President Obama Day 386: What Happened To Him

A favorite story about Chicago politics involves Roman Pucinski, who served six long terms of political apprenticeship in the Washington minor leagues of the U.S. House of Representatives before the Windy City’s vaunted Democratic political machine allowed him to step up and serve on the City Council.

The late Pucinski then served for 18 years as a loyal operative assigned to the 41st Ward (of 50).

It’s always useful for Chicago pols to have White House connections if, say, they’d like to dispatch someone famous to fly off to Copenhagen to lobby the International Olympic Committee for their city’s 2016 summer games bid.

But the Chicago Daley machine, which is actually a ruthless coalition of urban Democratic factions united by the steel reinforcing rods of self-interest, didn’t much care about this Barack Obama fellow before, as long as he was quiet, obedient and headed on a track out of town. How he acquired a reform label coming out of that one-party place is anyone’s guess.

But now that the sun has risen on the 386th day of the Obama White House, many political observers are coming to see that the ex-state senator from the South Side is running his federal administration in Washington much the way they run things back home: with a small….

…claque of clout-laden people from the same school who learned their political trade back in the nation’s No. 3 city, named for an Indian word for a smelly wild onion.

That style is tough, focused, immune to any distractions but cosmetic niceties. And did we mention tough. A portly, veteran Chicago alderman once confided only about 40% jokingly, that he had taken up jogging to lose weight but quickly gave it up as boring because “you can’t knock anyone down.” That’s politics the Chicago way.

For instance, remember how much we heard all last year about the need for healthcare legislation before early August, before October, before Thanksgiving, before Christmas, before the State of the Union? And how spanked the White House was by the Massachusetts Senate upset that Obama said his laser-vision for 2010 was on jobs and the economy?

So, what did he announce during a Super Bowl interview? More healthcare meetings, designed to politically box Republicans into the No-Nothing corner.

In the last few days at least three major outlets have published well-informed evaluations of Obama’s first year in office. All are well worth reading. The dominant themes: disappointment and disillusionment with the Chicago way.

In one respect it’s not surprising that a capitol city with its own style of take-no-prisoners politics should find a professed outsider’s style of smoother-spoken take-no-prisoners discomforting.

But now, no less than the Huffington Post headlined its Obama evaluation by Steve Clemons: “Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama presidency.”

The devastating Financial Times report by Edward Luce: “A fearsome foursome”

And the Washington Post story by Ann Gerhart: “A year later, where did the hopes for Obama go?”

The Post story focuses on a handful of Obama supporters, so fiercely motivated and hopeful in 2008 and through the inauguration, now largely drifting back to normal lives lacking fulfillment of so many promises.

The other two fascinating accounts examine Obama’s close-knit team of Chicagoans: confidante Valerie Jarrett, who’s so intelligent she once hired Michelle Obama; Rahm Emanuel, the diminutive, acid-tongued chief of staff with overwhelming energy and ambition; David Axelrod, the ex-Chicago Tribune politics reporter-turned-consultant who’s been coaching Obama forever; and Robert Gibbs, who isn’t from Chicago but that’s OK because he’s only the mouthpiece and the others keep a close eye on him.

Clemons focuses on how dead-on the Luce piece is and how the FT Washington bureau chief had to assiduously hide his sources as everyone was properly so fearful of retribution from the quartet around the mayor, er, president.

And Clemons attributes the lack of online link love to the Luce item Monday to the same fears among D.C. journalists dodging disfavor from the same four.

Quoting “administration insiders,” Luce says “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.”

And both articles note, accurately, how savvy cabinet secretaries like Kathleen Sebelius at Health and Human Services and Ken Salazar at Interior have been marginalized because putting a media face on the Obama Oval Office can only be entrusted to the likes of Gibbs and Axelrod.

Another Luce source talks about the difference between campaigning, which is easier, and governing, which is the ultimate goal but takes a more refined skill-set:

‘There is this sense after you have won such an amazing victory, when you have proved conventional wisdom wrong again and again, that you can simply do the same thing in government,’ says one. ‘Of course, they are different skills. To be successful, presidents need to separate the stream of advice they get on policy from the stream of advice they get on politics. That still isn’t happening.’
Also noted, how most everything coming out of the executive office is filtered through a political prism above all. i.e. the Afghanistan troop surge speech that touched all the political bases in 4,582 words without once saying “victory.”

Warning that Obama needs to take action quickly, Clemons adds that needed advice from a broader range of advisers “is getting twisted either in the rough-and-tumble of a a team of rivals operation that is not working, or is being distorted by the Chicago political gang’s tactical advice that is seducing Obama towards a course that has not only violated deals he made with those who voted him into office but which is failing to hit any of the major strategic targets by which the administration will be historically measured.”

David Gergen, who helped guide Bill Clinton out of not dissimilar troubled waters, tells Luce: “There is an old joke. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one. But the lightbulb must want to change. I don’t think President Obama wants to make any changes.”

– Andrew Malcolm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XzrTV7Zzs&feature=player_embedded

“No! No! No!” he yelled out. “You can’t make that type of statement with any legitimacy. You cannot make that statement.”

Gregg then held up a guideline for the TARP, which he helped write in 2008 to keep the country from further economic collapse.

“This is the law,” he said. “Let me tell you what the law says. Let me read to you again because you don’t appear to understand the law. The law is very clear. The monies recouped from the TARP shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for the reduction of the public debt. It’s not for a piggy bank because you’re concerned about lending to small businesses and you want to get a political event when you go out and make a speech in Nashua, N.H.”

Mrs. Smith

I can tell you are getting fiesty, so I know you are feeling better. I cannot wait until you unload on the Edwards mob.

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admin
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:11 am

Mrs. Smith, here’s hoping you are back to full strength soon.

As to Edwards, there is a lot to be learned from that phoney. The lessons deserve a full discussion but we have wasted a lot of time on that “grizzle”, as you call it.

There is a good article by Tom Bevan today (with several good links including a 2007 article on why Edwards is a phoney) which you might want to read:

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Yesseree Bob!, NMF and Admin- I’m pacing myself as to allocation of (my) energy resources. I’ll need to do a little research on the John Edwards piss-off point. ( he never had a chance winning my vote) It happened during one of the debates when he was tag teaming with the (new phrase I learned today) “blue lipped” Kenyan against Hillary. Made me frakin’ furious!

Hopefully, I’ll find the video and post it with my rant…

February 3, 2010
By Matt Viser

Hoping to start work in Washington a week sooner than originally planned, US Senator-elect Scott Brown this afternoon asked Governor Deval Patrick and Secretary of State William Galvin to “certify without delay” the results of the Jan. 19 special election.

In a letter written by his legal counsel, Daniel B. Winslow, Brown said he wanted the results certified no later than 11 a.m. Thursday so that he could deliver a copy to the secretary of the United States Senate in time to be administered the oath of office by Thursday afternoon.

The Republican Brown, who won a stunning upset in the Jan. 19 special election, had initially planned to be sworn into office Feb. 11. But Winslow wrote, “he has been advised that there are a number of votes scheduled prior to that date. For that reason, he wants certification to occur immediately.”

Galvin completed his certification of the official election results today. The results now must be approved by the Governor’s Council, and then signed by Galvin and Patrick. The governor has been away from the State House this afternoon, with several events in Taunton, so the certification did not occur this afternoon.

Patrick is planning to certify the results at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, said governor’s spokesman Kyle Sullivan. “This will ensure that Senator-elect Brown’s request to receive the final paperwork by 11 a.m. tomorrow is fulfilled,” Sullivan said in a statement.

Vice President Joe Biden would have to administer the oath of office, and top Senate Democrats appeared ready this afternoon to move on Brown’s request.

“Once he gets the certificate in hand, he can be sworn in,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate majority leader Harry Reid. “We are working to swear him in as quickly as possible, which would be as early as tomorrow afternoon.”

There are several votes coming up within the next week that are expected to be controversial, including nominees for solicitor of labor and the US General Services Administration. A vote could come next week on whether to confirm Craig Becker, a Chicago-based union attorney who was nominated by President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board.

Votes on a major jobs bill could also come next week.

Still, it was Brown who had suggested being sworn in on Feb. 11, which was the date that officials in Massachusetts and Washington had been making plans around.

“Feb. 11 was a tentative date,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, one of Brown’s top advisers. “Since the election results are now complete, there’s no reason to wait. Senator-elect Brown wants to take his seat and participate in some important votes that are coming up.”

As recently as Tuesday afternoon, Brown’s spokesman, Felix Browne, said in an e-mail, “Feb. 11 still the date, yes,” when asked if anything had changed or if Brown would seek to be sworn in sooner. Tuesday morning at 8:50, Brown posted on his Facebook page “Scott Brown will be officially sworn in on February 11th at 12:45 p.m.”

On a WTKK-FM radio show this morning, Patrick said Brown was satisfied with the Feb. 11 swearing-in. “I think everybody feels like it’s moving apace,” he told hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan.

Brown’s victory over Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley reshaped the national political landscape and has stalled the Democrats’ drive in Washington for a national health care overhaul.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/sen-elect_scott.html

Hillary Clinton’s Prescription: Make The World A NATO Protectorate

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Hillary-Clinton-s-Prescrip-by-Rick-Rozoff-100201-968.html

So Richard Cohen is right, there is a lesson to be learned from the meteoric rise and fall of John Edwards. It’s that the media fell down on the job by not sufficiently scrutinizing Edwards on his way up and then fell down again by ignoring a story that could have done catastrophic damage to the Democratic party and to the country.
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I am catching up so not sure if anyone else has mentioned this…but what i find infuriating is that the exact same MSM that conveniently ignore the Edwards story and did not want to touch it…that same MSM had no problem peddeling pushing stories and driving rumors about Bill Clinton…we can all recall the timely Vanity Fair hit piece on Bill Clinton by Todd Purdum during the heat and intensity of the primaries and the coordination for his appearances on msnbc and msm outlets to keep spreading the rumors and innuendo about Bill…and that of course, gave that same MSM perfect openings to opening gossip on tv and in print about unfounded rumors…

of course, the standard for the Clintons with the MSM has always been that no cheap shot can be wasted…

Think about this, if he goes to center, the republicans will get the bills passed that they want because they will not pass anything that isn’t. If Obama vears to the left the republicans will still get what they want because nothing Obama promised will get done and the electorate will be pist and put in a republican President, then they have it where they want it again. So to me either way the republicans are going to win this battle.

SO AGAIN I ASK, WHY DIDN’T OBAMA GET ANYTHING DONE WHEN HE HAD A “SUPERDOOPER MAJORITY”, (the first time in history)?? Are we to believe stupidity, laziness or can be believe it was pre-determinined since Obama is obviously in bed with the Saudi’s as BushII has always been.
Personally, I think Obama has much in common with Oswald, a patsy.