Screaming Meme’s

December 1st, 2008

I stand in awe of the Obama signature on the last four weeks; or — you know — maybe we’ve all just forgotten what competent looks like. I think it’s more, though; I think it’s remarkable talent and skill.

Transition into leadership has always been a kind of a clumsy wobble, a semi-disastrous toe-stubbing period. When the Clintons came to the White House they brought all their friends — as did Carter — in what the pundits called Hillbilly administrations: too cozy, too tribal, too inbred. Both lurched into power, reconfiguring as they went, making enemies and ruffling important feathers, the kind that flapped back when it came time to propose new ideas.

We keep waiting for Obama to stumble; of course, he’s not the Prez yet … one at a time, so he says. But that stumble isn’t apparent at this point — what is apparent is that the meme’s of the last eight years simply don’t apply here.

Meme #1 — the transition will be rocky

Isn’t happening — Bush, attempting to pull a legacy out of his butt, is leaning over backwards to give the O people access; to be fair, his ‘vision’ of democracy spreading like wildfire due to American largess requires him to turn over the reins in some semblance of order. Meanwhile, O has made choices for economy and security that are non-partisan and respected; and, having cleared the Big Dog’s activities sufficiently, Hillary Clinton has decided to step into the spotlight as Secretary of State. That may prove to be like putting a chili pepper in the jello, but for the moment it’s a high-profile pick that has positive possibility. It would have been interesting to peek in Hil’s head for this decision — she turned down leadership in the all-powerful Appropriations Committee to take State.

Meme #2 — the new ideology is in town

That isn’t how the Obama cabinet selections are playing out. Much has been made of the “team of rivals” notion, floated because of O’s interest in the Lincoln method, which made selections for excellence rather than ideology. With Gates staying on, at least for transition, the progressives are having little tizzy-fits … but he took his marching orders from Bush and did what was asked of him; new liberal orders in procedure and context should be an easy fit and eliminate any military wobbles. Eric Holder, the new AG, has a reputation for being a straight-shooter and unifier … he knows the DoJ and is respected there. Jones, as National Security Advisor, has diplomatic abilities to bring to the mix; he’s hawkish, but that’s to be expected. The Righty talking point that Obama will be hesitant and too soft is belied by these choices, snuffing out even more of the hysteria his election has promoted.

No worries, progressives. As much as Obama is choosing from the center with these big positions, he’s quietly salting his White House staff with liberals. It was never going to be a U Turn, anyway; we have to trust that the challenges ahead will create opportunity to make the shift Left natural and productive.

Meme #3 — the teams will be dysfunctional

Pinging off the Hillary pick, and the Clinton record of high drama, reporters went after her as a possible source of friction. Obama batted that back easily, chiding the press for building a story out of speculation, and telling us that the buck stops with him. Wow! No heckuva job, Hillary? No finger pointing? No stonewall? From what we’ve seen, Mr. O doesn’t shirk responsibility. He will expect his picks to carry out his orders; I wouldn’t want to be the one who didn’t.

Meme #4 — DC will eat you alive

See the last article on that one; only time will tell … but my money is on the Obama family, who are being touted for their values and relationship. It’s something, truly. You’ll find the 60 Minutes interview here; the notion of bringing children … lots of them … into the White House brought a lump to my throat and wet eyes.

One meme that we won’t be seeing is the Orwellian smoke-screen effect of the last eight years — today it was announced that we are, indeed, in a recession … and that it began fully a year ago, in December of 2007. The Bush way was to ignore truth; not so Obama. He has made the economic emergency apparent; he was candid about the tinderbox between India and Pakistan, as well. I doubt that we’ll have to pry information out of a secret vault in the VP’s office this time around.

The reads today are on the continuing effort of the Bushies to clamp a lid on progress and push agenda’s that will have long-lasting effect. From what I’ve seen of O’s competency and forethought, somebody in his team is surely watching and biding their time, hopefully readying to reverse.

We’ll start with some finger pointing on the economy — almost seems like those dratted Bushies WANTED an economic meltdown! What a concept, huh? Drill, baby, drill had nothing on drown, baby, drown — and they did a damned good job of it, too. They even ignored the banks cry for oversight.

Jude

Bush Administration Weakened Lending Rules Before Crash
MATT APUZZO, via HuffPo
December 1, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

“Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories,” California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.

Bowing to aggressive lobbying - along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK - regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.

“These mortgages have been considered more safe and sound for portfolio lenders than many fixed rate mortgages,” David Schneider, home loan president of Washington Mutual, told federal regulators in early 2006. Two years later, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history.

The administration’s blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of a philosophy that trusted market forces and discounted the need for government intervention in the economy. Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s.

“We’re going to be feeling the effects of the regulators’ failure to address these mortgages for the next several years,” said Kevin Stein of the California Reinvestment Coalition, who warned regulators to tighten lending rules before it was too late.

Many of the banks that fought to undermine the proposals by some regulators are now either out of business or accepting billions in federal aid to recover from a mortgage crisis they insisted would never come. Many executives remain in high-paying jobs, even after their assurances were proved false.

In 2005, faced with ominous signs the housing market was in jeopardy, bank regulators proposed new guidelines for banks writing risky loans. Today, in the midst of the worst housing recession in a generation, the proposal reads like a list of what-ifs:

_Regulators told bankers exotic mortgages were often inappropriate for buyers with bad credit.

_Banks would have been required to increase efforts to verify that buyers actually had jobs and could afford houses.

_Regulators proposed a cap on risky mortgages so a string of defaults wouldn’t be crippling.

_Banks that bundled and sold mortgages were told to be sure investors knew exactly what they were buying.

_Regulators urged banks to help buyers make responsible decisions and clearly advise them that interest rates might skyrocket and huge payments might be due sooner than expected.

Those proposals all were stripped from the final rules. None required congressional approval or the president’s signature.

“In hindsight, it was spot on,” said Jeffrey Brown, a former top official at the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, one of the first agencies to raise concerns about risky lending.

Federal regulators were especially concerned about mortgages known as “option ARMs,” which allow borrowers to make payments so low that mortgage debt actually increases every month. But banking executives accused the government of overreacting.

Bankers said such loans might be risky when approved with no money down or without ensuring buyers have jobs but such risk could be managed without government intervention.

“An open market will mean that different institutions will develop different methodologies for achieving this goal,” Joseph Polizzotto, counsel to now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers, told U.S. regulators in a March 2006.

Countrywide Financial Corp., at the time the nation’s largest mortgage lender, agreed. The proposal “appears excessive and will inhibit future innovation in the marketplace,” said Mary Jane Seebach, managing director of public affairs.

One of the most contested rules said that before banks purchase mortgages from brokers, they should verify the process to ensure buyers could afford their homes. Some bankers now blame much of the housing crisis on brokers who wrote fraudulent, predatory loans. But in 2006, banks said they shouldn’t have to double-check the brokers.

“It is not our role to be the regulator for the third-party lenders,” wrote Ruthann Melbourne, chief risk officer of IndyMac Bank.

California-based IndyMac also criticized regulators for not recognizing the track record of interest-only loans and option ARMs, which accounted for 70 percent of IndyMac’s 2005 mortgage portfolio. This summer, the government seized IndyMac and will pay an estimated $9 billion to ensure customers don’t lose their deposits.

Last week, Downey Savings joined the growing list of failed banks. The problem: About 52 percent of its mortgage portfolio was tied up in risky option ARMs, which in 2006 Downey insisted were safe - maybe even safer than traditional 30-year mortgages.

“To conclude that ‘nontraditional’ equates to higher risk does not appropriately balance risk and compensating factors of these products,” said Lillian Gavin, the bank’s chief credit officer.

At least some regulators didn’t buy it. The comptroller of the currency, John C. Dugan, was among the first to sound the alarm in mid-2005.

Speaking to a consumer advocacy group, Dugan painted a troublesome picture of option-ARM lending. Many buyers, particularly those with bad credit, would soon be unable to afford their payments, he said. And if housing prices declined, homeowners wouldn’t even be able to sell their way out of the mess.

It sounded simple, but “people kind of looked at us regulators as old-fashioned,” said Brown, the agency’s former deputy comptroller.

Diane Casey-Landry, of the American Bankers Association, said the industry feared a two-tiered system in which banks had to follow rules that mortgage brokers did not. She said opposition was based on the banks’ best information.

“You’re looking at a decline in real estate values that was never contemplated,” she said.

Some saw problems coming. Community groups and even some in the mortgage business, like Welch, warned regulators not to ease their rules.

“We expect to see a huge increase in defaults, delinquencies and foreclosures as a result of the over selling of these products,” Stein, the associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, wrote to regulators in 2006. The group advocates on housing and banking issues for low-income and minority residents.

The government’s banking agencies spent nearly a year debating the rules, which required unanimous agreement among the OCC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Federal Reserve, and the Office of Thrift Supervision - agencies that sometimes don’t agree.

The Fed, for instance, was reluctant under Alan Greenspan to heavily regulate lending. Similarly, the Office of Thrift Supervision, an arm of the Treasury Department that regulated many in the subprime mortgage market, worried that restricting certain mortgages would hurt banks and consumers.

Grovetta Gardineer, OTS managing director for corporate and international activities, said the 2005 proposal “attempted to send an alarm bell that these products are bad.” After hearing from banks, she said, regulators were persuaded that the loans themselves were not problematic as long as banks managed the risk. She disputes the notion that the rules were weakened.

In the past year, with Congress scrambling to stanch the bleeding in the financial industry, regulators have tightened rules on risky mortgages.

Congress is considering further tightening, including some of the same proposals abandoned years ago. ++

Bush Aides Rush to Enact a Safety Rule Obama Opposes
ROBERT PEAR, NYT
November 30, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.

The rule, which has strong support from business groups, says that in assessing the risk from a particular substance, federal agencies should gather and analyze “industry-by-industry evidence” of employees’ exposure to it during their working lives. The proposal would, in many cases, add a step to the lengthy process of developing standards to protect workers’ health.

Public health officials and labor unions said the rule would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses.

With the economy tumbling and American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush has promised to cooperate with Mr. Obama to make the transition “as smooth as possible.” But that has not stopped his administration from trying, in its final days, to cement in place a diverse array of new regulations.

The Labor Department proposal is one of about 20 highly contentious rules the Bush administration is planning to issue in its final weeks. The rules deal with issues as diverse as abortion, auto safety and the environment. One rule would make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas. Another would reduce the role of federal wildlife scientists in deciding whether dams, highways and other projects pose a threat to endangered species.

Mr. Obama and his advisers have already signaled their wariness of last-minute efforts by the Bush administration to embed its policies into the Code of Federal Regulations, a collection of rules having the force of law. The advisers have also said that Mr. Obama plans to look at a number of executive orders issued by Mr. Bush.

A new president can unilaterally reverse executive orders issued by his predecessors, as Mr. Bush and President Bill Clinton did in selected cases. But it is much more difficult for a new president to revoke or alter final regulations put in place by a predecessor. A new administration must solicit public comment and supply “a reasoned analysis” for such changes, as if it were issuing a new rule, the Supreme Court has said.

As a senator and a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama sharply criticized the regulation of workplace hazards by the Bush administration.

In September, Mr. Obama and four other senators introduced a bill that would prohibit the Labor Department from issuing the rule it is now rushing to complete. He also signed a letter urging the department to scrap the proposal, saying it would “create serious obstacles to protecting workers from health hazards on the job.”

Administration officials said such concerns were based on a misunderstanding of the proposal.

“This proposal does not affect the substance or methodology of risk assessments, and it does not weaken any health standard,” said Leon R. Sequeira, the assistant secretary of labor for policy. The proposal, Mr. Sequeira said, would allow the department to “cast a wide net for the best available data before proposing a health standard.”

The Labor Department regulates occupational health hazards posed by a wide variety of substances like asbestos, benzene, cotton dust, formaldehyde, lead, vinyl chloride and blood-borne pathogens, including the virus that causes AIDS.

The department is constantly considering whether to take steps to protect workers against hazardous substances. Currently, it is assessing substances like silica, beryllium and diacetyl, a chemical that adds the buttery flavor to some types of microwave popcorn.

The proposal applies to two agencies in the Labor Department, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Under the proposal, they would have to publish “advance notice of proposed rule-making,” soliciting public comment on studies, scientific information and data to be used in drafting a new rule. In some cases, OSHA has done that, but it is not required to do so.

The Bush administration and business groups said the rule would codify “best practices,” ensuring that health standards were based on the best available data and scientific information.

Randel K. Johnson, a vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, said his group “unequivocally supports” the proposal because it would give the public a better opportunity to comment on the science and data used by the government.

After a regulation is drafted and formally proposed, Mr. Johnson said, it is “all but impossible” to get OSHA to make significant changes.

“Risk assessment drives the entire process of regulation,” he said, and “courts almost always defer” to the agency’s assessments.
But critics say the additional step does nothing to protect workers.

“This rule is being pushed through by an administration that, for the last seven and a half years, has failed to set any new OSHA health rules to protect workers, except for one issued pursuant to a court order,” said Margaret M. Seminario, director of occupational safety and health for the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Now, Ms. Seminario said, “the administration is rushing to lock in place requirements that would make it more difficult for the next administration to protect workers.”

She said the proposal could add two years to a rule-making process that often took eight years or more.

Representative George Miller, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, said the proposal would “weaken future workplace safety regulations and slow their adoption.”

The proposal says that risk assessments should include industry-by-industry data on exposure to workplace substances.

Administration officials acknowledged that such data did not always exist.

In their letter, Mr. Obama and other lawmakers said the Labor Department, instead of tinkering with risk-assessment procedures, should issue standards to protect workers against known hazards like silica and beryllium. The government has been working on a silica standard since 1997 and has listed it as a priority since 2002.

The timing of the proposal appears to violate a memorandum issued in early May by Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff.

“Except in extraordinary circumstances,” Mr. Bolten wrote, “regulations to be finalized in this administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations should be issued no later than Nov. 1, 2008.”

The Labor Department has not cited any extraordinary circumstances for its proposal, which was published in the Federal Register on Aug. 29. Administration officials confirmed last week that the proposal was still on their regulatory agenda.

The Labor Department said the proposal affected “only internal agency procedures” for developing health standards. It cited one source of authority for the proposal: a general “housekeeping statute” that allows the head of a department to prescribe rules for the performance of its business.

The statute is derived from a law passed in 1789 to help George Washington get the government up and running.

The Labor Department rule is among many that federal agencies are poised to issue before Mr. Bush turns over the White House to Mr. Obama.

One rule would allow coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys. Another, issued last week by the Health and Human Services Department, gives states sweeping authority to charge higher co-payments for doctor’s visits, hospital care and prescription drugs provided to low-income people under Medicaid. The department is working on another rule to protect health care workers who refuse to perform abortions or other procedures on religious or moral grounds. ++

Kristol Calls On Bush To Pardon Torturers And Wiretappers, Reward Them With Medal Of Freedom
Think Progress
11/29/08

In his new Weekly Standard column, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol lays out a to-do list for President Bush before he leaves office. He urges Bush to deliver speeches “reminding Americans of our successes fighting the war on terror.” Kristol dreams, “Over time, Bush might even get deserved credit for effective conduct of the war on terror.”

After urging Bush to fight the incoming administration’s desire to close Guantanamo, Kristol concludes with this:

One last thing: Bush should consider pardoning–and should at least be vociferously praising–everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution. But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.

In the Bush era, the Medal of Freedom has come to absurdly represent a reward for those who carried out policy failures at the urging of the Bush administration. By this standard, the implementers of torture and warrantless wiretapping certainly qualify for such a medal.

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that the White House “isn’t inclined to grant sweeping pardons for former administration officials involved in harsh interrogations and detentions of terror suspects.” President-elect Barack Obama is reportedly unlikely to pursue criminal cases against such officials, but is said to be considering a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible.”

Bush’s “record of stonewalling inquiries into his administration’s legally questionable behavior — the torture policy that led to the Abu Ghraib nightmare; illegal wiretapping; the politically motivated firing of federal attorneys — justify concern that he may be considering pardoning officials involved in those misdeeds,” the New York Times warns in an editorial this morning. “If he wants to try to reclaim his reputation, he can start by not abusing the pardon power on his way out the door,” the Times writes. ++

U.S. Moves Ahead on Oil, Gas Leases on Public Land
Decision Could Pose Problem for Obama
Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
Saturday, November 29, 2008

A decision by federal officials this week to press ahead with a controversial sale of oil and gas leases in eastern Utah is stoking the debate over how to balance the nation’s needs for fossil fuels against concerns over the environmental impact on iconic national parks and other sensitive areas.

The Bush administration, which has sought to reduce American dependence on imports to meet the continuing demand for oil and gas, has aggressively pushed to open up energy exploration across broad swaths of the West, off both coasts, and in Alaska. But those initiatives regularly stir opposition from both environmentalists and advocates of faster development of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power.

Over the last four fiscal years, a Washington Post analysis of Bureau of Land Management records shows, the government has dramatically accelerated the pace of awarding oil and gas drilling permits on federal land. The total for the period is nearly triple the number issued in the corresponding years under former President Clinton, and the number of new wells sunk on federal land is more than double Clinton’s record over the comparable period.

In the latest skirmish, the bureau announced Tuesday that it will proceed with most of a proposed sale of oil and gas leases on nearly 500 square miles of public land in eastern Utah, which had sparked protests from environmental advocates and National Park Service officials. Opponents fear the drilling activity will damage air quality in several nearby popular national parks.

The lease sales, due to take place next month, could pose a challenge for the incoming Obama administration, which will have to decide shortly after taking office whether to honor the contracts, seek to undo the leases or pay millions in taxpayer dollars to buy them back.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the administration was responding to two realities: the fact that the United States will “be using oil as an energy source for the foreseeable future, the next 50 years, and we want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil because it’s a security and economic threat.”

“If we’re going to do that, we’re going to explore where we think the oil is going to be,” he said. “It’s possible to drill in environmentally sensitive areas in safe ways.”

Energy industry experts said the government is providing access to a place that Richard Ranger, a senior policy adviser to the American Petroleum Institute, called “an area of growing promise.” Ranger noted that for the past few years the Bureau of Land Management office in Vernal, Utah, has been “one of the five or six most active BLM offices in terms of issuing drilling permits.”

Advances in a process called hydraulic fracturing have allowed companies to extract oil and natural gas from areas that were inaccessible in the past. Partly as a result, 40 percent of U.S. gas consumption last year came from wells drilled in the past four to five years.

“It was a combination of economics and better technology so we could go after resources in the West,” said Kathleen Sgamma, director of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States.

The rise in energy prices and demand during Bush’s tenure has spurred development in both the West and East: In 2007, domestic oil production slightly increased for the first time in years.

Places such as Utah offer huge potential for energy producers, but development there has triggered controversy because of its proximity to some of the nation’s most scenic parks and natural monuments. After Park Service officials on Monday identified 93 proposed auction parcels where leasing could jeopardize “air quality, water resources and natural sound,” BLM officials announced late the next day that they would defer action on two dozen of those parcels as well as portions of four more, while pressing ahead with more than 210 parcels encompassing 313,000 acres.

Environmental activists said oil and gas drilling on the 210 remaining parcels could jeopardize air quality and other natural features of some of the country’s most treasured national parks, such as Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, along with the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Dinosaur national monuments.

“The Bush administration started its energy policy in back rooms with oil lobbyists, and it’s fitting that’s how they want to end it,” said Bobby McEnaney, a public lands expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. “They’re destroying the whole process that is designed to protect these lands. Once you get rid of wilderness, you can’t get it back.”

David Garbett, a staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said that in the last month, the administration also finalized six “resource management plans” that will allow the bureau to auction off other parts of these areas in the future.

“These plans will govern management of these lands for likely the next 20 years, and these plans have made areas like this available for leasing,” Garbett said. “It’s a final attempt by the administration to set in stone guidance for these lands for the long term, in a way that will not protect resources.”

In a statement Tuesday, the bureau’s Utah state director, Selma Sierra, said her agency and the Park Service had engaged in a “constructive dialog” that “has resulted in a positive outcome” on how best to treat public lands in that state. “This is important for two sister agencies with environmental stewardship missions.”

Mike Snyder, regional director for the Park Service’s Intermountain Region, who negotiated with Sierra over the lease plan, said he is pleased with the decision to defer lease agreements on some parcels but still has concerns about how drilling will affect national parks.

“It’s just the beginning,” Snyder said in an interview Wednesday. “The resource management plans have many, many more acres that could be leased in the future.”

Snyder said he had hoped that the bureau would conduct an analysis of how drilling would affect air quality in Arches, Canyonlands and other national parks that are at risk of not meeting federal ozone pollution standards, but that that will not happen. He said the 24 parcels where the BLM deferred leasing are “the really sensitive, extraordinary cases” and that the bureau will consult with the Park Service on spelling out protections in some of the parcels being auctioned off next month.

Karen Hevel-Mingo, program manager for the Southwest regional office of the National Parks Conservation Association, said the fact that the BLM has agreed only to a deferral on the two dozen leases means they could still end up on the auction block in March, when the next sale is slated to take place.

“There is concern those parcels are still available for future oil and gas development,” she said.

But Sgamma said the administration spent seven years consulting with a range of interests before adopting the resource management plans that allow for drilling: “There were a lot of things industry was interested in that finally now are available for leasing.”

The Obama administration could seek to reverse some of the leases, but that could prove costly. Environmentalists plan to challenge the choice of several parcels over air quality concerns, and technically the bureau has 60 days after a lease sale to determine whether it has been “improperly issued” and refund the money.

But Tim Spisak, division chief for fluid minerals for the bureau, said that for the agency to do so, “they’ve got to have a reason; it’s not just like, somebody just thinks differently.” That the government just issued the six new resource management plans, he added, makes it “less likely” that the BLM could say it has found new information that would terminate the leases.

Alternatively, the federal government could buy back the leases if the companies that won them were willing to sell. But Sgamma warned that “it would be very expensive to buy that out,” adding: “Once you get a lease out, it’s a contract, and you can’t renege on that contract.” ++

Database editor Sarah Cohen contributed to this report.

Obama’s Big Gamble
Cenk Uygur, Young Turks via Smirking Chimp
November 30, 2008

Barack Obama has decided that he is going to try to shoot the moon. He is going to try to expand the tent and see if he can get everyone to buy into his ideas for reform. If it works, everyone will be invested into the change that’s coming. If it doesn’t, then his administration might spin out of control.

The old saying is that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I don’t really believe that. How did that work out for Julius Caesar? It worked to the tune of about eight daggers in his back the minute he turned around. His enemies were so close they were in stabbing distance.

I was most concerned about this when Obama pressed Senate Democrats to keep Joe Lieberman in his Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair. That’s the committee that would “investigate” Obama if things went wrong.

Lieberman never thought it was worthwhile to investigate Bush, including the Hurricane Katrina response (even though this was one of his campaign promises). But Republicans investigated Bill Clinton’s Christmas card list and his cat, literally. You think Lieberman won’t side with Republicans if it suits his political advantage to start a nonsense investigation of Obama? Then you don’t know Lieberman at all.

Now, Obama has selected Robert Gates as the Secretary of Defense and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. I’m not sure which one is more right-wing in foreign policy. Don’t get me wrong, I think Gates was an excellent Secretary of Defense and the Clintons are a welcome face for the rest of the world. In fact, now that he got rid of John Brennan at the CIA, I don’t necessarily disagree with any of his picks.

It’s easy for me to agree with him because I’m a moderate and his picks are decidedly centrist. I wouldn’t have wanted a purely progressive cabinet. I value diversity of opinion. Though I do think that part of that diversity should be the inclusion of at least a few strong progressive voices in this “Team of Rivals.” The one I would strongly suggest is Howard Dean. The man has been right about just about everything, it might make sense to seek his advice and counsel.

So, why am I concerned about Obama’s cabinet and staff? It’s Washington. They play hardball here, and the leaks come fast and furious. Once the Fox News Channels and the Rush Limbaughs set in and dissension starts, it could get ugly. It’s imperative that Obama run a tight ship, and if need be, make an example out of someone early. In other words, if someone is leaking news for internal advantage within the cabinet, get rid of them publicly to let others know that you are here to do the people’s business not seek personal political gain.

In the end, if Obama is strong and wise, he can pull it off. He can get varied, interesting, thoughtful advice from all of these folks. And they can all unite to lead the country in a different direction. I have faith that this is the more likely outcome. But it’s not a blind faith. Keep everyone close; just don’t turn your back. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves