TIME FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA TO CUT HIS LOSSES
Read Time:1 Minute, 48 Second
This isn’t about health care or the occupations. It’s about President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
I’ve been a small time party activist for a lot of years. I’ve been all over Illinois going to meetings; helping where I could. About all the counties with their own small operations had a kind of shady character as the shadow leader. The mover and shaker perhaps. For the most part, people like this are necessary for party machinery to work. What happens too often though is instead of working for the party, these people use the party to benefit themselves and a small circle of friends. For some reason, they’ve done favors over the years or know all the “dirty” secrets, you just can’t seem to be rid of these people and they keep pulling their same tricks to the detriment of the party as a whole.
I have come to suspect and close to fully believe Rahm Emanuel has abandoned his loyalty to the party in favor of an agenda that uses the party to benefit he and his little circle.
Rahm and Tim Geitner have been calling senators in an effort to get them to vote to confirm Bernard Bernanke to another term as Fed Chair. The same Fed Chair that was in when Wall Street took a dump. If anyone needs to go, it’s this holdover from the Bush Administration.
President Obama has gotten some terrible advice. He’s only now going to hold the feet of the Wall Street bankers to the fire. He looks like he is finally getting the message that the Republicans don’t want to work with Democrats on health care reform, hell, any reform for that matter.
Much of President Obama’s lack of progress seems to come back to Rahm. Rahm called Harry Reid and told him to cut a deal to get 60 votes. This resulted in embarrassing blackmail attempts from Ben Nelson and Joe LIEberman and others.
I could go on but the picture is clear. I thought Rahm was a great choice for chief of staff before I got to know him. Now that I know him, he needs to go.
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Oh my! I will say this: Barack Obama is anything but an empty suit. He will go down in history as a great president. We need to give him time. It is important to understand that he followed a fool. We have/had high expectations, doubtless too high, but why don’t we let the clock tick and give the man a reasonable chance. If that can’t happen then I guess a subscription to Palin for President is in order….
SJ,
I appreciate what you are saying,and I know your heart is good.And deep down I understand you are right, in the sense that given the US political system Obama is the best we can expect to get.
I don’t believe we are leaving Iraq.I think we’re there till they can finally drive us out.I hope they do.
I meant “scraped Summers and Geithner out of a litterbox”.
Spellcheck is fine but Idiotcheck needs to be added.
@Oso,
I have to take issue with the empty suit assessment, as I had posted in a reply weeks back at Random Thoughts, the administration has done over one hundred important things in its first year:
http://hamsandwich66.blogspot.com/2010/01/hell-is-for-children.html
None of those things would’ve happened (except the automotive bailout extension) during the McCain Presidency.
That they’re not moving fast enough doesn’t mean anybody should stop going to the polls as Democrats did in Massachussetts, thereby letting Scott Brown in.
President Obama’s failures this first year are an indication of Emmanuel’s ineffectiveness as a behind-the-scenes whip and the fact that the GOP senators and congresspersons have never, ever been this unified against everything any single President proposed or endorsed.
Today we’re leaving Iraq. That’s huge. He’ll get blamed whatever the outcome. But that’s an initiative the Republicans weren’t able to stonewall and it was a campaign promise.
Let’s not forget, President Obama supported Single-Payer; -it was never included in the bill.
Obama supported the Public Option; the Republicans opposed it, threw considerable time, money behind getting it removed in a historical case of government representatives using media and “journalism” to turn enough of American opinion around to defend the interests of lobbyists.
I think Emmanuel was ineffectual at combating all of this.
It will reflect badly on the President, but he’s no empty suit. He meant it when he said he sought bipartisan solutions, and the GOP acted like a bunch of infantile pussies and beat him up with it. I was still waiting from Rahm Emmanuel to turn into the guy Joe Scarborough feared a year ago, but after reading Truth’s post I’m convinced he’s gotta go.
-SJ
Hi Truth,
It’s so frustrating.I remember hearing Joe Stiglitz saying to let the banks fail,wipe out the shareholders,clean out the mgmt,recapitalize them and sell them back to the private sector.I heard Goolsbee condemn AIG as well as condemning the Bernanke Fed’s see no evil hear no evil approach.Seeing these guys as part of his team,I thought Obama took the situation seriously.
When he scraped Summers and Obama out of some wormy cats litterbox and plugged them in I felt like Bill Paxton in Aliens:
It’s tough for politicians to admit mistakes Oso. Bush never would and look how his presidency turned out. Everything screwed up. Obama has a chance to fix things now by dumping Rahm. And Geitner and Summers as you suggest.
If these three had any real heart they would all resign and save the President the trouble of running them off.
Keeping on Bernanke is a joke. How about offering the seat to Warren Buffet? Yeah, he’s old. So what? Last time I saw him on tv, he still had plenty of kick to him. He’s definitely a hell of a lot cleaner, IMO, than most of these other idiots they’ve been talking about, and he actually has a somewhat decent bone in his body. The chance to hold the financial industry (not just the banks, but every single firm on or off Wall Street) was frittered away with that second bailout.
I have to admit, at first I thought Rahm might make a good watchdog, but I dunno, I got that gut feeling this guy wasn’t going to shake out to much. Damn the gut, anyway.
Sorry guys but got to be real here.Obama’s a punk. How could he just now have figured out we’ve got an economic crisis and maybe he should take some action ?
He had Goolsbee and Steiglitz before the election, then he ditched them and turned things over to two of the architects of the crash,Geithner and Summers. Bernanke was as oblivious to the coming bubble as Obama was in it’s aftermath.
Everybody keeps waiting for him to get tough on Wall St,why would he do that? Their largesse got him elected and he’s shown his gratitude by bailouts,toothless financial legislation and a healthcare package that the insurance industry only could have dreamed of.
He’s an empty suit. An empty suit that reads well from a telemprompter and will occasionally fake anger for the camers. Screw him.He can go to hell.
That is a good point Jerry. I think he could be, only a smarter less evil version.
Now would be a good time to make lots of changes, lots.
Bernanke and Geitner would be the first to go if I was Emperor, and that might shake the rest of them up a little to start performing like they should be.
Is he Obama’s Cheney?
The rank and file like to know that the leaders are working for them. Rham’s actions are too similar to those I described in the posts. His agenda is not the party’s. The longer he stays, the harder it will be to run him down the road. I think he needs to go now.
@Truth 101,
great recap and analysis. I remember how afraid the Republicans were when they heard this guy’s name and I thought:
“Cool” all the crooks are afraid of him.
The hope was that he’d be a behind-the-scenes LBJ, allowing the President to come off publicly like a JFK.
i.e. twisting arms behind closed doors to get legislation and reform passed, and presenting a smiling unified front in public.
Joe Scarborough on MSNBC said choosing Emmanuel was like bringing a guy with “brass knuckles” to the White House.
Boy was everybody wrong, huh? I don’t know about his self-interest, but Emmanuel sure as shit isn’t getting any results. When Harry Reid starts mouthing off about “Terrorists in the streets” or Max Baucus starts watering down Healthcare reform, the Chief of Staff is supposed to be making calls to scare the ever-loving shit out of them to make them act according to principle.
Throw the bum out.
-SJ
I have mixed feelings about this guy. I am convinced from personal experience that every good leader needs a tough chief of staff. Rahm is tough. I am not sure I agree that Bernanke is a bad choice. His predecessor was around for lots of administrations. I just think I need to get to know a little more about Rahm before making a firm decision. I am reluctant to blame administration failures on just one guy. Good post though Truth and congratulations on your very first!!