The only dog I have in the political hunt is the well being of our country.
As I review the several weeks of Obama's reign as the St. George of the Republican Dragon and the savior of the country I can only say, If my dog was named Obama, I'd have him retrained.
Incidentally, I know he's the Savior because Renee Flemming sang so in a Christmas Carol on Prairie Home Companion a few weeks ago:
"In the bleak midwinter
At the Christmas feast,A family leaves Chicago
And travels to the East ... "
Last time I heard something like that, it was about Jesus. But I digress.Critics here and elsewhere have criticized Obama's critics for criticizing his critical first weeks in this critical office. They've said, "Give the guy a chance to do his job, fer gawdsakes."
They miss the point. The critics are saying that the job he's been doing so far has been sub par.
Unless you like the bait and switch.
That's when someone advertises a sale on a shiny, brand new, state-of-the-art widget, but when you go to the widget store, it's out of stock , or sold, or it never existed. But since you're there, the widget salesman suggests you buy this more expensive widget, or these old widgets we couldn't get rid of. Why waste the trip?
Obama pulled off his bait and switch beautifully. He proudly announced in his nomination acceptance speech that "at defining moments like these, the Change we needed doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington."
Wahoo! Whoop-dee-doo-doo! That sounded great. So let's flash ourselves back to those first weeks just a few weeks ago and mosey on down to the Presidential Change Store and buy us some of that Change that comes to Washington.
Salesman has a long face. "Oops, sorry, we're all out of that Change. But, hey, since you're already here in the Change Showroom, how about that hair-plug, plagiarizing, blowhard, Joe Biden, instead? "
"But he's from Washington," I replied. "For a really long time."
"Okay, then," the salesman continued, "over in that corner, we're selling that lovely professional Washington apparatchic chick, Hillary Clinton. You'll like this deal: she comes with lots of special interest accessories and a husband who took big money for his library from the very people she's expected to be an honest broker with in dealing with people who didn't give her husband money."
"Same problem," I said. "I want the Change that comes to Washington. Something a little more substantial."
The salesman shakes his head sadly. "Damn! If you only got here earlier. Like seventy years ago. We sold the last substantial Change we had to FDR. I think maybe JFK might have bought some, too. "
Eager to make a sale, he begins to shill. "I know, how about that Eric Holder over there!?" he said cheerfully.
"But he's the guy who helped Bill Clinton with the sleazy Marc Rich pardon," I said, now starting to get annoyed. "I wasn't looking for any kind of Change. The advertisement said, 'Change that comes to Washington.' You sure you don't have any of that lying around?"
"I got just the thing," said the salesman. "We have a Tom Daschle in the factory storeroom."
"But he's from Washington," I said.
The salesman quipped, "Can't say he's from Washington because he's been in South Dakota for three years. So technically, he's Change that's coming to Washington, and he'll be coming in a great car some people gave him for free.
"But Change means something new," I said. "He's used."
"Just a tad," he said. "After all, a used car is still a car, even if it doesn't have all the latest improvements. Like Governor Richardson. He'll be coming to Washington from New Mexico. And we have lots of other changes, too. Timothy "Tax Cheat" Geithner, Larry Summers, Robert "I-Made-A-Hundred-Mil-At-Citibank" Rubin and Robert Gates."
I object one more time. "But they're from Washington."
"Hey," said the salesman, a little sharply, I thought. "Everybody's got to come from somewhere, right?"
I sighed and walked out empty handed. I fell for the bait, but didn't switch. Apparantly I'm not the only one. Here's a February 3rd letter in the New York Times from Bilsel Alisbah, from Hilton Head, S.C., who writes:
" I am an independent who embraced Barack Obama’s candidacy with great enthusiasm. Not only did my wife and I vote for him, but we also made a modest financial contribution to his campaign."I go not by what people say (The Advertisement) but by what they do. (The Bait) Unfortunately, on this subject it is beginning to look like business as usual. (And switch)
"I am very sad. I did not think that I would be disappointed so soon after the glow and the promise of the inauguration."
Caveat Emptor.
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Comments
This is a fun little sentence, "Critics here and elsewhere have criticized Obama's critics for criticizing his critical first weeks in this critical office."
(rated)
What DOES bother me is the apparent lack of adequate vetting on Daschle and Geithner, especially Daschle. Why didn't they recognize failure to pay taxes in these times could be a non-starter?
I really think the early determinant for Obama will be his ability to get an effective stimulus bill passed, and whether he lives up to his commitment to change the way we prosecute the War on Terror. I think the verdict is not yet in on either of those. It better be in soon, though.
Procopius: A fair point. But Carter/Clinton didn't promise the kind of change Obama did. The entire Obama hoopla was about change. Sometimes, you have to back up what you say and promise. I think this was such a time and he didn't do it.
Deborah, thanks.
Aaron, Verbal ... Argumentum ad Previous Administrati gets us nowhere. Speak to the point raised, not to your grudges.
I think you're confusing two very distinct political functions as being one. Campaign and Office.
The campaign was about change. Last year was a "change" year, so Obama ran on change. I feel changed, you look changed, we are changed.
A majority of Americans agreed Bush needed to be changed, as did his valet, who noted GW needed to be changed several times a day.
"Change" is the vehicle a politician rides to office, and, like a car, parks outside.
Can we lay off the Biden plagiarism jokes? As he said recently :"That incident was four score and seven years ago, it's old news." I agree.
What you're missing is the efficiency Obama brings to the office. He avoided Bush's mistake of fumbling through a Rolodex, looking for old high school classmates to run the higher functions of government.
Barack simply picked up the phone and called the Democratic Leadership Council. They have a ready list of competent political appointees, and also deliver. Would you disparage these fine men and women who have taken time from counting money in their Scrooge McDuck vaults to offer America their wisdom?
What kind of conservative would do that?
When I consider the experience these fine financial appointees bring to the table it gives me a warm feeling.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go change.
I read this post, and I see a lot of complaining about the "old" faces, yet I see no suggestions for newbies who would do a better job.
You want change? How about a president who actually seems to be *working.* You know, not down in the gym, not to bed by 9:00, not at Camp David or The "Ranch" or just plain out to lunch, lights off even when present. That doesn't represent change to you?
How about a president who can speak English?
How about a president who meets with individuals who do not share his opinion (or, as in the previous president's case, his half-baked, ignorant, Oedipus-driven, dry-drunk opinion.)
And, while reading this post, this is the other thing I see: The post that would have been written if he had filled the posts with "Unknowns," "Unprovens," "Chicago cronies" or "terrorist pals." In all fairness, maybe this "imagined" post would not have been written by you, but it would have been written by someone.
Eric Holder may not thrill me, but I still find him an immense improvement over both Alberto Gonzalez AND John Ashcroft. I'm pretty sure he's not going to fire U.S. attorneys for failing to toe the administration's line on purely ideological grounds, or make the Dept of Justice sing "Let the Eagle Soar."
Everyone's already fond of portraying Joe Biden as a buffoon. I like him for having written the Violence Against Women Act and getting it passed then renewed by Congress twice. Contrast that with Sarah Palin who thought charging women for their own rape kits was an okay thing to do. He's also served on the Senate Foreign Relations committee for years, and you don't get reelected by your constituents for over 30 years unless you give them some baseline satisfaction in the way you perform your senatorial duties. And I thought he did well in the VP debate against Palin. That is, he actually answered the questions he was asked. I get the idea that he has a far better grasp of the world and has traveled far more widely over it than Palin ever has. Even if Biden has Buffoonish tendencies, I'll take a buffoon over Dr. Strangelove with a curled lip sneer, any day. Knowing Dick Cheney is no longer a heart beat from the presidency is incredibly worth it to me.
I am surprised that with the questionaires, vetting and disclosure that was asked of the VP candidates, how two cabinet people got by with those tax evasion problems. I'm very disappointed about Daschle, as I think he could have been very good at HHS, but Obama had the decency to own up to the mistake and admit having made one. Imagine that. A president who doesn't believe he is imperially infallible. That's a refreshing change.
In eight disastrous years, Bush could hardly think of anything he'd done "wrong" even though he inherited a relatively prosperous peaceful nation and left it with two awful wars that are sapping our treasury, and never met a regulation he didn't want to relax. Now we painfully understand why some regulation of our financial markets is NEEDED and why some commonsense ethical rules with some teeth in them are actually a good idea.
Had Hillary won the nomination, I'd have supported her in the general election. I have a feeling her cabinet would have had some familiar faces in it, too. Bush recycled a lot of people from previous Republican administrations, himself including Condoleezza Rice. I agree with Procopius--I don't have a problem with using people who've been around the block a few times in D.C. There was great emphasis on using all new people with Clinton and HE got hit with a lot of criticism in the first year of his presidency, and he still managed to get a major economic bill passed. He left the country in better economic shape than it was in when he started.
For me it's not so much a question of bringing all new people in to Washington, as it is of choosing competence over the rampant cronyism of the Bush years. "Heckuva Job Brownie" pointed out exactly how stupid and disastrous it can be to appoint someone to a high responsibility job who has no idea how to do it. I hope Obama's choice to run FEMA is a smart, competent person who knows how to run an organization, and how to deal efficiently and effectively with disaster relief. As long as Obama chooses sucha person, I don't care if that FEMA head was born in the rotunda of the US capital as long as they can do the job right. Same goes for other presidentially appointed jobs as long as Obama takes thought and care about putting the best, most knowledgeable people in the right jobs, whether they're new to Washington or not. The country will be well served if he does.
As of Tuesday, Obama will have been on the job for three weeks. I'm not crazy about the "First 100 days" obsession; there's one hell of a learning curve to master, and I think ANY president's first hundred days are going to be some of the roughest of their administration. The nature of the presidency is not unlike teaching yourself to juggle while on TV using flaming torches and chainsaws. You're going to drop a few things before you get comfortable, hopefully without cutting off your arm or setting yourself on fire. Obama's a bit singed by Daschle, but I count myself encouraged and impressed by his actions thus far.
Fireworks are sure to ensue.
I expect him to change that, and doing better is very easy.
What I wanted to see was if he'd change the Dem Party from DLC - GOP lite to something that supports labor and consumers. So far, seems DLC is winning.
Forget "moderate" and "centrist," two ambiguous terms. Let's see "bold" and "smart."
I haven't forgotten how deeply Clinton screwed the traditional Dem constituents. If all Obama can do is a Clinton reprise, then expect the GOP back far too soon.
So far, I'm a bit surprised that he recognized "change" as a campaign theme, but not as a governing guideline. More of the same tired DLC crap. This may be, in spite of what Nader says "a dime's worth of difference," but keep in mind most people wouldn't cross the street for a dime.
There's my .02
John does have a great sense of humor.
Funny stuff, though Obama will probably never offer the target rich environment Bush did.
Maybe if Obama operated on the premise that he was going to disarm John from taking righteous pot shots at him, we'd all get somewhere. Look out, John...Obama has potential!
But if he screws up badly, I do have a few pages of GW jokes I can rework...
I was going to compliment you on the "critical" sentence, too, but McG beat me to it.
Paul ... I don't see this as a lib/conservative thing. And I'm not sure I've wrapped my brain around your thoughts about those definitions. Definitely something to discuss further, for my enlightenment.
What is is, to me, is a breaking of a promise. Now, all politicians break promises, or don't keep them. Sometimes it hurts them "No new taxes, read my lips," and sometimes it doesn't.
Obama's change promise was seminal, IMO. It was the mother of all promises and he broke it in the first two weeks. That was my point.
Biden's plagiarism is still fair game. Moreso because he's such a loudmouthed buffoon. If you want, I'll substitute Obama's recent plagiarism of Deval Patrick in his Wisconsin speech. Deal?
His hair plugs were years ago, too. Can I make fun of them at this late date?
Those GW jokes? First they were "colored" jokes, then Irish jokes, then moron jokes, then Polish jokes, then Dumb Blonde jokes and now GW jokes. They have nothing to do with GW.
But keep 'em. Someone or something will come along.
Yeah. As I wrote above, it was a MAJOR promise. And broken. Like leaving someone at the altar. But if some don't mind ... what can you do?
Just a quick note on GW jokes.
I would hand in my funny bone if I had to resort to reworking old ethnic jokes to shoehorn GW in.
However, this isn't to say you couldn't take an old joke and apply it to GW in a way that targeted something specific and unique to ol' Dub.
For example:
What is the difference between GW and a bucket of steaming dog spoor?
Answer: The bucket has a 40% approval rating.
Trust me, this one killed the last 3 years.
I already miss lil' GW...,sniff>
Can't say I agree all around with the sentiments .I think also that the first 100 days concept gets too much play, but I'll admit I e-mailed a friend the instant I heard Daschle didn't get vetted early enough to keep him from stepping up and accepting a nomination that should not have happened.
Thanks for the PM. Will read next post too........