Throw Out the Playbook
Eugene Robinson provides some needed cold water on President Elect Obama’s approach to political purity in the Washington Post today. In examining Obama’s approach to and spin on the Blagojevich story, he seems to view the cautious, neutral doublespeak as less of a breath of fresh air and more of the same old same old.
In handling questions about the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich — for allegedly trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder — Obama has gone strictly by the book. His statements have been cautious and precise, careful not to get ahead of the facts or make declarations that might later have to be retracted.
The scandal involves Obama in only the most tangential way, as far as anyone knows, and actually seems to cast him in a favorable light. But the longer he leaves obvious questions unanswered, the longer the president-elect will have to talk about the seamier side of Illinois politics rather than initiatives such as saving the U.S. auto industry or revamping health care.
Obama has been busy telling people that he’s not been in contact with the indicted governor. When asked if his staff, including Rahm Emanuel, were involved, he gave a murky response, saying they, “had no involvement with any dealmaking,” and he was still “gathering facts” about possible contacts. I find it ironic that Obama has been criticizing Blagojevich for representing the “old school” of politics while so cautiously crafting his responses like any other politician.
If Obama really wants to represent a breath of fresh air, he and his team might consider taking some advice from the opposite side of the aisle, as suggested by Ed Morrissey.
They’ve already arrested Blagojevich. Emanuel could now say, “I helped Patrick Fitzgerald when I saw something wrong and worked with them to get him to make explicit statements,” rather than spend this week ducking reporters. The “sources within the investigation” would hardly want to make a cooperating witness look bad, either. Emanuel has been acting like someone advised him to keep quiet to keep from making incriminating public statements, and this may be the reason why.
I agree with Ed that the idea of Obama not being interested in who would replace him from his home state is preposterous. And there would be absolutely nothing wrong with Rahm or anyone from his staff checking in on the process or even airing the President Elect’s opinion as to who he might like to work with in the next Senate session. Provided there was no offer of pay for play or insinuation that Obama was somehow entitled to pick the replacement himself, he could stand up in public with no embarrassment and note what he had done.
One thing that has long bothered me about Obama while he was out on the campaign trail was the overly cautious way that he fielded questions. In one regard, this worked well for him, as nobody wants a hotheaded president flying off the handle at the drop of a hat. But Obama’s answers always seemed to come after a fraction of a beat too long of a pause, as if his mental filters were taking every answer, running them through a theoretical wire service and scanning the resulting headlines for acceptable tone. His responses thus far to the Blagojevich scandal are along the same lines. If there is nothing to hide, why play this game? Just toss out the old political playbook, as Robinson suggests, and cleanse the air. To do less is to leave us wondering exactly how much “change” we’re getting for our voting dollar and what else we might not be hearing.
10 Responses to “Throw Out the Playbook”
President-Elect Obama is black intellectual. I “colorize” intellectual because it is EXTREMELY important. Obama acts like and talks like many black intellectuals I have come into contact with: extremely measured, very cautious in fluid situations. They do not want to miss something and yet miss things (but do not want to miss the “thing” stupidly). But they are going to be consider, reconsider, theorize, postulate, present, and debate themselves internally before putting out a response. The late author Harold Cruse basically said as much in his groundbreaking book “The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual”.
This is what President-Elect Obama is. In the Blagojevich affair, Obama basically has concluded the he means nothing to my plan and seems to be slightly irritated at the fuss. Whether that assessment is wrong or right, time will decide.
Patrick Fitzgerald isn't a leaker like Kenneth Starr was. He's conducting a methodical investigation. The news he revealed about Blagojevich was a bombshell. Everything else since then has been speculation. Eventually, more news will be made according to Fitzgerald's schedule, not according to Obama's.
That's the way it should be.
Isn't it?
One of the far lefties on this site, Chris WWW, had Obama figured out fairly quickly. Obama's a lib and Dem, but first and foremost a clever politician, just like all the white guys who have preceded him. This guy is particularly smart and good at covering himself — note the nature and extent to which he has been screening applicants for even the lowest-run positions in his administration.
Of course he is involved to some extent with Blagojevich and the rest of the Chicago gang. In the case of the governor, it is independent of the Chicago-gang stuff — _of_course_, even _before_ he vacated his Senate seat, he was talking to people in Illinois. It would be irresponsible not to do it.
Uh is no one paying attention to the fact that it is most likely an ongoing investigation that may very well have more charges brought up and therefore they don't want to expose everyone that was involved in the “sting?”
As for change, anyone can see that any statement is going to be parsed a billion times and if he says anything that later turns out to be inaccurate then it will be a complete nightmare. The same for making decisions.
Really I can't blame politicians for the way they interact with the public/press because people don't care about substance, politics is all about image. I mean Politico keeps running stories about the new transition website feature that lets people ask questions and rate which ones they like. Instead of focusing on the top questions, they are obsessing over the fact that people keep voting down the Blagojevich ones because it's the scandal du jour and it “proves” censorship or something.
Our leaders can't run a new politics until the populace lets them; and that starts by caring more about reality than discussing marketing.
Also I interpret his pause to be more of a sign of his introverted nature than parsing. If you know any introverts that are strong speakers, they often pause to construct answers when they aren't just going off a playbook but then can talk for quite a while without missing much of a beat; that's also the reason why he says “Well look” a lot, as it's a throw away segue that lets him construct his answer but without extroverts being suspicious about the pauses. When he is stumbling a lot with tons of “uhs” that means he doesn't really know what to say and would rather say nothing because he's afraid of being held to something he doesn't want to be — but due to his introversion that is a more natural response than just a string of market speak BS that means nothing, although he'd be better served by doing that perhaps.
I always could tell that he was an introvert even though everyone was going on and on about which personality type he was and they thought he was an extrovert. My suspicions were confirmed a couple weeks ago in a story about how his personal habits have changed.
Also, I believe credit ought to go where it is due here. While so many “progressives” are childish about what Obama has been doing (going mainstream rather than wholeheartedly extremist with his administration-head choices), one of the far-lefty users who posts comments on this site, Chris WWW, had Obama de-mythologized pretty much right from the start of his post-election decision-making, and I suspect he is not surprised at all by his latest round of conservative (and, more to the point, cautious) public statement-making.
With millions of microscopes on you, guess you better be measured.
“Obama acts like and talks like many black intellectuals I have come into contact with: extremely measured, very cautious in fluid situations.”
He has a lot on his shoulders, already — _before_ taking office. Most of us see the color of his skin the same way we see the color of someone's hair, or failing that, of eyes, etc., as a superficial thing and mainly a matter of appearance, nothing more. But obviously many see or think of more. Ken Burns's “Baseball” was full of gimmickry (the voice gimmick is especially overdone), reliance on liberal Northeastern dolts (Cuomo, Goodwin) about whom we don't care what they have to say about baseball, and really overdid the liberal garbage about the USA in depicting Jackie Robinson as Jesus. (Obama is not the first Messiah to save us from the Evil USA, in a tired and tiresome liberal political theme, which Burns's “Baseball” is.) But obviously Obama is a meaningful social as well as political phenomenon (black Americans rightfully deserve to be proud of his election; I am especially happy for the black centenarian children of slaves who got to vote for him last month and some of whom are making the journey or even _pilgrimage_ with other black Americans to Washington see him inaugurated next month) and I suppose keeping him “safe” is so important it may strike me as excessive and unnecessary but isn't seen that way by Obama and by others.
“millions of microscopes on you”
More than I sometimes realize, I admit, and I try to view the real world realistically.
I totally agree with the “million microscopes” comment. That's what first came to mind when reading the story. The media's ready to pounce on every syllable to begin their “careful, measured” analysis. I'd rather let Fitzgerald let us know what is really going on when he's ready to.
And Jazz, a “beat too long of a pause?”
Would we rather see “don't even blink?”