« Free Use: A Remembrance
It’s a bird it’s a plane »



Obama’s Change: Shouting at the ocean

June 18th, 2008
By JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor

Print Print

Newsweek’s Evan Thomas is a journalist and a beltway insider. He considers himself a cog - albeit a small one - in the machine that keeps Washington, D.C. running much the same as it has run for generations. In his column this week he recounts a meeting with a number of other such insiders where they pondered Barack Obama’s potential ability to really change the fundamental way that Washington works. The Illinois Senator speaks lovingly to his massive audiences about rejecting beltway “politics as usual” but could he really take that massive Rube Goldberg machine of Bureaucracy, pivot it ninety degrees and make it march in a new direction? Thomas notes that the same old people keep things running the same old way, and the machine may not even be able to function without them.

The fact is that Washington is largely dominated by people, some of them very smart, who get well paid to represent the status quo and fairly narrow interests. These people are not by any means wicked or unjust or venal…

But I am sure that if you took a poll and asked them whether Obama could really change Washington-could really close loopholes on energy companies and raise taxes on the rich, reform the health-care system and significantly scale back the ill effects of global warming, substantially improve public schools or get us out of Iraq anytime soon–the answer would have been no, probably not.

As the author notes, going back to the seventies, on the rare occasions when the Democrats get their hands on the reigns of power they think they can pull off such a transformation. The results seem to follow a pattern. Jimmy Carter attempted to push against that sysiphusean stone of beltway business as usual by bringing in his gang of “The Georgians” and the outcome was not pretty. Unlike so many of my friends on the Right, I do not demonize Jimmy Carter. I believe he was a gentle, noble soul with lofty principles and admirable goals. But the fact remains that his administration was characterized by nothing so much as paralysis and inaction. He spent four years pushing against a stone wall which noticed him not one bit.

Even Bill Clinton faced the same challenges. He initially brought in a gang of good ole’ boys from Arkansas, but had Lloyd Cutler (”super lawyer and Washington wise man“) not ridden in to the rescue - showing them which levers needed to be pushed and where the grease had to be applied - he might have been another one term president.

Getting rid of the people you need to get anything done is a magic act worthy of David Copperfield. I have no doubt that Obama could “change” the way things operate in D.C. should he really put his shoulder to the wheel. But will that change only be to make the machine grind to a halt? The man makes a great speech, but when he turns Washington into a chorus of angels, each working harder than the last for the benefit of the people, I’ll be buying stock in winged bacon.



This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 6:14 am and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, Barack Obama, 2008 Elections, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 19 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    Chorus of angels, heavens will open, solid gold houses and rocket cars for everyone... Sorry, that's not what the man promises.

    What he asks of us (not promises us) is to acknowledge that the status quo is working to the detriment of most Americans and probably the country as whole, and to work with him (and any other leader who agrees to work that much harder to forge consensus at the expense of a little ideological posturing) to try to do something about it.

    I agree that he has been frustratingly silent on the means of accomplishing even the initiation of this challenge. One thing he has stated repeatedly, however, is that it is a change that requires as much if not more support from the bottom up than from the top down.

    It is the height of irresponsibility to ignore a corrupting system because it appears entrenched unless you believe that change is impossible or that this is the best we can do. History shows we can do better, and the future demands it.
    • ^
    • v
    "The Illinois Senator speaks lovingly to his massive audiences about rejecting beltway “politics as usual..”~This Post
    *****

    "The day after New Year's 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

    There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city's South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.

    Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.

    But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer."

    A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.

    One of the candidates he eliminated, long-shot contender Gha-is Askia, now says that Obama's petition challenges belied his image as a champion of the little guy and crusader for voter rights.

    "Why say you're for a new tomorrow, then do old-style Chicago politics to remove legitimate candidates?" Askia said. "He talks about honor and democracy, but what honor is there in getting rid of every other candidate so you can run scot-free? Why not let the people decide?"

    Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-07...

    *********

    Barack Obama strong-armed no less than four candidates he was up against; one even a longshot that he didn't have to worry about.

    It feels like a bad relationship. I voted for him after he won me with a smooth smile and promises of change and yet he's held elite office by exterminating his liberal activist competition (and even those who held no threat) in Chicago?? He EXTERMINATED them from the ballot to run unopposed.

    Read up on fascism folks. Every fascist dictator started out the same way. You want to believe their charisma, their message of "change". But when they espouse "change" and operate the same old dirty ways of those they are supposedly replacing, it's time to revisit the old saying:

    "Actions speak louder than words."
    • ^
    • v
    Read up on fascism folks.- Fascism is when the state and business combine into one entity, and business becomes the end all and be all of the state. Sounds like gwb and the republicians to me. And you sir, sound like a republician troll, harping on a subject that has no meaning. Whats the matter, can't find anything else to try and swiftboat him on? If this is the best you got, then he will not be really bothered by you swiftboaters. Republicians + Military Industrial complex+ corporate media+multicorps+gw bush administration=Fascism. Be careful of the words you republicians throw around. Remember what happened to that wing nut radio jock that Chris Matthews tore apart because he was just repeating the republician talking points and had no idea at all of either the history or the meaning of the word of the day-note how the republicians dropped it like a hot potato after that segment. That republician word of the day was APPEASEMENT, the item you did a cut and paste on is nothing new, but you might want to read some history, like just how Hitler and big business worked together- something like todays republician administration and how they allow/give permission for big business to loot our treasury-before you once again throw around words when you have little or no idea what they mean
    • ^
    • v
    ab, good comment. Sillo, you really seem bitter, but I'm guessing you're a McCain troll, continually attacking Obama. Terms like "fascist dictator" are a real tip off. Challenging petition signatures is not "strong-arming" candidates. If their fledgling campaigns couldn't get enough unassailable signatures to even get them on the ballot that's their failing. In fact, it's pathetic. What incompetence that they failed right at the starting line. Frankly we don't need candidates like that. Of course they could challenge Obama's signatures too, and probably did. (Did you check?) But he had many many more than he needed, because he's a better candidate. Let me repeat that slowly. He's - a - better - candidate.

    Now, in terms of changing the game in Washington, it's a huge challenge for all of us. With 70 lobbyists for every legislator and every politician with their hands out for cash to get and stay in office, the culture of corruption is daunting. Obama can take a shot at it precisely because he has funded his campaign without selling out to these interests (though some will argue that he has "sold out" to special interests he believes in). But to change the way things are done in Washington takes many more than one player. His entire administration will have to be determined to work for the public, not for the moneyed interests who call the shots today.

    Obama is walking a tightrope. He must be (and has been, IMO) detailed enough about what he plans to do, without saying anything controversial enough to give ammo to the attack dogs. We have a historic opportunity this election, with two candidates taking vastly different positions on the issues. It is on those issues we must decide, not personality, race or wives. Not pastors or wringing tortured hidden meanings out of offhand comments. And not petty "gotcha" details from the deep past. Sorry to get personal Sillo, but taking a political strategy that many candidates use and implying that it means he's Hitler is a perfect example of how this debate should not go.
    • ^
    • v
    Anyone who has an educational policy consisting of giving the teachers unions whatever they want and don't ask any questions, is definitely in the pocket of special interest.

    Look at how Senator obama refuses to ever be specific. It gives him great escape methods for any disappointment.

    Also, people forget that special interest are made up of real people. The aggregate of those special interest are what make up the body politic.

    All that the Obama Administration will do is to pick a slightly different group of winners and lowers. The real question is how many bad mistake the administration will make in picking the winners and losers.
    • ^
    • v
    Gen. Washington didn't win the Revolutionary War. He inspired and led his troops to win. Had the trrops resisted or leaned on their muskets saying ''nah, it can't be done', the war would have been lost, and we would be reading very different history books today.
    Even though Washington, later, was not a perfect president, as a general, he enabled the colonies to usher in a whole new era. His success, though, was very much dependent on having sufficient followers and supporters. It was the followers who took personal responsiblity for shaping the future, and they deterrmined what that future would be.

    There were those, however, who wanted to sit the war out on the sidelines, tending to their own fortunes and plotting how to continue dong so without personal risk. They wanted a free ride, no matter who won the war.

    Those who say, today, that it can't be done, are, in effect, saying they don't want change, or they want someone else to hand change to them on a silver platter while they tend to their personal fortunes.

    Obama can't effect change. It depends on whether enough people will get off the sidelines to shape their own future. I have no sympathy for those who complain about Washington, DC, but content themselves with only polishing their own apples and calculating how to do well no matter who wins. They forfeit complaining rights, as far as i"m concerned.

    .
    • ^
    • v
    No, I'm a registered democrat and have been for 25 years and voted democratically.

    This may boggle the mind, but you don't have to support McCain automatically to criticize Obama. McCain is an abomination as well.

    Both are unacceptable.

    The facts remain that Obama EXTERMINATED, in fascist style, four candidates in the Chicago election to make himself the uncontested candidate in that race. One of those fallen four was a minority progressive person who posed no threat to his win. He just wanted them all out of the way for good measure..

    You don't have to support McCain to see that that doesn't represent change. You barely have to have a gradeschool education to see that that is nefarious, underhanded, slimey old-school tactics of climbing to the top and taking flesh as you go.

    If I supported McCain, why would I be encouraging people to Write-In Hillary Clinton in the Fall?

    Puzzler, eh?

    With the support galvanized for Hillary further by Obama's recent Michigan rally where his supporters "booed" Clinton's name, and with his selection of her old campaign manager, and his pretending not to know how galvanizing that would be (If I had to accuse anyone of working on the sly for the GOP it would be Obama himself and his closest aides), there will be big numbers for Hillary this Fall in a Write-In.

    Add that to people waking up about Obama's lack of experience, past bad deeds like exterminating competition per the Tribune article above, his ties to extremist ministers denouncing whites (racial bias) and his blatant capitalizing on Dr. Mr. Luther King Jr.'s persona...his lack of experience in foreign policy and even basic foreign matters like which language is spoken where...all this in time of war...

    You have a recipe for more people like me disenfranchised with our original support of Barack Obama and towards Hillary Clinton.

    Then add in McCain supporters who will see him as the buffoon Bush-stooge he is..

    You'll see a groundswell for a grass-roots Clinton Write-In this Fall.

    We educated voters know how to make our voices heard. Even if backroom politics, and superdelegates and Big Media don't want to hear us.

    Write-In Hillary Clinton this Fall.
    • ^
    • v
    Actually, Superdestroyer, his promoted policies and other positions are quite specific--and some are antithetical to the dreaded teachers union (merit pay, vouchers). My complaint about specifics had to do with how he will attempt to lead a change to the way the federal government works (or fails to work) effectively as a deliberative entity that transcends provincial concerns enough to arrive at pragmatic solutions.

    Yes, special interests comprise people, too, in addition to businesses (whose health and sustainability are just as vital to the country as those of individual citizens). The point isn't to badmouth special interests; it is to curtail their excessive influence over policy derived from their ability to keep politicians in office regardless of their capacity to be effective legislators.
    • ^
    • v