The most recent version of the Obama transition team’s contacts with Gov. Blagojevich or his staff follows an internal review. In a statement the transition team explained:
That review affirmed the public statements of the President-elect that he had no contact with the governor or his staff, and that the President-elect’s staff was not involved in inappropriate discussions with the governor or his staff over the selection of his successor as US Senator.
Well, for those paying careful attention, this is a change. The line now is that there were no “inappropriate” conversations with Blago. That is a bit different from Obama’s broader denial on December 11:
Let me say that I was as appalled as anyone by the revelations earlier this week. I have never spoken with the Governor on this subject. And I am quite confident that no representatives of mine would have had any part in any deals related to this seat. I think the materials released by the U.S. Attorney reflect that. I have asked my team to gather the facts of any contacts with the Governor’s staff about this vacancy so we can share them with you. And we will do that in the next few days.
But that was also a change from his earlier comment on December 9 [italics mine]:
I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so we were not — I was not aware of what was happening.
The “not aware of what was happening” seems to fly in the face of the revelation that Rahm Emanuel was relaying to Blago the President-elect’s wish list of senate candidates. Or was the President-elect being imprecise and simply saying he was not aware of wrongdoing?
Did the President-elect and transition team try to hide the ball from the public, or was the Obama really unaware of the conversations by his staffers? The artful “I” to “we” suggests the former. Already 45% of the public isn’t buying the self-exoneration.
The real issues remains: what were those conversations and were they entirely appropriate? The release of the transition team’s review and ultimately the tapes themselves will tell us more. We should know from past presidencies that parsing never works out well for Presidents. Purposeful vagueness — the meaning of “is,” or “what was happening” — maybe an attractive out for a glib leader. But it does not engender respect or trust. It is one aspect of the Clinton presidency that Obama could do without.
Some advice from Bill Clinton:
“[The GOP's] only shot to get back in this debate is to look like they’re willing to cooperate with [Obama] now, and then to develop alternative ideas. Newt Gingrich even recognized that, that’s why he ran on that Contract with America. It’s just that he still had a country which was still vulnerable to the appeals of the Republican right. [People are] just not there anymore.
“The Independents and the Democrats have all moved with the President. And the Republicans have isolated themselves by having predictable, tired old objections which are not supportable by the facts…
“They should give him some more votes now in the Congress and develop an alternative plan for the future that’s different, and say, “We’re all in a terrible crisis now, we’ll help him get through the emergency, but we don’t agree with his long term approach.” That I think would be a good strategy for them.”
ht Greg Sargent’s blog
The bottomline is Obama is a liberal, pure and simple. The only reason he was elected was for the historical appeal that he prompted. To his credit, he deftly avoided any scrutiny (with the help of the media) of his liberal policies, votes, and associations and had the country focus on Bush, the Iraq War and the prospect of making history. When all those things looked like they were not taking root after the GOP convention, it took the financial crisis to seal the deal for his election. Now we have what we have never wanted in Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis, a pure doctrinaire liberal willing to foist through an agenda unimaginable in our history, no matter the inevitable political cost. How we will unwind from all of this when the inevitable reckoning in 2010 or 2012 occurs is anybody’s guess . The task of unwinding from the New Deal and Great Society was already marginable (welfare reform, tax reform and some deregulation), what will be able to undo after this? The American people have to be educated about the destructiveness of liberal policies. This is the role of GOP leaders and pundits (stop eating our own!) in these next long 4 years to clearly document the waste, corruption, and stagflation that will be the result of these policies and to impute the proper blame to those who made this happen. Obama is relying on blaming Bush for everything, including his deficit spending, but in 2010 or more hopefully in 2012 he won’t get away with it. He will have to run on the results of his policies and decisions.
Why shouldn’t the wasteful programs be cut from defense? Lord knows, there are easily billions that can be saved without hurting our readiness or safety. Gates is going to have to endorse the plan. Last time I checked he was a moderately hawkish Republican.
Seems like a stretch, given that you have no details. I thought the Times was garbage? So why are you quoting them now? Maybe they are only garbage when their reporting conflicts with your reality?
The problem with Bill Clinton’s advice is that Obama’s “crisis” measures are not distinguishable from his “long term” measures. Obama is exploiting the crisis to leverage massive transformations of our nation that go vastly beyond anything the majority of his supporters signed up for. So we cannot say “we’ll be with you through this crisis” without also supporting his long-term transformations.
In another month, Obama’s support will be under 50%. This is not what he promoted with his campaign, and not what people supported him for.
Why is it so strange that a Krauthammer op-ed agrees with a NYT news story 2 months later?
Krauthammer read the tea leaves and made a reasonable prediction abou the future. Now that the future has arrived, the Times is now reporting on it.
The only difference is the way each views it. Krauthammer views the President’s radicalism with trepidation, while the reporters at the NYT welcome it.
Bill Clinton is entitled to his opinion. He may even believe that he engineered the prosperity of the ’90s, and that his policies (and omissions) had relatively little to do with the difficulties of the ’00s.
Republicans – or, one hopes, some conservative of stature somewhere – should probably be boning up on Machiavelli, not submitting to the other side’s past and present Princes.
The idea that Republicans, conservatives, troglodytes, etc. have to move toward the current utopian agenda in order to politically survive is bogus. If the Republicans are no longer relevant, rather than move left, maybe they should just disappear. Like the Whigs did. Actually, they have already moved so far left that they no longer represent any kind of conservative philosophy. Those who abhor socialism and advocate free market economics need to put their beliefs into action as much as possible, regardless of the ineffective tactics of the Republicans. First and foremost, if you actually believe in the free market, don’t send your offspring to Ivy League schools or Bolshevik institutions like Cal Berkeley or Wisconsin. And just as important, don’t hire graduates of those schools. Utopians in this society have never had to pay a price for their beliefs, while discriminating against others. Conservatives, on the other hand, don’t survive long in the academic milieu. While politics might be the art of compromise, those elected by conservatives should, as a matter of course, defy compromise and be as obstructive as the utopians have been all these years at even the lowest levels of government. This is truly a battle for survival.
This is very, very dangerous but the left, and the clueless middle who have been educated in the progressive schools we now have, will go along until the danger appears. Then it will be too late.
There was an interesting moment the other night following his SOTU speech. The fellow who does focus groups for Fox News was reporting his results from his group that had watched the speech and used a dial to indicate positive and negative response. At several points, Obama said something, like closing Guantanamo, that caused the Republicans to go very negative on their dial. The Democrats showed no reaction, plus or minus. Someone commented on this and the pollster said “Democrats don’t care about foreign policy.”
There you have it. They don’t care and many don’t believe that there is an Islamic war against the US. Thus, defense cuts, which is how Clinton did his budget balancing, will have no effect.
It is also very worrisome that he seems to have no intention of dealing with energy in any meaningful way. There are no plans for nuclear power plants or oil drilling and there is even some opposition to using oil from Canada extracted from oil sands. Then we have this cap and trade business that will cripple industry.
This is a program for national failure. I have three adult children who voted for him and they will not talk about it. This is a leap of faith like I have never seen.
Obama says he inherited a trillion dollar deficit. Fat chance, as he inherited more like a 420 billion dollar deficit, and now he projects that it’ll reach 1.75 trillion dollars this year, which is likely a conservative estimate. In less than 2 months in office Obama and the Democrats have tripled the size of the deficit, and still they have the balls to rag on the Bush administration for not being fiscally responsible. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
#4
“In another month, Obama’s support will be under 50%.”
Gallup has him at 65%, up something like 6 points in two days.
Color me dubious regarding your prediction.
Ari, Just an FYI, the polling points always go up directly after a major speech. This has been ture for every president. The six point increase is typical and will likely dissipate. Don’t count your chickens. Obama’s numbers are very similar to all new presidents this far into their terms. You can start taking the poll number seriously in about 6 months.
9
“Obama says he inherited a trillion dollar deficit. Fat chance, as he inherited more like a 420 billion dollar deficit” — EyeDoc
Time for a new bifocal prescription, EyeDoc. In Sept. 2008, the CBO estimated the 2009 deficit at $438 Billion. By the time the Congressional Budget Office revised its estimates, in Jan. 2009, the deficit had swelled to $1.186 Trillion.
http://www.cbo.gov
11
I’m thinking you are whistling past the graveyard. He has rarely dipped below 60% to date.
GDP growth is projected to turn positive by fall. But Americans don’t expect a recovery for years. Gallup:
“Americans still see a long road to recovery for the economy. The vast majority (71%) believe it will be two or more years before the economy starts to recover, with an average prediction of 4.1 years.”
To me, that suggests that Obama will not get any blame for the lousy economy he inherited for much longer than your side hopes. In 2010, congressional redistricting will take place. Democrats will be in office for a generation.
I don’t wear bifocals you snot, but if that’s the case than the deficit this year will be far and away higher than the 1.75 trillion dollars Obama says it will be. No matter how you look at it, Obama and the Democrats are massively increasing the federal budget deficit and have no leg to stand on in terms of criticizing the Bush administration for being irresponsible. And they’re not even close to being finished as far as pissing away our money.
Obama…”simply wants quiet on his eastern and western fronts so that he can proceed with what he really cares about — his domestic agenda.”
Yes, Abe, Krauthammer couldn’t have been more correct. I have only three words to add. Red. Diaper. Baby.
The mother and her socialist goals are alive and well in the son she abandoned to her parents to raise so she could continue her agenda. Forget the pseudo-fathers, Obama and Soetero, Saul Alinsky is Obama’s real father.
Quick who said “this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country”?
A: The British War dead of WW II.
What are huge agricultural subsidies and massive tax brakes for oil companies if not wealth redistribution. You have to acknowledge that some elements of Obama’s plan do return us closer to a market economy.
Obama’s going to do away with farm subsidies? I seem to have missed that in his program. But if you say so, it must be true.
I would offer the observation that in America political victories are rarely won, elections are lost. Obama was trailing at the time of the market crash last fall, and still managed a less-than-impressive “landslide.” To say that his policies triumphed is absurd. He won on his skin pigmentation, his ability to read a teleprompter, the market drop and Bush’s inability to excite the general public.
The great hope for Republicans is not new policies or well-articulated positions. No one will pay the slightest attention until after Obama’s policies are generally accepted to be abject failures. The great hope for Republicans is, in fact, that dems (like the resident trolls) actually believe that the public supports his left-wing policies will fall flat on their collective faces.
We need clear thinking on the Republican side. Not so much as to win the election – for the short term that is out of our hands since Obama-Reid-Pelosi will determine whether we win – but to govern wisely when we regain control.
When the history books are written decades from now, it will point out that the most important question asked during the ’08 campaign was from Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher. Instead of following up on the question, the media instead chose to attack the questioner, which was a bad day for democracy.
We have clear thinking on the GOP side. I would like to see the GOP jump onto the Tea Party theme and run with it – calling attention to the outrage that is being channeled into something resembling a movement. Republicans need to get out of DC as much as possible over the coming months and get out of the “Beltway” mode of thinking. Get to know the “people” again and draw attention to anything creative and spontaneous that happens outside of Washington. This is a great opportunity. We have to bridge the rhetoric of the GOP with the people taking their anger out onto the streets of cities all across the nation.
As much it pains me to do so, I unfortunately must agree with Ari.
This is not the same America that existed even 15 years ago. Americans got their messiah, and a silly deficit isn’t going to make them stop praying to this false idol.
Obama is as popular as ever, Jindal’s speech was roundly panned, we on the right are rudderless, divided, and disheartened.
2010/12 will change little, and as evidenced by both Obama’s census chicanery and his 2:1 lead with the youth vote, he will indeed usher in a Democrat led country for approximately 30-40 years.
Sorry folks, buckle up. For people like me who are near 40, I will be an old man or dead before another conservative becomes President.