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Tuesday, November 18. 2008
Questions, Questions
It’s been two weeks since Barack Obama was elected to be our 44th president. Two weeks when the speculation has been about whether Senator Hillary Clinton would be his Secretary of State, and if she were, would it be a slap in the face to Senator John Kerry who gave Obama his stage and the national spotlight during the 2004 Democratic National Convention; would former president Bill Clinton get in the way of Hillary Clinton Department of State?Would Hillary Clinton, as Madame Secretary, head off on her own agenda, deep-sixing the Obama philosophy for foreign policy? Is the reason Obama wants her for his cabinet an effort to keep Clinton out of the Senate, and therefore removing a potentially strong opponent?
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Does it stab Governor Bill Richardson, who broke with the Clintons to throw his support to Obama, in the back? Was Obama’s meeting with his former adversary John McCain (on Monday) a pitch to join the cabinet? Everyone on the tube has been mentioning Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lincoln book, A Team of Rivals, comparing the Obama cabinet to our greatest president’s cabinet.
I wonder how many in the Chattering Class have actually read the book?
These are the Machiavellian questions a very skeptical and cynical press has been asking. Mainly because no one knows if Senator Clinton will be the next Secretary of State.
We have to have something sinister to talk about. I mean, not even Barack Obama can be a squeaky clean, nothing to hide and has nothing but good intentions type president … I mean, could he?
Can you imagine, a president who is on the level with the American people? I’m getting dizzy just fantasizing the possibility. Obama says he’s going to close Guantanamo Bay forthwith. One would assume he only means the detention center, not the entire Naval-Marine base. I bet he does it. The president-elect said he would, with executive orders, undo much of what his predecessor did with executive orders.
Begs the question: if you’re a government worker, not hired or fired for your political affiliations … oh wait, Bush has already hired and fired rank-and-file employees based on political considerations.
Back to the question. Let’s say, as an example, with executive order Bush says Jump on Tuesdays, sit on Wednesdays. Obama comes in and with his executive order says scrap that plan, Sit on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, jump on Mondays and Thursdays. Can you imagine retooling your office for the changes?
One of the growing issues for President-Elect Obama is a non-partisan commission to look into the abuses and possible crimes committed by the Bush Administration, especially when it comes to torture and how our government violated the Geneva Conventions. As reported in SalonDotCom, the commission would be more of a “truth and reconciliation” effort, not for prosecution purposes.Besides falling into partisan bickering, Congress conveniently passed legislation in 2006 (The War Crimes Act) that makes it more difficult to prosecute those who engaged in torture, detention and extraordinary rendition. It’s been years since anyone has mentioned the latter.
According to Salon, Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress are moving forward with the commission.
The other, not so big news about President-Elect Obama: he has to give up his private e-mail account and his Blackberry.
“Yep,” to quote Sarah Palin. Mainly for security reasons. But when Obama takes office on January 20, 2009, he will have a laptop computer on his desk, the first president to do so. Makes sense too, considering it was Obama who used the latest technology to win the presidency. He even has Flikr and YouTube accounts.
Obama will even appoint a “technology czar,” a Chief Technology Officer. First job for the person who holds that post: implement an important 9/11 Commission recommendation, a nationwide interoperable wireless network for local, state and federal first responders, as recommended by the 9/11 Commission.
The other big, ongoing story for the past two weeks has been the former Republican candidate for Vice President, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Since being cut loose by the campaign she has not been able to shut up. Palin has spoken with every news organization that would have her — some twice — keeping the door of speculation open that she will run for president in 2012 or 2016.
Ironically, as she speaks with the major news organizations she blasts them for not doing their jobs, for having an anti-McCain-Palin bias and for having a double standard when covering her, as opposed to her V.P. opponent, Joe Biden.
Forgetting of course it was her campaign that was feeding the press with anonymous leaks about her nice wardrobe and lack of knowledge in even the most basic of information on foreign policy. Did anyone really care about her wardrobe? Not really, but members of the McCain-Palin campaign kept the story alive when it became apparent the Alaskan hockey mom was looking to the future — her political future.
Which brings up one of the growing fears of people not just in these United States, but with our allies too: Sarah Palin may actually run for president! My friend Lisa Bee, in her Canadian blog, had a recent post about how idiotic it would be to elect someone as ill prepared to be governor (let alone president) as Sarah Palin.I had to remind her enough people voted for Bush in 2000 for him to gain the White House and that he won the 2004 election outright. We’ve already elected someone of Palin’s caliber president.
Seriously Lisa, I’m not bragging, in fact it’s embarrassing to admit I live in the country that elected George W. Bush president. Sure, Kim Jong Il is probably goofier than Bush, but the North Korean wasn’t elected — he dictated his way to power.
The U.S., like Canada I would assume, has not always chosen its leaders wisely and there’s no silver lining in knowing that electing someone like Bush was the product of a free and democratic society. It just is … as mind-boggling as it seems.
Part of Lisa’s post was that she didn’t think the U.S. could possibly elect an extreme religious ideologue like Sarah Palin. “No country in its right mind would elect such a scary religious freak to the highest office in the land — not unless they wanted to be thrust back in time, socially, to a time and place when women had no rights, gay people were spit upon and black people had to sit at the back of the bus,” to quote my friend.
Sadly, the ascendancy of George W. Bush has proven that Governor Sarah Palin has just as good a chance as he did of winning the presidency.Forty-eight years ago John F. Kennedy won the presidency, beating then Vice President Richard M. Nixon. So angered by the treatment he perceived he received, Nixon vowed he would never enter politics again, that we would not have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.
Eight years later we not only had Dick Nixon to kick around again, he was our president elect. And, Dick Nixon had learned a thing or two about governance, mainly secrecy and political retaliation. We know how that turned out.
But at least Nixon had knowledge of government and domestic and foreign affairs.
What propelled Nixon to the presidency wasn’t his ambition to be president, it was all but gone, it was a core constituency that thought of Nixon as the best hope for the Republican Party and maybe for the country too, although that wasn’t the primary concern. It was that core constituency that re-instilled that ambition to be president in Nixon.
So, in 1965, they began to rehabilitate Nixon as a national political figure, even had him on the leading comedy show of the day, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In right before the 1968 general election. That was funny — until November 5th when we learned Nixon had won by a wide margin. Hell, even California and Wisconsin went for Nixon.Yes Lisa, we can and could elect Sarah Palin president of the United States. We’ve proven confirmed losers can make a come back and win. All Palin needs is a well-connected conservative think tank to associate with — the Republicans who support her can even create one — gain some knowledge on domestic and world affairs and voila! We have a viable candidate for 2016.
Hell, she’s already getting a book deal for 7 million dollars. Now, when Katie Couric asks Sarah Palin what she reads, Palin will have an answer.
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