by Bill O'Connell on November 22, 2008
It’s three weeks since the election. Where do things stand now?
- Appointments – Now it gets interesting. Some of the less exciting picks, although not without the potential for mischief are Tom Daschle at Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security, and Bill Richardson at Commerce. The more interesting choices are:
- Eric Holder – Attorney General. It is reported that Barack Obama asked around about possible problems with this nomination and was satisfied that there would be little. However, since the announcement the concerns are getting aired. First, there is his participation in the Marc Rich pardon. Holder claims that he “never devoted a great deal of time to this matter.” However, an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times by George Lardner, Jr. paints a very different picture. Mr. Lardner helped cover the story for the Washington Post at the time. Second, Holder was involved in the Elian Gonzalez case where the child was taken at gunpoint in violation of a court order. Holder claimed the child wasn’t taken at gunpoint, however there is a Pulitzer Prize Winning photograph showing just that. That’s two for two on the mendacity score. Obama might want to re-think this one before it turns toxic.
- Hillary Clinton – Secretary of State. This could be another sign of Obama’s political genius that is only matched by Bill Clinton himself. He brings his arch rival into his administration thus blunting her ability to be a critic. He broker’s a deal where Bill Clinton has to come clean on all his wheelings and dealings, disclose to Obama’s team all the donors, foreign and domestic, to the Clinton Library, and promise to keep the new administration advised of his comings and goings. As Lyndon Johnson famously said of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, “I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.” This will also be the acid test of his ongoing political skill. He will have two tigers by the tail. If Hillary goes off message, or Bill slips his leash, Obama has to decide what to do. He could fire Hillary, which might be enough of an embarrassment that the threat of doing so would keep her in line. On the other hand, he would have to face all of those 18 million Hillary supporters in the Democratic Party, if he didn’t have a very good reason to do so, that they also felt was a very good reason. Bill is even a tougher call. The only counterweight there is that if he goes off and does something questionable with a foreign government, it could be a greater embarrassment to the Secretary of State, his wife. Where’s Joe Biden? Biden was picked for his foreign policy expertise. By bringing Hillary on board they can now keep Hiden’ Biden for the next four years.
- Timothy Geithner – Secretary of the Treasury – this might be one of his better picks. Upon news of this getting out the market jumped up nearly 500 points. That wasn’t enough to save it from another down week, but maybe it will help find a bottom.
- Dow Jones Industrial Average – Down 445 points. The Dow which is considered a leading indicator dropped another 5% this week. It went below 8000 until the announcement of Geithner as Treasury pick. So in the three weeks since the election the Dow has dropped almost 1,600 points.
- School for the Obama Children – The Obama’s have decided where to send their children to school. Naturally they would choose public school, right? Since they are always telling us it is bad to have school choice. It hurts the public school system by taking money away and we need to do more for public schools right? Wasn’t that the whole reason behind the Department of Education? Nope. It will be private school for the Obama children at $28,400 per year. The Department of Education was created during the Carter Administration. But Amy Carter, the daughter of President Jimmy Carter, also attended public schools, the first child of a president to do so since Theordore Roosevelt’s son Quentin in 1904. Parents in the District of Columbia have been begging for school vouchers to be able to send their children to any school public or private, but the Democrats are adamantly opposed them (can you say teacher’s union?). Apparently, the Democrats believe the public schools are just fine, as long as their children don’t go anywhere near them.
Stay tuned…
by Bill O'Connell on November 15, 2008
It’s now two weeks since election day and we are starting to see how Barack Obama will lead take shape. Here is what we observed in week 2:
- Appointments — The balancing act begins. Running on the premise that he is a unifying force, Obama has a challenge on his hand to carry that through. Many voters in the middle and on the right who pulled the lever for him, took him at his word on this point. There have been a number of prognosticators who have made their picks of what Obama’s cabinet should look like. A name that keeps coming up on many of the lists is that of Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense. He is well respected in the job he is doing, and if Obama keeps him, he will go a long way toward demonstrating his ability to reach across the aisle. He will also go an equally long way toward angering his supporters on the left, who basically want everyone from the Bush administration behind bars. So who does he pick for the most prestigious cabinet post, Secretary of State. Kerry was lobbying for the position, but this past week Hillary Clinton’s name hit the news. She could well be the ideological counterbalance to Gates, but could start a firestorm among the Hispanic vote who were looking for Bill Richardson to get the nod. If Obama appoints her he could also have a tiger by the tail, in that they were arch rivals in the primaries and having her in his administration could be problematic if she becomes a loose cannon. From Hillary’s perspective, does she really want to work for her rival and do his bidding? This will continue to be interesting.
- Dow Jones Industrial Average — Down 648 points. The Dow which is considered a leading indicator dropped another 5% this week. Perhaps it’s time for Obama to try to stop the skid by dropping his talk of tax increases. If he does, he had better put his hands over his ears, because the squeal from the left will be ear drum shattering.
- Where’s Joe Biden, the voice of foreign policy experience? – This week Barack Obama had a phone call with the president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski and as a result of that conversation Mr. Kaczynski said that missile defense programthat was agreed to with the Bush administration, would continue. Obama’s team released a statement saying, not so fast. First of all, Obama publicly contradicts another head of state and one of our staunchest allies. Second, coming only days after Russian President Medvedev threatened to install missiles near Poland if the plan went through, it makes Obama look weak. If they’re still hiden’ Biden, they better get him out of the closet or we won’t have to wait six months for a crisis.
- Remember William Ayers, the guy from the neighborhood? Now that the election is over, Ayers is out on the circuit promoting a re-release of his book Fugitive Days. In it he wrote a new afterword which said: “[W]e had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign.” Sounds a bit more than just some guy in the neighborhood and makes it an outright lie that his career wasn’t started in Ayers’ living room. Unless, of course, it was held in the den.
Stay tuned…
by Bill O'Connell on November 11, 2008
Well it’s been a week since Barack Obama has been elected the next President of the United States, so a decent interval has passed for him and his family to enjoy the moment. It’s time to resume the watch to observe in which direction he will lead us. Here is what we observed in week 1:
- Appointment of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff – Emanuel is known as a partisan with sharp elbows and a take-no-prisoners style. On the one hand it can be viewed as the first step in finishing off the opposition. On the other hand, he may be spending more of his time protecting Obama from Congress and all the far left groups who are holding his IOUs. So the jury is still out on this one.
- Dow Jones Industrial Average — Down 765 points. The Dow which is considered a leading indicator is down about 8% in five days, not exactly a vote of confidence in the hope and change heading our way.
- Private meeting with President Bush today — After the meeting which was between Barack Obama and the President with no staff attending, it wasn’t long before the essence of what was discussed was in the newspapers. Tradition has it that private presidential conversations are, well, private. Bush was angry about the leaks. Let’s see, private meeting, Bush and Obama, word leaks to the press, Bush is angry. I’ll go out on a limb here and put my money on it was Obama who leaked the information. Well that didn’t take long. What else can he be trusted with?
- Obama pushes Bush to implement another stimulus package immediately and to help out GM and Chrysler. Why would he do that? Here’s a hypothesis, if Bush acts before Obama takes office, and it goes well, Obama can take credit for it by either saying that the recovery took place on his watch or that he prodded Bush to act. If it goes south and the taxpayers are stuck holding the bag on yet another socialist grab, well Obama can do what he campaigned on, blaming Bush. If nothing happens until he takes office, he will have to make the decision and bear the responsibility. Remember what happened with the $700 billion bailout package, Obama stayed as far away as he could.
- Obama’s transition team is talking about rescinding some of Bush’s executive orders, including one that allowed more drilling for oil. So with overwhelming support for “Drill here, Drill now”, Obama immediately wants to reverse course and drill less. This should help drive the price of gasoline back up again. But wait, this just in, his advisors are saying a decision hasn’t been reached yet.
Stay tuned…
