact that, starved for any kind of news at all, the media — and bloggers — are all the more susceptible to manipulation by leak, no matter who’s doing the leaking and for what reason.
I’m thinking of calling Andrea Mitchell, claiming to be close to the Obama camp, and telling her that Obama’s reserving a spot on the NEA board for Zamfir, master of the pan flute:
The “naive beginner” in international relations may have proven himself more clever than others thought, as Iran is now backing off of their own “open to negotiations without preconditions” stance. Via WaPo:
“People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous,” Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.
Taeb isn’t off the reservation on this, as the WaPo article makes clear; this is the official Iranian government line. This, of course, from the same country that once said the following:
In 2006, Ahmadinejad said that Iran “is after negotiations, but fair and just negotiations. They must be without any conditions.”
Obama’s “meetings without preconditions” line during the election was intended mostly for domestic consumption; he was correctly betting that voters were sick of a belligerent foreign policy and thought that maybe we should talk to people before we bombed the crap out of them.
But it was also intended for international consumption. If “tough talk” has become a bum product at home, it has always been one internationally. In the court of world opinion, the Iranians were eating our lunch; they were the ones who wanted to talk, and we were the unreasonable, aggressive nutcases.
So their bluff has been called, and they’ve folded. There was no way in hell they were ever going to negotiate without preconditions and Obama knew it; they just wanted to make the U.S. look belligerent and unreasonable (which was, admittedly, like shooting fish in a barrel), raise their stock internationally, and drive a wedge between the U.S. and, well, the rest of the world.
But by showing a willingness to sit down and talk like the reasonable warmongers we are, Obama has put the shoe on the other foot and exposed the Iranians’ empty posturing for exactly what it is.
The Iranian government can’t afford to ever actually make nice with us, because without the perceived outside threat of an evil, imperialistic U.S. and a satanic Israel, they’ll lose control of their own citizens who are, by most accounts, increasingly restive. Agreeing to their terms therefore is a nice little bit of jujitsu; it costs us nothing, it gains us plenty, and it puts the onus on the Iranians who, let’s face it, are most definitely not bundles of sweetness and light.
I love having a President-Elect who always seems to be thinking several steps ahead. And no, I don’t think he just got lucky on this one.
So it’s been over a week since I last posted, mostly because I knew that after Brandy and acallidryas offered their thoughts I should put up some kind of election reaction and words were failing me. Seriously. It really is difficult to articulate what’s been going through my head the past week. This Onion headline captures a bit of it:
Kobe Bryant Scores 25 In Holy Shit We Elected A Black President
The mindblowing historic nature is part of it; another part of it is what the last eight years has been like. Read the rest of this entry »
Howard Dean will be leaving his position as Democratic National Committee chairman when his term is up in January. Dean had said previously that he only intended to serve one term but many thought Obama’s success-due largely to Dean’s 50 state strategy- would inspire him to serve another term. Dean’s legacy is expected to live on through his strategy (of which incoming COS Rahm Emanuel was a vocal opponent).
Indeed, four years later, it seems, Dean’s vision is poised to become party orthodoxy. Dean told a Democratic operative that he is hoping to extract promises from all potential replacement candidates to preserve the 50-state-strategy. Other insiders, meanwhile, say that the next DNC chair, regardless of who it is, will build upon the model because of its tangible successes.
“The 50-state-strategy was successful in laying the groundwork for 2006 and 2008,” said strategist and DNC member Donna Brazile. “Clearly, the strategy has reaped a harvest of new voters for Democrats and the next Chair will no doubt build upon this foundation for 2010 and beyond. Remember, we have some interesting statewide and mayoral elections next year before the all out organizing for redistricting.”
Rumor has it that the there will be a push for a split chair as Dean’s replacement: junior Missouri Senator (and co-chair of Obama’s national campaign) Claire McCaskill for chairwoman and Steve Hilderbrand as Operational Chair.
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