Category: Barack Obama

Parting Shots

You know what, if the Bush team is unhappy that President Obama repudiated the last eight years’ failed policies and disastrous results (while not mentioning Bush by name), they can just deal with it. Bush, Cheney and a host of top administration officials may be spending the remainders of their life carefully choosing which countries they take connecting flights to, but by all appearances there will be no such legal accountability here in the U.S. That Bush staffers have the temerity to even suggest a speech calling for change from the past was inappropriate or partisan is astonishing.

The Bush administration, including Bush and Cheney, have unquestionably broke US law during the course of their tenure in office. In a society truly governed by the rule of law, these men and women would now be facing prosecution for their crimes. Yet comity has already won out over accountability, under the false veil of moving forward. Ignoring the past may be the mode of the day in Washington, but that doesn’t mean that President Obama’s mere mention of areas where he will break with Bush is somehow uncouth or impolite. It’s the weakest of pats on the wrist and the Bush team can’t even take that without whining to the press like a bunch of spoiled children. What a joke.

China Censors Obama’s Speech

Simply remarkable.

China Central Television, or CCTV, the main state-run network, broadcast the speech live until the moment President Obama mentioned “communism” in a line about the defeat of ideologies considered anathema to Americans. After the off-screen translator said “communism” in Chinese, the audio faded out even as Mr. Obama’s lips continued to move.

CCTV then showed an anchor asking an analyst about the economic challenges that President Obama’s faces. The analyst was clearly caught off guard by the sudden question.

The offending line in the president’s speech was this: “Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.”

Later, the president went on to say: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Chinese translations of the speech published Wednesday by state-run news organizations here and on prominent Web portals omitted that line and the word “communism” in the earlier line. The government, however, has allowed the full English text of the speech to be published.

The Chinese government: Always Classy!

Organizing for America

Today President-elect Barack Obama announced the creation of his post-campaign entity that will continue to harness the energy of his campaign volunteers moving forward. I’ll be curious to see how this develops and what the new organization takes as its mandate. Nonetheless, I do like that Obama sees continued potential for his supporters to organize amongst themselves, locally and nationally, to achieve great things.

Pressure Politics

What Glenn Greenwald said:

When Obama does things that warrant praise — when he appoints someone like Dawn Johnsen as OLC Chief, or defies Beltway demands by going outside of the intelligence community to find his CIA Director — he should be praised.  When he does things that warrant criticism — such as going on national television to talk about the need for a special process to allow the use of “tainted” evidence against Guantanamo detainees, or when he openly contemplates naming someone as CIA Director who supports rendition and torture, or when he votes in favor of warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty — he should be vigorously criticized.  When he makes statements without any apparent basis — such as Sunday’s assertion that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons — he ought to be made to account for that claim and show evidence for it.  That’s just basic accountability for a political official.

Like all politicians, Obama is not intrinsically good.  Good things don’t happen by virtue of the mere existence of his presidency.  His presidency will be good only and exactly to the extent that he does good things.  Pressure and criticisms make his doing those good things more likely (there is a quote from FDR, which I cannot find but am certain commenters will quickly cite, where FDR privately instructed his supporters to publicly criticize him for not doing X so that he would be able to do X more easily).

Obama is about to become one of the world’s most powerful political leaders, if not the single most powerful.  He begins with sky-high approval ratings, his political party in control of Congress by a large margin, and enjoys reverence so intense from certain quarters that such a loyal following hasn’t been seen since the imperial glow around George Bush circa 2002.  He’s not going to crumble or melt away like the Wicked Witch if he’s pressured or criticized.  The far more substantial danger is that he won’t be pressured or criticized enough by those who are eager to see meaningful changes in Washington, and then — either by desire or necessity — those are the voices he will ignore most easily.

This is something that I think is universally true – politicians respond to pressure. Confrontational politics work, even when — especially when — they are focused on our friends and allies.

Obama Raised Nearly $1 Billion

Holy schnikes.

Republicans have two choices if they want to have a shot of beating Barack Obama:

  1. Find a billionaire willing to spend at least $2 bil. of his own money;
  2. Get real public financing passed for all federal elections.

It’s safe to assume that Obama will raise over $1 billion for his campaign alone next cycle. The GOP is in serious trouble and watching them try to deal with this is going to be fun. The bar has been raised out of their reach and they’ll have to do better than proposing to steal the “change” brand. But again, I’m all for Republicans hanging their hopes on branding and whining about how awful it was that millions of small dollar donors carried Obama to victory.

Stop Projecting

Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times does some serious drama-projection in this piece on the nomination of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Here’s a snippet of the wankery:

Presentations of presidential appointees can be important, but they are rarely interesting. Usually, the men and women chosen for top cabinet roles are not well known to the public; if there is drama behind the scenes, most in the audience are blind to it.

That was hardly the case on Monday when President-elect Barack Obama introduced his national security team. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech was no ordinary public-service pledge; for plenty of viewers, it was the moment when Mrs. Clinton finally conceded the election for real.

The occasion was solemn, but like a wedding where the parents are divorced, the ceremony was carefully choreographed to avert awkward moments and camouflage past unpleasantness.

When Mr. Obama unveiled his economic team last week, he alone made a speech. In this more delicate selection, it was decided that Mrs. Clinton, his pick for secretary of state, should also speak. But that might look suspect — or too political — unless the five other appointees also said a word, and that, in turn, required a few words from Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who had yet to make public statements of any consequence since the election. (He spoke last, spiritedly, and at some length.)

Not all the staging was designed to address Mrs. Clinton’s sensibilities. She and the five other appointees walked out on stage and stood in line, almost as if at attention, waiting for the president-elect to walk in. He did so briskly, with Mr. Biden at his heels. [Emphasis added]

Look, it’s clear that the press wants there to be Obama-Clinton drama. They love the old storylines and they love creating a storyline that wedges Democrats apart. This is exactly that sort of story: Clinton v. Obama, Can He Trust Her? Will She Go Rogue???

But it’s 100% B.S. Nowhere in the press conference is it apparent that any of it was “designed to address Mrs. Clinton’s sensibilities.” Stanley is projecting, plain and simple. Moreover, at no point in the time since June 7, 2008, has Hillary Clinton ever suggested that her concession of the Democratic nomination for the presidency was not “for real.” Again, Stanley is making things up.

I have no doubt that the good people of the Obama Transition Team carefully choreographed yesterday’s press conference. It was likely on par with the roll-out of the Obama administration’s economic team for importance. So yes, there was surely a schedule of who spoke when and who stood next to whom. It’s even conceivable that the speeches of all of President-Elect Obama’s appointments were written and/or vetted by members of the transition team. This is not news. The professionalism and orderliness seen in the Obama press conference yesterday was not done out of a desire “to avert awkward moments and camouflage past unpleasantness.” It was “carefully choreographed” to be presidential.

Alessandra Stanley and her editors need to stop projecting their desired story lines onto the Obama administration (viz. making things up) and start reporting the news like professionals. Unfortunately, my guess is that as long as Hillary Clinton (let alone Bill) is in the picture, this will not happen. This is no fault of Senator and soon-to-be Secretary of State Clinton; the blame lies with petty and trite fiction writers like Alessandra Stanley.

Retroactive Immunity Not a Done Deal?

This is very interesting and I’d like to know more. Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation was quoted in the NY Times two days ago saying that retroactive immunity for telecom companies who illegally spied on Americans with the Bush administration could be reversed under an Obama administration.

In perhaps the most critical test, civil liberties groups that are suing major phone companies that took part in the N.S.A. program are waiting to find out whether a federal judge will throw out the lawsuits based on immunity granted by Congress in June.

The Justice Department has already moved to take advantage of the immunity provision by certifying in court that the phone companies were complying with a presidential order. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that has taken the lead in the lawsuit, maintains that Congress acted beyond its powers.

A hearing is set for Dec. 2. Cindy Cohn, legal director for the foundation, said that as the case moved forward the new administration could act to withdraw the immunity certification made by the Bush Justice Department.

“Nothing will be over by Jan. 20,” when Mr. Obama is inaugurated, Ms. Cohn said.

If this is a possibility, I hope one of the first acts of the Obama Justice Department is to withdraw certifications of immunity from these telecom companies.

It’s also heartening to see that the good people at the EFF are still fighting to uncover the truth and maintain the rule of law in the face of the 110th Congress caving like a house of cards to the Bush-Cheney administration’s demands for retroactive immunity and the gutting of FISA. Hopefully the EFF will find friendlier partners in the Obama administration.