Well, in the GARM which is where I usually stay we have similar opinions on the topic. Here we don't. I really find it disturbing how fully confident the Dems are that Obama is everything he claims to be. I hope that he is but please excuse me if I have my doubts. Obama is the first politician that I can remember who his "followers" actually think he is going to do everything he says. Usually people are much more pessimistic because they realize they are voting for a politician and typically they aren't the most consistent about keeping their promises. It's not like this with Obama, which means that if he is not all that he says people are going to be truly disappointed and have a real since of betrayal. Obama is going to be expected to live up to a higher standard because of this IMO.
The Insider’s Crusade By DAVID BROOKS Published: November 21, 2008 Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.). The domestic policy team will be there, too, including Jason Furman (Harvard, Harvard Ph.D.), Austan Goolsbee (Yale, M.I.T. Ph.D.), Blair Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszag (Princeton, London School of Economics Ph.D.) and, of course, the White House Counsel Greg Craig (Harvard, Yale Law). This truly will be an administration that looks like America, or at least that slice of America that got double 800s on their SATs. Even more than past administrations, this will be a valedictocracy — rule by those who graduate first in their high school classes. If a foreign enemy attacks the United States during the Harvard-Yale game any time over the next four years, we’re screwed. Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus. Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists. They typically served in the Clinton administration and then, like Cincinnatus, retreated to the comforts of private life — that is, if Cincinnatus had worked at Goldman Sachs, Williams & Connolly or the Brookings Institution. So many of them send their kids to Georgetown Day School, the posh leftish private school in D.C., that they’ll be able to hold White House staff meetings in the carpool line. And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons (not to mention the incursion of a French-style government dominated by highly trained Enarchs), I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition. The fact that they can already leak one big appointee per day is testimony to an awful lot of expert staff work. Unlike past Democratic administrations, they are not just handing out jobs to the hacks approved by the favored interest groups. They’re thinking holistically — there’s a nice balance of policy wonks, governors and legislators. They’re also thinking strategically. As Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute notes, it was smart to name Tom Daschle both the head of Health and Human Services and the health czar. Splitting those duties up, as Bill Clinton did, leads to all sorts of conflicts. Most of all, they are picking Washington insiders. Or to be more precise, they are picking the best of the Washington insiders. Obama seems to have dispensed with the romantic and failed notion that you need inexperienced “fresh faces” to change things. After all, it was L.B.J. who passed the Civil Rights Act. Moreover, because he is so young, Obama is not bringing along an insular coterie of lifelong aides who depend upon him for their well-being. As a result, the team he has announced so far is more impressive than any other in recent memory. One may not agree with them on everything or even most things, but a few things are indisputably true. First, these are open-minded individuals who are persuadable by evidence. Orszag, who will probably be budget director, is trusted by Republicans and Democrats for his honest presentation of the facts. Second, they are admired professionals. Conservative legal experts have a high regard for the probable attorney general, Eric Holder, despite the business over the Marc Rich pardon. Third, they are not excessively partisan. Obama signaled that he means to live up to his postpartisan rhetoric by letting Joe Lieberman keep his committee chairmanship. Fourth, they are not ideological. The economic advisers, Furman and Goolsbee, are moderate and thoughtful Democrats. Hillary Clinton at State is problematic, mostly because nobody has a role for her husband. But, as she has demonstrated in the Senate, her foreign-policy views are hardheaded and pragmatic. (It would be great to see her set of interests complemented by Samantha Power’s set of interests at the U.N.) Finally, there are many people on this team with practical creativity. Any think tanker can come up with broad doctrines, but it is rare to find people who can give the president a list of concrete steps he can do day by day to advance American interests. Dennis Ross, who advised Obama during the campaign, is the best I’ve ever seen at this, but Rahm Emanuel also has this capacity, as does Craig and legislative liaison Phil Schiliro. Believe me, I’m trying not to join in the vast, heaving O-phoria now sweeping the coastal haute bourgeoisie. But the personnel decisions have been superb. The events of the past two weeks should be reassuring to anybody who feared that Obama would veer to the left or would suffer self-inflicted wounds because of his inexperience. He’s off to a start that nearly justifies the hype. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/opinion/21brooks.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Of course I do. I live in and love the USA as much as anyone here and if Obama can lead our country to a better place then that is good for me. For the past 8 years the liberals have been scrutinizing every word, breath and movement of the current administration. Much to your pleasure they have made this a lot of fun by bumbling constantly. Now, I hope you don't mind if we treat your candidate with the same scrutiny.
The people that voted for him recognize he's a politician and will be constrained by political realities. The only ones talking about holding him to a higher standard and demanding he live up to every promise and saying people don't see him the same as everyone else are the people that didn't vote for him. Odd, don't you think?
So you agree with what I said, which basically was that everything you said in your previous post was untrue - but you just don't think it's odd?
"And if Obama really wanted change, if he really wanted to honor progressives who backed him early on and then did the grunt work against McCain, he’d nominate Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State." LOL @ suggesting Kucinich. Kucinich strongly opposed the bailout strongly, not happening.
No, I disagree with your first sentence for the most part and agree that currently the people that didn't vote for him will hold him to a higher standard and that if he proves to be a typical lying politician his followers will follow suit.
I gave George W. Bush almost 3 years before I turned on him and will do the same for Obama. If Obama turns out to be the flaming catastrophic disaster that Bush was, I will be just as hard on him. But he hasn't even been sworn in and deserves a "honeymoon" just like any president.
I think that was a fair treatment of the Bush administration. He was still pretty popular at 3 years. I'll try to be as open minded as I can.
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I'm liberal and progressive, live in the bluest county in Texas because it's liberal and progressive, and we're finally going to have a liberal and progressive President. Why shouldn't I be anything but happy? While I get the literary reference (some of us are old enough to remember it), the truth is that it simply doesn't apply. That's what is wrong with this thread, basso. It's built on bull poop. You need to leave the bull poop behind, basso, and attempt to find joy. Look for the goodness in things. The life in life. You may not sleep better, but you just might feel better.
Recycling old Clinton administration officials is not consistent with change we can believe in. If I wanted to see a Clinton administration in office, I would've voted for Hillary.
Well I mean he is going to be forced into some conservative decisions (unless he just really has some need to make good on promises) I doubt he will raise taxes anytime soon. I doubt he will really pull the troops all out in 16 months.
hillary clinton is nowhere near progressive in foreign policy. cutting welfare signifcantly was not progressive. nafta, without significant help for those who lose their jobs, is not progressive. DLC is not progressive. rahm/hillary/biden are complete hawks. how is that progressive?
Man, I am just really feeling the love from those across the aisle. I thought many would be bitter considering their crushing defeat and abject repudiation by the American people, but so many seem so concerned about the feelings of progressives and Dems and really want us all to be united as we go about wiping the scourge of W from the face of the earth. It really is touching that they are looking out for us this way.
