WEDNESDAY,  NOVEMBER 19,  2008

UPDATE AT 8:58 P.M. ET:  From The Politico:  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former president Bill Clinton have cleared away the final hurdles to a formal offer of secretary of State from President-elect Obama, and officials say the two former foes could appear together for a smiling announcement next week.

COMMENT:  First decision:  Do they play "Hail to the Chief" for Barack or Hillary?

UPDATE AT 8:45 P.M. ET:  From a Fox News report today:  The automakers -- hobbled by lackluster sales and choked credit -- are burning through money at an alarming and accelerating rate: about $18 billion in the last quarter alone. General Motors Corp. has said it could collapse within weeks, and there are indications that Chrysler LLC might not be far behind. Ford Motor Co. has said it could get through the end of 2008, but it's unclear how much longer.

COMMENT: Maybe it's because we owned too many lemons, but, I'm a bit skeptical.  Some questions:  How many decades old are these companies?  And they're all going under at about the same time?  Do you believe in such miraculous coincidences?  I think they're in trouble, but I hope someone who doesn't have a Detroit zip code starts examining the books.

UPDATE AT 6:06 P.M. ET:  From the AP:   Republican John McCain has defeated President-elect Barack Obama in Missouri - the last state to be decided in the 2008 presidential election.  McCain's narrow victory over Obama breaks a bellwether streak in which Missourians had picked the winning presidential candidate in every election since 1956.

COMMENT:  It's like hearing that the deceased's last physical examination went well.  But we take good news where we can get it.

UPDATE AT 5:53 P.M. ET:  From the Financial Times: Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear programme, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog reported on Wednesday, deepening the dilemma facing US president-elect Barack Obama over his campaign promise to engage with Tehran.  The latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency reveals that Iran is rapidly increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium, which could be rendered into weapons-grade material should Tehran decide to develop a nuclear device.

COMMENT:  Another reminder that there's a real world out there, maybe a bit more significant than the size of the inaugural celebration.

UPDATE AT 5:34 P.M. ET:  From the DC Examiner:  Soaring costs expected to accompany huge crowds in town for the Jan. 20 inauguration of Barack Obama could stick cash-strapped Washington, D.C., with a record-breaking bill for services.  Security and capacity measures recommended by the District’s congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and others will almost certainly surpass the $15 million the federal government gives to the District each year to defray the cost of events, Norton said.

COMMENT:  Hey, no problem.  Bailouts are available.  Come one, come all.  Besides, Barack has hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions, a chunk of it from some wonderful guys in foreign dictatorships.  Why not ask him for a bit of help before asking the taxpayers?  Huh?

UPDATE AT 4:21 P.M. ET:  From ABC News:  Two missiles destroyed a militant hideout and killed an al Qaeda commander today in one of the deepest U.S. strikes into Pakistan, underscoring the lethal and effective link between intelligence and technology that is helping the United States wage a covert war against militants.

COMMENT:  Reminds us, and the profession of journalism, that there's still a war on.

UPDATE AT 4:08 P.M. ET:  The Dow closed down about 427, pushing it, before the final figures are arrived at, below 8,000, to 7997. 

COMMENT:  There seems no sense of crisis in the Obama camp.  We heard today about his choice, ho-hum, for secretary of HHS, Tom Daschle.  Please control your excitement.  We hear nothing about an economic team. 

UPDATE AT 1:57 P.M. ET:  CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites.  The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies.

COMMENT:  The exact term was "house Negro."  It will be curious to see how the "Middle East studies" departments in our universities react to this.  As long as Al Qaida was going after Christians and Jews, many of the "scholars" didn't care.  This is different.

UPDATE AT 1:47 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times:  WASHINGTON — Former president Bill Clinton has offered several concessions to help pave the way for his wife to be nominated as secretary of state, Democrats close to the negotiations with the Obama transition team confirmed Wednesday.

COMMENT:  This tells us that she obviously wants the job, and badly.  It also tells us that the only way she won't get it is to be turned down, which would split the Democratic Party.  I wonder if Obama regrets having started this whole thing. 

UPDATE AT 1:40 P.M. ET:   From The New York Times:  CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama has offered the nomination of Secretary of Health and Human Services to Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former Democratic Senate leader who was an early supporter of Mr. Obama’s run for the presidency.

COMMENT:  First, wouldn't it be sporting if the president-elect, given the economic crisis, would tell us who his economic team might be?  Inquiring minds want to know.  Second, does the Obama camp know anybody who isn't a Democratic Party retread?  Every name mentioned for the Cabinet thus far comes from well inside the beltway.  This isn't change.  It's change back to the old guys.

UPDATE AT 1:26 P.M. ET:  The Dow is down 235.  I'm sure the "financial experts" on TV can give you reasons.  I can't.  It was up yesterday.  Did any fundamental really change that much?

BAMWATCH OR BAMWRECK?

Posted at 7:09 a.m. ET

We're not in the prediction business here, and I think our very informed readership expects us to be pretty careful about what we say and report.  That stated, I can't resist the temptation to ask a simple question:  Do you get the sense that the Obama transition has run into trouble?

Let me explain.

During the campaign, McCain/Palin hit away at Obama's lack of experience.  One part of experience is the simple fact of knowing people - who they are, what they can do.  Roger Kahn, author of the classic, "The Boys of Summer," about the old Brooklyn Dodgers, wrote that one of the pleasures of going to see the Dodgers in their small park, Ebbets Field, was that you got to know what they were like.

We are two weeks into the transition, coming off an Obama campaign that lasted 21 months, and we get the sense that Mr. Obama doesn't know enough people, hasn't thought about enough people, to effect the kind of change he promised.  It is simply remarkable how he depends on holdovers from the Clinton government, a government he trashed during the primaries.  Hillary Clinton at State?  Eric Holder at Justice?  Rahm Emanuel, Clinton insider perfecto, in the office next door in the White House?  Larry Summers, Clinton's Treasury secretary, a strong shot to get his job back?  Susan Rice, from Clinton's White House, a strong possibility to be national security adviser?

Now we find that the new deputy White House chief of staff will be Mona Sutphen, top aide to Clinton's UN ambassador, Bill Richardson, and the woman, according to Byron York, who had substantial contact with Monica Lewinsky, to whom Richardson offered a job.  Richardson himself is also being interviewed.

All we need is Monica with that dainty blue dress.  We assume it's been dry-cleaned.

Look, it's normal that some people from the last Democratic regime will be hired.  But after Mr. Inspiration's promises, you'd think his first impulse would be to look beyond the usual employment pool.  It clearly is not.  And we have the feeling that Obama just doesn't know that many people, doesn't know what they are like, that his knowledge of government is thin, that he doesn't have the names in his mind, that he hasn't marveled at people who contribute something outside a political campaign.

That is inexperience.  He has time, but he is proving that the charge was true.

November 19, 2008.      Permalink          

JOE THE GIANT

Posted at  7:06 a.m. ET

No sooner had Senate Democrats voted to forgive Joe Lieberman for his support of John McCain, and let him keep his main committee post, then the wisdom of that decision became clear.  Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, recently convicted of a laundry list of corruption-related offenses, was beaten in his bid for re-election, the tally announced only yesterday, giving the Dems at least 58 seats in the new Senate.  Georgia and Minnesota are still out.  Thus the Democrats are close to the 60 votes needed to cut off a Republican filibuster, making Lieberman's vote critical.  Even if the Dems pick up two additional seats, Lieberman is gold-plated because there can be defections in filibuster votes.

Thus Joe stays alive, and more than alive.  The wing nuts of the left who tried to destroy him have repeatedly failed.  They are screaming across the internet this morning that he was not sufficiently punished.  Only hanging by the neck would seem to satisfy them.  These are people for whom political punishment, not achievement, is the highest priority.  They symbolize the mentality and adolescence of the far left, and eventually they always lose.

We congratulate Senator Lieberman, a man who represents all that was once good about the Democratic Party, when it was truly a national-security party that would "pay any price" in the defense of freedom,  The good old days.

November 19, 2008.      Permalink          

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER 18,  2008 

UPDATE AT 9:06 P.M. ET:  From the UK's Financial Times:  President-elect Barack Obama and Robert Gates are negotiating terms under which the defence secretary would remain as Pentagon chief in the new administration, the Financial Times has learnt.

COMMENT:  Anything that keeps Chuck Hagel out of the job is a step forward.  Of course, the great choices would be John McCain or Joe Lieberman, but don't hold your breath.  Gates is okay, but he's from the culture of the Bush 41 administration, as is Condi Rice, and that worries me if there's a crunch.

THE BAMWATCH

Posted at 7:59 p.m. ET

It isn't only Mr. Obama who's coming to town.  He brings with him a boatload of liberals, who feel that their hour has come.  In a way, that may have its uses, according to Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal.  For liberals, now in power, may soon run out of excuses, although that would be a new experience for them:

With the election of Barack Obama and huge Democratic majorities in Congress, liberals must now practice something other than the politics of nostalgia and what-if.

This is a politics that has been in the making since at least 1968, though its real origins probably go back to 1944 and the first great liberal what-if: What if an ailing FDR had died nine months earlier, and been succeeded by the great progressive icon and polymath (and original moonbeam), then Vice President Henry Wallace?

Fortunately, sane heads in the Democratic Party dumped Wallace in 1944 for Harry S. Truman, and the Republic was well served.

From that moment on, the liberal what-ifs multiply in dizzying profusion. What if John F. Kennedy had dodged the bullet in Dallas and lived to get the U.S. out of Vietnam before it fully got into it? What if Robert F. Kennedy had dodged the bullet in L.A. five years later? What if Jimmy Carter hadn't been so earnest, truthful and unlucky? What if...

And...

This liberal narrative of its own near-misses, bad luck and tragic interventions of fate is supplemented by a parallel liberal tale of unbridled conservative malevolence. Republicans may be the stupid party, but they've been fortunate in their evil political geniuses -- Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove -- all of whom have succeeded in bamboozling the public into voting against its own economic interests.

As for conservative electoral successes, these are explained almost entirely as a function of political dirty tricks (cf. "October Surprise") jingoism (Star Wars, Grenada et al.) and racism ("Southern strategy"). "The legacy of slavery, America's original sin, is the reason we're the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee health care to our citizens," writes Nobel laureate Paul Krugman in "The Conscience of a Liberal." Who knew that a straight line connects the ideas of Jefferson Davis and Milton Friedman?

Who indeed. 

The upshot of all this has been an amazing lack of introspection among the frequently wronged, but never wrong, liberal American hard core. Politically, this hasn't yielded such great results: The number of Americans who self-identify as liberals continues to fall, to 21% in 2008 from 22% in 2004, according to CNN. (The number of self-identified conservatives held steady at 34%.) Then again, without that hard core Mr. Obama's primary triumphs would never have been possible.

And, for Mr. Obama...

Now the long wait is over, and the liberal ship has come in. In Mr. Obama, liberals have a president who seems to have stepped out of the last episodes of the West Wing. He has the Congress in his left pocket, the news media in his right pocket (or is it the other way around?), and he floats on a tide of unprecedented international enthusiasm.

Maybe a little too much international love for our taste.

Mr. Obama will get, and deserves, a period of political grace. Let's say a year. After that, it will become increasingly difficult to attribute whatever mistakes he makes to the legacy of his predecessor. American liberalism, such as it is, is finally being put to the test that fate has denied it these last many decades. Succeed or fail, this time there can be no excuses.

Believe me, they'll find some.  You know, it's those BUSH holdovers.  And that HILLARY.  You know, her family is Republican, and...

November 18, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 5:07 P.M. ET:  The Dow closed up 151, at 8425.

UPDATE AT 4:41 P.M. ET:  Michael Isikoff at Newsweek is reporting that President-elect Obama has selected Eric Holder as attorney general.  There is no confirmation from the Obama office.  Holder would be the first African-American to be attorney general.

COMMENT:  He was deputy attorney general under Clinton.  If the story is true, this is turning into the new age of Clintonism.  Holder also has some baggage, as he signed off on the controversial pardon of fugitive Marc Rich in the last days of the Clinton administration.

UPDATE AT 4:29 P.M. ET:  From The Politico:  Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t certain she would accept the Secretary of State post even if Barack Obama offers it to her, several people close to the former first lady say.  Press reports that portray Clinton as willing to accept the job – once the Obama transition team vets Bill Clinton’s philanthropic and business ventures – are inaccurate, one Clinton insider told Politico.

COMMENT:  Looks like a safety position.  Bill was out there two days ago saying what a great secretary of state she'd make, something he wouldn't say unless she wanted the job.  This looks like a way out in case the vetting doesn't go well.  Stay tuned.  With the Clintons, it's always a soap opera.  But can she honestly turn down an offer like this from the new president without looking small, or looking like she's trying to hide something?

UPDATE AT 12:43 P.M. ET:  From AP:  WASHINGTON (AP) - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress on Tuesday that the administration remains firmly opposed to dipping into the government's $700 billion financial bailout fund for a $25 billion rescue package for Detroit's Big Three automakers, no matter how badly they need the help.  "There are other ways" to help battered automakers, Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee as the bailout bill clung to life support on Capitol Hill.

COMMENT:  The lack of popularity of the auto makers is simply stunning.  This used to be America's most-loved industry.

BULETIN AT 12:19 P.M. ET: From Roll Call:   Senate Democrats backed away from a major rebuke of Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) on Tuesday morning, keeping their colleague as the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the next Congress and stripping him only of the gavel on a lesser subcommittee.

COMMENT:  The left will go crazy over this.  Contributions of Zoloft will be gratefully accepted.

UPDATE AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  WASHINGTON (Reuters) -  The chairman of the Senate Energy Committee said on Monday the new Congress probably will not approve legislation to raise the federal tax on gasoline.  Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman said he was aware of arguments that a high "variable tax" should be put on U.S. gasoline to prevent falling pump prices from encouraging Americans to drive more while making alternative fuels less attractive.  Such a tax hike "would be very tough to pass," Bingaman said. "I don't think something like that has much prospect of being enacted in my honest opinion."

COMMENT:  Well, that's a relief, but stay on guard, because our minders want to shape our behavior.  They fret over falling gasoline prices.  The peasantry and assorted rabble might actually drive again!  With good leadership, there's no conflict between low gas prices and good energy planning for the future. 

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE...

Posted at 9:04 a.m. ET

When will Americans learn that education is an industry?  Now, don't get me wrong.  I revere the great teachers who taught me, or tried to, and teaching is a noble profession.  But education is often a business.  That was never made more clear than by the story, reported by The New York Times, about the rocketing pay scale for college presidents.  Wall Street, stand aside.  The Ph.D.s are coming to town:

David J. Sargent, the 77-year-old president of Suffolk University in Boston, received a $2.8 million pay package in 2006-7 — including a $436,000 longevity bonus and more than $1 million in deferred compensation — after the board of trustees, eager to delay his retirement, decided he had long been underpaid.

Is that where all those alumni contributions are going?

Others also received more than $2 million. David P. Roselle, who resigned as president of the University of Delaware in June 2007, had a package of $2.4 million, including deferred compensation.

And...

And E. Gordon Gee, who forfeited more than half of his $2 million compensation package when he resigned from Vanderbilt University in 2007 to become president of Ohio State University, is the highest-paid public university president, the survey found. Mr. Gee’s Ohio State package was raised just this month to more than $1.3 million.

He used to be president of Brown University, which shows there's life after the Ivy League - the high life.

In fact, compensation for public research university presidents is growing faster than for those who head private institutions, the survey found.

“The public universities are still behind, but only by about $100,000,” said Jeffrey Selingo, the editor of The Chronicle.

Leave it to government.

“It’s surprising that many public universities are raising their presidents’ salaries,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, who has been prodding universities for more accountability in spending and greater commitment to affordability. “In these hard economic times, apparently belt-tightening is for families and students, not university presidents.”

Don't be silly, Senator.  College boards of trustees, which decide these things, are filled with big-money types who are used to this kind of economic distortion.  It's the world they live in.

Apparently, many presidents get performance bonuses, but the story doesn't tell us what kind of "performance" is involved.  I assume it's fund-raising.  College presidents, who occasionally have been great educators, are more and more simply businessmen and businesswomen, selling a product.  And it's the quality of that product that deserves far more public scrutiny.

November 18, 2008.      Permalink          

AND MORE FUNNY THINGS...

Posted at 8:23 a.m. ET

I don't recall that we've ever run two stories in a row on exactly the same subject, but there are things in politics that are just too much fun to keep down.

Add this to "A Funny Thing Happened..." below, about the new Clinton saga, Hil's possible move to State, and Bill's money secrets.  Now The Politico reports that there's even more trouble in Obamaland over the Hil thing than we'd believed:

From his supporters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, to campaign aides of the soon-to-be commander-in-chief, there's a sense of ambivalence about giving a top political plum to a woman they spent 18 months hammering as the compromised standard-bearer of an era that deserves to be forgotten.

"These are people who believe in this stuff more than Barack himself does," said a Democrat close to Obama's campaign. "These guys didn't put together a campaign in order to turn the government over to the Clintons."

Republicans, it's okay to smile again.  You see, these guys have problems, too.

The Obama campaign had no compunctions about poking holes in that legacy and even sent out mailings stressing the downside of the last "8 years of the Clintons" – enraging the former president in particular.

And now the former president would have new access to state secrets, and an inside-the-administration way of getting back at folks.

"There's always a risk of a Cabinet member freelancing and that risk is enhanced by the fact that Hillary has her own public and her own celebrity and that she comes attached to Bill," said Robert Kuttner, a Clinton critic and former American Prospect editor whose new book, Obama's Challenge, implores the president-elect to adopt an expansive liberal agenda. "The other question is the old rule – never hire somebody you can't fire. What happens if her views and his views don't mesh?"

A little over the top.  He can fire her.  Truman fired MacArthur, and Hillary ain't Mac.

During the primary, top aides like David Plouffe and Robert Gibbs developed a particular distaste for all things Clinton, one that filtered down through the campaign. So the transition from viewing Hillary Clinton as a relic of a drama-filled Democratic past to the top choice to run the foreign policy of an Obama administration has been difficult for some campaign veterans, to say the least.

This may be the week when some of Obama's supporters graduate from high-school politics.

"I can't stand her – but I think she's a great choice," said another Obama insider.

Now that's the spirit - Chicago politics.  "Hey, so Louie had my brother whacked.  But he's so good at it!"

One person who apparently has shown no ambivalence: Obama. "It's not like he hedged his bets in conversation with her," said a person involved in the process. While both sides say the situation remains fluid, this person said Obama was quite direct: "He offered her the job."

Either the guy is showing remarkable guts and leadership, or he's into self-abuse.  We'll know pretty soon.

November 18, 2008.      Permalink          

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED...

Posted at 7:06 a.m. ET

We've been watching, utterly fascinated, as the Hillary Clinton saga unfolds...for the hundredth time.

We've been watching, equally fascinated, as the Bill Clinton saga unfolds...for the five hundredth time.

Did Obama plan it this way?

It began with rumors that Obama, in (spin alert) an act of statesmanship, generosity and goodness, was weighing the appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.  Fuel was added when Clinton flew to Chicago to see the prince.  Nothing was done by either the Obama team or the Clinton perpetual war room to stop wagging tongues.

Now, as either Laurel or Hardy used to say, "what a fine mess."  Suddenly the story isn't about Hil, but about Bill.  Not about statesmanship, but about fast bucks and shady deals.  Not about quick confirmation of the "inspired" choice, but about probes into Bill's money machine.  Not about the discipline of the Obama staff, moving brilliantly through an election campaign, but about staff members with knives out, talking to friendly journalists.

As Obama might now be saying, "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the White House..."  The Clintons happened.  And when the Clintons happen, it's all Clinton all the time. 

He's got to appoint her.  After all the publicity, he can't not...unless she withdraws in the face of the questions about Bill, which would humiliate her and make her even angrier than normal.  Or, Obama could bite the speeding bullet and reach some "accommodation" with her because Bill's activities create too many conflicts of interest.  A lot of the Clintons' newly found fortune comes from the Middle East, and not from Bill giving Bar Mitzvah greetings in Israel.  Cash from oil kingdoms:  Big, big, problem.

The New York Daily News reports that Obama staff is talking, and it's not friendly talk.  Hil is a New York senator.  She'll be reading this.  The Clintons live about ten minutes from us, here in New York.  I already heard the explosion this morning and saw the sky light with fire:

Aides to Obama are already pouring over some of the former president's overseas links, which include everything from his giving top dollar speeches to foreign entities, to millions raised by Clinton for his presidential foundation.

The issue is both simple and complex: How to make sure that Bill Clinton's international fundraising — from heads of state and others — would not conflict with his wife's very public duties as the nation's top diplomat. 

This is staff mischief.  You can see the little smiles.

"That's the first and most important hurdle," one senior adviser to Obama told The New York Times. "He does good work. No one wants it to stop, but a structure to avoid conflicts must be thought of."

Beyond that is the question how to handle differences of opinion that may arise between the two Clintons — one public, the other private — on, say, combatting AIDS in Africa or some other dicey international crisis.

While some information about Clinton's international fundraising has already been made public, the expectation is that the former president will have to cough up more to satisfy worried Obama aides.

Would you just look at those code words:  "hurdle," "conflicts," "differences of opinion," "worried Obama aides."  That's art, my friends.  That's political art. 

I wonder what Michelle must be thinking about all this.  She looks over at State and sees, not only another high-profile woman, but another first lady. Was this thought out?

So the Clintons are back in the spotlight.  Let the backbiting begin!  Is this a brilliant stroke by Obama, or his first major blunder?  Whichever it is, some of the publicity has suddenly turned foggy.

Consider it, Mr. President-elect, a learning experience.

November 18, 2008.      Permalink