Bill Clinton

Note: I began writing this before Matt posted his diary.  Below, I look at the short-term problem of how to START spending the money quickly and effectively.  Obviously, the long-term challenge is just as great.  We have to do both.

Conservative hacks may still be attacking the New Deal, but GOP economists, not so much.  Support for a massive stimulus is bipartisan now amongst economists, Bloomberg reports:

Calls for $1 Trillion Stimulus Package Grow as Economy Tumbles

By Rich Miller and Matt Benjamin

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The one thing that isn't shrinking in the U.S.

 read more »

This is not a post about the relative merits of Eric Holder for the position of Attorney General. Nor is it about the ideological makeup of the administration officials Barack Obama introduced yesterday (parenthetically, while the group lacks in progressive leanings they are at least a diverse bunch, 3 of 6 female and 2 of 6 African American).

As I watched Obama unveil his national security team a jingle from childhood went through my mind:

"One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?"

The one that didn't belong was Eric Holder. I'll explain below.  read more »

Obama's retention of Gates as Secretary of Defense signals, above all, a clear unwillingness on Obama's part to engage in politically difficult fights at the start of his administration. Consider what Rahm Emanuel stated would be Obama's first legislative priorities when he becomes President:

Asked what Barack Obama was elected to do, and what legislation he's likely to find on his Oval Office desk soonest, Mr. Emanuel didn't hesitate. "Bucket one would have children's health care, Schip," he said. "It has bipartisan agreement in the House and Senate. It's something President-elect Obama expects to see. Second would be [ending current restrictions on federally funded] stem-cell research.

 read more »

The most important appointment decision Obama will make during the transition, bar none, is who becomes, or remains, Secretary of Defense. As I have noted in the past, the Department of Defense oversees the expenditure of 52% of all discretionary spending, rendering it literally impossible for any other cabinet Secretary to oversee as much federal money. Further, keeping Gates on would only worsen Democratic image problems on national security, as he would be the second consecutive non-Democratic Secretary of Defense nominated by a Democratic President. The message would be clear: even Democrats agree that Democrats can't run the military.

There is a debate about this inside the Obama transition team:

The speculation over Gates' tenure has been most intense inside the Obama transition team.

 read more »

This week, Media Matters Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert wrote a brillian tour de force, "Covering new presidents: the media's double standard", which provides a detailed comparison of the vast difference between how the press savaged Bill Clinton early on and how it rolled over and played dead for GW Bush.  In particular, Boehlert makes it clear that attacks on Clinton began even before he took office:

If the past is prologue, it's important to remember two things as the new Democratic administration prepares to take up residence. First, the press in 1992 was tagged as being overly affectionate toward Clinton in the general election. By early 1993, there had been a sea change in how journalists treated the Democrat. And second, Clinton's bad press started years before impeachment and months before any kind of official scandal machinery was put in place inside the U.S. Capitol.

 read more »

At DKos yesterday, Jed L posted the following map in a FP diary "Obama Won 197 Of 196 Battleground EVs": It's a map of supposed "battleground states" from the Washington Post's Dan Balz and Alec Macgillis on June 8, 2008:

As Jed L notes, Obama did indeed win more battleground EVs than the Post had identified just over a week after Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination.  And therein lies a tale quite opposed to the current narrative of a "center-right nation."  read more »

Remember who the last Secretary of Defense was under a Democratic President? It was a Republican:

On December 5, 1996, President Clinton announced his selection of Cohen as secretary of defense. Cohen, a Republican about to retire from the United States Senate, was the "right person," Clinton said, to build on the achievements of William Perry, "to secure the bipartisan support America's armed forces must have and clearly deserve." In responding to his nomination, Cohen said that during his congressional career he had supported a nonpartisan national security policy and commended the president for appointing a Republican to his cabinet.

Who will be the next Secretary of Defense under a Democratic administration?  read more »

I ask this question without making a value judgment - are there any other qualified people in America other than permanent Washington, D.C. dwellers who were part of the Clinton administration?

I ask this based on the Obama appointments - my back-of-the-envelope estimate is that they are 90 percent Clinton administration officials.

Now, I don't think this means that the Obama administration will automatically be Bill Clinton's third term, with all the corresponding incrementalism and triangulation.

But it is kind of creepy. For all the talk of "change," I'm really curious whether Barack Obama thinks there are any worthy, smart, well-qualified people who aren't part of permanent Washington and who didn't serve in the Clinton administration? Certainly, his campaign apparatus appreciated that. But it doesn't seem like his transition team does (a transition team, of course, dominated by former Clinton officials).

I just want to reiterate a very, very simple that I've made over and over again. It's a point that is really important to make before the vote on whether Joe Lieberman remains chairman of the committee whose main mission is to investigate the executive branch.

Joe Lieberman has made clear he thinks Barack Obama is a socialist who is a danger to the United States as president. Therefore, putting any personal animosity against Joe Lieberman aside, it's clear that giving Joe Lieberman subpoena power on a committee whose mission is investigating the executive branch of the supposed socialist who supposedly is a danger to the United States doesn't seem like a very good idea.  read more »

"Joe Lieberman votes with me a lot more than a lot of my senators," Reid told CNN's "Late Edition."

"Joe Lieberman is not some right-wing nutcase," he said. "Joe Lieberman is one of the most progressive people ever to come from the state of Connecticut."

That's Harry Reid.  Here's Obama:

President-elect Barack Obama has informed party officials that he wants Joe Lieberman to continue caucusing with the Democrats in the 111th Congress, Senate aides tell the Huffington Post.

 read more »

"Truthiness" is defined as "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true." And so 2008 will birth the word changeiness - "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to exemplify real change, rather than concepts or facts known to embody real change."

In the weeks ahead, I'll try to keep a running tab on changeiness - the moves that we'd like to believe suggest the possibility of real change, but, in fact, are not real change. As the first example of changeiness, check out this story from the Huffington Post in which Barack Obama tells Democrats to keep Joe Lieberman in their Senate caucus.  read more »

From a big op-ed in the New York Times by a guy I've never heard of named Alan Ehrenhalt:

"Now the question is not whether the next Congress will be willing to support President Obama's vision, but whether this majority will want to move further in a liberal direction than the country wishes to move...If he shows any early signs of being the ideological left-wing president John McCain warned of, he will be stepping into his own kind of political trap, different from the ones that ensnared Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, but potentially just as debilitating...All of this suggests that, to escape the fate of Messrs.

 read more »

Professional athletes are not known for their political acumen. Just look at John Elway -- diehard McCain supporter who campaigned with him in Colorado. He gets points for getting involved. But he's just another one of those rich athletes who was glorious on the field but became a fat-ass golfing Republican upon retirement. And why not? Elway really made out with Bush's tax cuts for the rich. And he stood to make even more dough with McCain's plan for even more tax cuts for duffers. How much money do these people need? Remember Elway refusing to visit with Bill Clinton after the Broncos Super Bowl win? He's only become worse with time.
 read more »

David's done yoeman's work here-and elsewhere-documenting the pernicious Versailles meme that despite the stunning victory won by Obama and Democrats running for Congress, America "remains a center-right nation" and therefore Obama must not enact his planned agenda.  I finally got to the end of the 98-page post-election Democracy Corps report, "The Change Election Awaiting Change", and on page 94, I found something directly relevant to this pernicious Versailles meme: the American people overwhelmingly believe the exact opposite: that Republicans should give Obama the benefit of the doubt, and try to work with him to acheive his agenda.

Indeed, this sentiment is much more far-reaching than the core support for Obama's agenda in the first place.  read more »

Think about this a second.

In 1992, President-Elect Bill Clinton, our party's last President-Elect, set about the process of picking  a cabinet and, to be honest, he made some great choices. However, it's hard to imagine, but in 1992, no one was blogging about their favorites, no one was watching the prediction markets, no one was emailing their friends, hell, cell phones were new and faxes came out of the machines on long rolls.  read more »