Pivot Politics

One of the more interesting situations to keep an eye on after the Obama inauguration will be how he handles the issue of Domestic Spying. The NY Times outlines some of the early speculation on what might or might not happen.

Of course one of the main reasons this will be interesting is Obama’s flip-flop on the issue during the campaign:

As a presidential candidate, he condemned the N.S.A. operation as illegal, and threatened to filibuster a bill that would grant the government expanded surveillance powers and provide immunity to phone companies that helped in the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants. But Mr. Obama switched positions and ultimately supported the measure in the Senate, angering liberal supporters who accused him of bowing to pressure from the right.

Mr. Obama let down a lot of people with his ultimate support of that bill, and not simply “liberal supporters”. All conservatives, independents, and moderates who value their civil liberties have been offended by what the Bush administration has done to its own citizens over the last several years. It was disappointing for Barack Obama to back away from his promise to defend those rights for all of us.

I speculated at the time his flip-flop could very well have been strictly political, in that he couldn’t go into the general election against John McCain with any hint of weakness on National Security. Now that he has the ultimate executive power, his true beliefs on the issue shall become apparent.

Sources are telling CNN former president Bill Clinton is being vetted, as a necessary step in the offer of Secretary of State to his wife, Hillary.

The officials said the transition team is seeking unspecified records from the former president to get a better handle on issues related to his foundation work and presidential library to try and deal with potential conflicts of interest if Sen. Clinton is nominated for the post.

Earlier in the day, there had been some buzz that officials within Obama’s transition team were becoming frustrated over the seemingly slow pace of information release with regards to Mr. Clinton’s international dealings. Politico described the Obama team as “exasperated”.

These apparent concerns as they relate to Bill Clinton were always going to be an issue for Hillary were she to have become the Democratic nominee, or if she had been vetted for the VP position on the ticket. Kind of ironic that the issue is coming now in full as it relates to a possible Secretary of State position; one which would, it seem, be most sensitive to international conflicts of interest.

Mike Allen reports on speculation Hillary Clinton is being seriously considered for the Secretary of State cabinet position.

Terrific observation on how an appointment such as this would towards creating a “Team of Rivals” for Obama:

A possible clue to Obama’s willingness to consider Clinton for chief diplomat can be found in a January interview he gave to Katie Couric, anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News.” As part of her “Primary Questions” series, she asked him what books besides the Bible he would considers essential if he were elected president.

“Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book ‘Team of Rivals,’” Obama replied. “It was a biography of Lincoln. And she talks about Lincoln’s capacity to bring opponents of his and people who have run against him in his cabinet. And he was confident enough to be willing to have these dissenting voices and confident enough to listen to the American people and push them outside of their comfort zone. And I think that part of what I want to do as president is push Americans a little bit outside of their comfort zone. It’s a remarkable study in leadership.”

Lots of pundits seem to bothered by the lengthy and detailed application form prospective Obama administration employees will be subjected to. For example, John Kasich just said on Fox News Obama should withdraw this form because it was “beyond the pale”. Bob Beckel voiced similar concerns

Why would anyone take issue with a thorough application process?

1) It would be foolish for the incoming administration to not collect all the information it can on prospective employees. Chances are people are clamoring for a chance to be a part of the Obama administration for a number of reasons; that potentially puts the administration itself in a power position in terms of higher screening requirements. I cannot fathom how having more information on a given person is a negative from the standpoint of the employer.

2) Nobody from the administration has said what kind of answers would result in disqualification. At this point, all we know is they are seeking to obtain an enormous amount of historical information from each potential employee. It certainly is possible an employee could have “embarassing” information (in their mind) revealed that would not prevent them from obtaining the position applied for.

3) The Obama administration is the first to understand the type of electronic footprints left by all of us on the Internet, and thus they are requiring revelation of online aliases, blog postings, Facebook account information, etc.. Welcome to 2008; this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

There seems to be quite a bit of hand-wringing over this NY Times article which reveals Martin Eisenstadt as a phony advisor to the McCain campaign.

The background is this: an anonymous source was quoted on air by Carl Cameron of Fox News as saying, among other things, Palin thought Africa was a country, and not a continent. After this report, “Martin Eisenstadt” came forward to claim he was the anonymous source. Turns out, “Martin Eisenstadt” is a character played by Eitan Gorlin, and so his claim of attribution for that story is a hoax.

Here’s where a number of political commentators are getting tripped up (at Politico and The New Rebulic for example). They are inferring the story itself is a hoax, and the original reporting only came about because of the false information provided by Eisenstadt/Gorlin. But that is not what the NY Times article says, and there has been no retraction from Carl Cameron himself.

So there is at least a likelihood the story itself is true, yet the attention grab of identifying himself as the source by Eisenstadt/Gorlin is the only hoax. Of course it is also possible the entire thing is a hoax, but we’ve no proof of that, nor any refutation of the original reporting on Fox News.

UPDATE: Rich Lowry over at the Corner seems to understand it.

Nate Silver breaks down the craziness that is the vote count in the Alaska Senate race between Ted Stevens and Mark Begich. The gist of it being the early votes cast in the race might push Begich over the top, as the early votes counted thus far favor Begich:

With so few early and absentee ballots counted to date, Ted Stevens’ lead is not nearly so robust as it appears. Until we get better information about the nature of the absentee vote in Alaska, the race should probably be regarded as a toss-up.

If Stevens does win? Well, we will all wonder WTF is wrong with Alaska.

Key Democratic leaders in Congress, including Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, are urging the consideration of adding struggling U.S. automakers to the list of companies eligible for federal bailout assistance.

From the NY Times:

‘‘A healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market stability, the overall health of our economy, and the livelihood of the automobile sector’s work force,’‘ they wrote. ‘‘The economic downturn and the crisis in our financial markets further imperiled our domestic automobile industry and its work force.’‘

This is a very tricky political issue. Most people, on the surface, would probably prefer to aid the automakers, versus the investment banks, as would be a tangible human element to the failure of Ford, or G.M. (factory closings, blue collar jobs lost, etc.). It would truly be a tragedy for any of the big 3 U.S. manufacturers to go belly-up.

But the federal government probably has no business intervening here. The loss of jobs from plant closings would be devastating to the local economies, perhaps even on the state level. But it will not, and should not, be a federal issue. It is not the federal government’s responsibility that U.S. automakers have been unable to figure out how to build a modern, reliable, efficient car that people want to buy in the last 25 years.

However, it appears we might see some policy “tweaks” to act as an aid for the U.S. companies. From the article:

President-elect Obama said Friday his transition team would explore policy options to help the auto industry. Obama’s economic transition team includes two allies of the U.S. auto industry — Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and former Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich.

The truth is, we could write 1000 blog posts about the unintelligent and ignorant things said by Sarah Palin during her few short months on the national stage. She has aptly demonstrated her own lack of intellectual capital time and again. So while some of the latest revelations coming to light now that the campaign is over are not completely shocking, this latest is simply incomprehensible.

Check out this report from Carl Cameron from inside the McCain camp (via Andrew Sullivan). Apparently, not only did Palin NOT know which countries made up the North American Free Trade Agreement, she also was under the impression Africa was a country, not a continent.

No one should require any further proof that this sham of a Vice Presidential pick was absolutely not vetted, and was a cynical and selfish pandering ploy on the part of the McCain campaign.

What do you think it says about Alaska that their governor couldn’t have passed my high school civics class? What does it say about all the GOP and Conservative pundits who have been telling us Sarah Palin is the future star of the Republican party?

From Newsweek’s upcoming special election project, the finger pointing at Governor Palin is apparently starting:

One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

Get ready; it’s going to get ugly.

If you have a chance, check out the pictures of Barack Obama during this campaign compiled at The Big Picture blog; a terrific site for compelling photographs and their accompanying stories. There are numerous galleries worthy of your attention, this Obama entry being the latest.

Here is the collection of Obama photographs.

Image courtesy of REUTERS/Jim Young

Conventional wisdom states Barack Obama needs to win one of these states, and he will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. How does it look to you?

CNN’s John King reports the McCain campaign is looking at a way to win without winning Colorado (or Iowa or New Mexico).

While Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado are still officially listed as McCain target states, two top strategists and advisers tell CNN that the situation in those states looks increasingly bleak. Iowa and New Mexico always have been viewed as difficult races, but the similar assessment of Colorado reflects a dramatic shift for a campaign that had long counted on the state.

“Gone,” was the word one top McCain insider used to describe those three states.

This strategy would result in McCain having to win Pennsylvania to have a shot at victory. Long odds to say the least.

Mike Murphy, the former McCain campaign advisor, on the impact of the Powell endorsement.

As a great McCain admirer, I am sad to say it, but the truth is the video of Powell’s endorsement will boil across You Tube and do great damage in these closing days of the campaign.

The full post is here.

My favorite McCain facial expression of the night (and there were many) occurs at about 0:45 when Obama claims a $0 fine after McCain has continued trying to land a jab on this issue (courtesty of TPM):

Posted today at Slate.com, Hitchens makes the case for Obama:

It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them.

In case you missed it, here is a terrific piece by Christopher Buckley declaring his intention of voting for Obama.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

The intellectual honesty displayed by Buckley in this piece is refreshing to say the least. It’s hard to imagine his father William not approving.

Now that Sarah Palin has been found to be in violation of Alaska ethics law, and found to abuse the power of her office, will she be forced to answer questions on the matter? Most politicians would seek to hold a news conference on the matter, to help diffuse the situation and proclaim their innocence.

Can we finally expect such an event from Palin?

Doubtful. However, perhaps she will sit down for a special episode of “Hannity’s America” and go into all the details for us.

Josh Marshall ponders Senator McCain’s seeming contempt for Senator Obama. Reading Josh’s account spurred my memory of an odd exchange between the two senators a few years back, as told through the Chicago Tribune. The exchange was set off by a very sarcastic and diminishing letter written by Senator McCain to Senator Obama. In summary, McCain was angry at Obama (then a freshman senator) for what he viewed as partisan posturing with regard to ethics reform. For his part, Obama claimed to have no idea what prompted the McCain outburst.

A summary of that dust up can be found here.

According to the article, the following is an excerpt of the letter from McCain to Obama; certainly not a respectful address:

Dear Senator Obama:

I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. . . . Thank you for disabusing me of such notions. . . . I’m embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. . . . I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn’t always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, senator.

Sincerely,
John McCain

United States Senate

An insightful compilation of debate tips from Paul Begala.

From the article:

10. Debates are more often lost than won. When Gerald Ford told Jimmy Carter that Eastern Europe was not under Soviet domination in 1976, it might have cost him the election.

This is one reason the VP debate tomorrow evening is shaping up to be so interesting. Neither of these two candidates has proven skillful at navigating themselves through questioning without the (occasional) gaffe. We’ve seen it with Biden for years, and have now witnessed it in great detail with Palin over the last two weeks.

Of course there is much more to “winning” (however defined) than simply not making a mistake; but with these two candidates, the potential for a devastating error appears higher than usual.

CBS has dropped another excerpt from “the Couric files”, this time allowing us a glimpse into the ever-curious legal mind of Governor Sarah Palin.

While watching this video, please keep in mind this could be the person nominating the next Supreme Court justice.

From CNN:

“Oh, I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It’s time that a normal Joe six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of sorts, and they’re ticked off about it,” she said.

Or, could be people are simply appalled by the prospect of such an unintelligible and unqualified person being second in command.

The GOP is getting nervous about McCain’s chances and some are urging his campaign to get more viscous. Public Jeremiah Wright mentions from McCain surrogates are probably not far behind.

Also, assuming this is not simple expectation posturing, Palin continues to hamstring the campaign:

And his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running-mate, initially a political boon, has become a distraction inside and out of the campaign, with top staff now sidelined trying to avoid a debate disaster on Thursday night, officials close to the campaign say.

Outlined by Fox News, Biden shown to be exaggerating his own “close call” in Iraq. Some politicians just can’t help themselves; and the Obama campaign has to be worried about what else might come out of Biden’s mouth, especially Thursday at the debate.

Why Biden felt the need to make the claim he was “shot at” is beyond me; it really adds nothing to the debate in this instance.

“We always weaken everything we exaggerate” – La Harpe

The McCain camp has had to retract some of their VP nominees own words, after she seemed to contradict the senator’s views on military action within Pakistan.

The more Sarah Palin is allowed to talk freely to the press, the more of this type of mistake will be seen.

Not to say it isn’t an issue for both sides in this election; Biden has certainly suffered from straying too far from the campaign’s official views at least a time or two.

By now you’ve most likely seen or heard about Tina Fey’s return to SNL last night, as the beloved governor of Alaska.

Truly the most amusing part of the skit is the fact that the writers incorporated entire chunks of verbatim text from Palin’s actual interview with Couric earlier in the week.

In case you haven’t seen it, enjoy!