Is Rahm Emmanual driving the Obama transition decisions?

[dansolo]

After an extremely well run campaign, the Obama transition has been making a number of questionable decisions:

1. Selecting a lot of DLC people for cabinet positions
2. Having Warren speak at the inauguration, which is a completely meaningless gesture
3. Getting involved in the Blagojevich Senate appointment issue
4. The complete dissing of Howard Dean

I know that people will justify all of the above items as being "smart" politically, but to me, all of these items have Rahm Emmanuel's fingerprints all over them. Obama should have a wider cross section of people in his cabinet. I understand that competence is a key factor, but I don't believe that the only competent people out there are all DLC-types. Picking Warren to speak at the inauguration is a pointless gesture, because it needlessly antagonizes loyal Democrats. The only person it benefits is Warren himself. Obama should have stayed out of the Burris appointment. I believe that the hard line stance that was taken was because Rahm Emmanuel was pushing hard for Tammy Duckworth to get the appointment. And we all know about the bad blood between Rahm Emmanuel and Howard Dean.

I'd like to believe that Obama is in charge, but I am starting to lose hope.

[snowbear]

1. Rahm is not at the wheel...

.
.



Even though creating a new bitch n' moan thread always seems to be popular here...

[w4rma]

4. Things seem to be run differently now than during the campaign.

And they are all similar with how the failed Hillary campaign was run, which is exactly how Rahm runs things.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Could you expand on that statement of yours?

As I am curious to the specifics of the point you just made.

[babylonsister]

14. I'm very curious myself as to how those dots were connected.

:wtf:

[BlooInBloo]

2. Clearly Obama has betrayed us.

Gawd you guys are sickening.

[snowbear]

3. ...

.
.

[dansolo]

13. Where did I use the word betray?

I still support Obama. I just wonder how much influence Rahm Emmanual has. I can't stand him, but I was willing to sit back and see if Obama could keep him in check.

[BlooInBloo]

15. Concern noted.

EDIT: And since I never claimed that you used the word "betray", your question is pointless.

[LaydeeBug]

39. as is your pointless answer to the pointless question. nt

[BlooInBloo]

42. Dude - that doesn't even make sense.

[LaydeeBug]

49. Oh Girrrrrrrrrrl, it sure do.

[smalll]

53. It's... poutrageous! /nt

[monmouth]

5. I'm not questioning his decisions and if Rahm has input so be it....n/t

[countingbluecars]

7. You are starting to lose hope

and he isn't even president yet. That's sad.

[FrenchieCat]

9. No, it isn't that. It is that OP poster never truly had any hope.....

and was simply waiting for an excuse to say so.
It's an easy thing to do.
All of the Kool Kids are doing it.

Poster erroneously thought we voted for what he, the poster wanted,
when the person that most of us really voted for was Obama.

[countingbluecars]

10. There seems to be a lot of that

going around here!

[BlooInBloo]

12. Yup. It's typical.

[dansolo]

20. Where do you get off claiming that?

I have been completely supportive of Obama. I don't have a problem with him reaching across the aisle. I think that is smart. Obama's whole raison d'etre was that he listens to all sides, and is able to reel in the extremes to a consensus. What I don't understand is why he doesn't use the same strategy towards the people on the left as he does with those on the right.

[snowbear]

26. YOU AREN'T EVEN GIVING HIM A CHANCE DANSOLO !!!!

.
.
.

[BlooInBloo]

35. Don't bother. They'll never like him. It's a very old phenomenon.

[snowbear]

8. I knew it !!! ... The "bitch n' moan club" just showed up to start recommending this thing!

.
.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was only a matter of time!!

He hasn't served a single day, but the BnM Club is johnny-on-the-spot!

[FrenchieCat]

11. In this case, it is the Dean Loyalists due to their perceived slight of Howar Dean!

If only Dean could have been elected in 2004......
He'd be having the same issues, because Dean the Centrist, ran as Dean the rebel.

However, I will remind the "I hate Obama now because he's mean to Dean" coalition,
that it was Obama who gave the Anti-Iraq War speech in 2002, not Howard Dean.

[Kahuna]

18. Well you know, they only voted for Obama because of Howard Dean..

How crazy is that? :crazy: Or at least that's what some of them say. I don't want to cast aspersions on all Deaniacs.

[babylonsister]

16. Ha! The BnM Club; you should patent that! nt

[BlooInBloo]

17. Do NOT look up "BnM" on urban dictionary. (shudders)

[snowbear]

22. Really?.... eeeesh... Ok, I won't!!!

.
.

I'll take your word for it BlooBloo Bear!

[BlooInBloo]

28. :) It's quite enough for just *one* of us to make that particular mistake.

[AtomicKitten]

40. damn, you made me look. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

47. I knew someone would. Hear me now, believe me later, I always say.

:P

[AtomicKitten]

19. Hyperbole on crack. Cleansing breath for everyone! n/t

[PurityOfEssence]

21. Take a hint from the die-hards

Go back and read his statements and examine his voting record. The guy's a moderate corporatist, a bit to the right of center and VERY similar in both tactics and affiliations to Bill Clinton. Things could be much worse, and hopefully he'll listen to the dissenters and possibly drift a bit left. I wouldn't expect much on this tack, though, because I don't think that's what he believes.

The near-religious adulation is understandable after 28 years of pretty deplorable and only somewhat interrupted reactionary rule that's driven the country to obvious near-ruin, but this guy is just a human being. The irritating human need to have binary total approval of the latest champion just doesn't fit reality, and it's going to have some very disappointing backlashes as people realize that their hopes weren't really justified on this policy or that. What needs to be understood is that he's not the divine font of beauty, from whom nothing but enlightened policy flows, and that anything bad is obviously the work of some scurrilous functionary.

This kind of thinking, along with his continuous use of religion, is why his supporters get flak for being acolytes; it's like many people's belief in God: all good things come from this entity, while anything bad done in his name is obviously mortal mischief.

He has not clearly advertised who and what he is, but he hasn't totally deceived, either. He's played the field and tried to get people to fill in the blanks in ways that are useful for his gathering of votes. Most politicians do this to a certain degree, but he's just more extreme than many, and since part of his mystique is that he's supposedly incorruptible and "new" and "above the evils of the system", these lapses are in clanging discord to the image he's selling.

Icarus has flown high, and the heat of the sun (read: power) is melting the wings; gravity will take its toll. I'm hoping for a gentle glide back down to a reasonable altitude, and I think that's a fair expectation. It's inevitable that people will have flashes of disappointment that they'll take very personally and to the point of childish feelings of betrayal; it's human nature, and now he'll have to stand up and choose which of the both sides of certain issues he's currently on and also have to speak up on the ones he's ducked.

The risk he runs is having it become too accepted that he's a version of Slick Willy and that expediency dictates everything; that would be far too disillusioning for many. The "under the bus" metaphor is real trouble.

More than anything else, he's in an ENTIRELY new world right now, and although smart, he may be a bit too reliant on his tried-and-true tactics, tactics that are handy for a legislator and useful for getting elected, but deadly for the exercise of executive power. Think of him as a naval staff officer with a desk-bound career who's being piped aboard his first command; the unfortunate thing is that this command is the flagship of the home fleet at a time of war.

To answer your final fear, though, I think he's the one calling these shots. He can say, as he did on NPR, that he's "staying out" of the Burris imbroglio, but anyone who thinks that's the case hasn't a scrap of sense; there's no motivation whatsoever for Reid to inject himself into something like that unless requested. The more we're asked to believe the blatantly false, the sooner the disillusionment will come.

People need to get over their psychotic ultra-rosy view of this man or the disappointments are going to be devastating. He's a politician, and a textbook one at that. Our job is to show him the error of his premises, not to think we can somehow force him to move to the left. If corporatism and appeasement can be demonstrated to him as the root of the problem, he's smart enough to find (I shudder to use the despicable term) a "third way".

By the way, though: Rahm's a strong-arming fixer of the old school, and he's farther right than anyone seems to see. You're right to be wary of him, but the sins of employees reflect on the employer, as they should.

[Kahuna]

24. This is a very good post. I may not agree with your total description

of Obama, but it truly remains to be seen how much of a "politician" as you describe it he really is.

[BlooInBloo]

29. It's just a high-falootin "I hate Obama" post.

Clothing ghetto sentiment in uptown verbiage - meh. It impresses the credulous, I suppose.

[Kahuna]

33. I think the poster at least put some thought into his negativity instead..

of just the usual knee-jerk, 'Obama reeks because he dissed (fill in the blank)' threads which have become the norm.

[BlooInBloo]

34. I indicated as much.

[FrenchieCat]

37. Which is why ignore on that works for me......

As I only have one DU member on ignore, I can picture in my mind the many paragraphs one would have to wade through (with lotsa of triangulation throughout)to get to barely nothin'! :eyes:

[BlooInBloo]

38. :) Ignore isn't my way. His/her post *was* pleasingly constructed though...

Sort of like Palin's legs - very nice to look at, but you know immediately that there's nothing of value there.

[Kahuna]

41. It was at least original, eh?

:rofl:

[dansolo]

59. I don't hate Obama

I hate Rahm Emmanuel.

[wyldwolf]

30. Rahm

he's farther right than anyone seems to see.

Rated 100% by NARAL, indicating a pro-choice voting record.
Rated 100% by the HRC, indicating a pro-gay-rights stance.
Rated 94% by the NAACP, indicating a pro-affirmative-action stance.
Rated 39% by the US COC, indicating a mixed business voting record.
Rated 100% by the NEA, indicating pro-public education votes.
Rated 95% by the LCV, indicating pro-environment votes.
Rated 8% by the Christian Coalition
Rated F by the NRA, indicating a pro-gun control voting record.
Rated 100% by APHA, indicating a pro-public health record.
Rated 8% by USBC, indicating an open-border stance.
Rated 87% by the AFL-CIO, indicating a pro-union voting record.

http://www.ontheissues.org/IL/Rahm_Emanuel.htm

[PurityOfEssence]

43. That's pretty impressive, but still...

My troubles come from the stance on the Middle East, the cowtowing with religion (always my big bugaboo) and corporatist leanings. He voted for free trade with Peru, Singapore and Chile. He's fine with FISA encroachment, and he's pretty much as hawkish as Democrats get these days and voted to retroactively grant immunity to telecoms for unwarranted wiretaps.

He supports the Hyde Park resolution for third-way centrism, which pretty much says what I'm saying: he's farther to the right than people think. To repeat: the two most dangerous issues facing this country today are the economy and the Palestinian mess. He's pretty strongly corporatist (although not a feudalist about it) and his stance on the Palestinian issue is hardly unbiased. That latter part is understandable, of course, but it's still a big issue, and it also colors many pressing decisions like the about-to-be majorly stupid escalation in Afghanistan.

What you've shown certainly is encouraging and he's hardly a monarchist, but he's still a very hard character, and he's going to have huge influence.

[wyldwolf]

60. ..but still...

... who has determined his stance on the middle east is "conservative" when it's been in the DNC's platform for decades?

I don't recall him cowtowing to religion but, then again, Democrats have been openly religious since forever.

Again, free trade deals date back to FDR and are traditionally Democratic.

I, myself, support the Hyde Park resolution for third-way centrism and I'm no conservative as does countless other Dems.

All in all (and I'm not trying to be snarky), most of your points are from a "progressive" perspective that many people don't have nor want.

[rpannier]

48. I went to the website you posted

Some of your stats date back as much as 5 years.

Here is an updated version for you to use (if yoy wish.if you don't more power)

He still gets 100% from the NEA Dec 7, 2008
NRA still an F Nov 7, 2008
AFL-CIO 93% lifetime record
APHA 100% 2008 report
NAACP 90% although I found his support of the Schuler/Tancredo 'Enforcement-only Bill' disturbing
LCV 100% 2nd half of 2008 voting record
HRC - They've removed Emmanuel from the Illinois delegation info

on note: I was going to comment on how it would have been nice if your info had been more current. But finding this small amount of info was a pain in the a**

[wyldwolf]

23. ha ha. You wish.

[jackpan1260]

25. Who is this "Warren" you speak of?

I haven't read any threads here about him.

[Danger Mouse]

27. I really doubt that.

[wyldwolf]

31. the main danger of OPs like this are...

... in a couple of years people in the netroots will be asserting this as fact, and probably using this OP as "proof."

[BlooInBloo]

46. Yup. Half the battle is setting the terms of the discussion. Rather like the...

"the New Deal didn't work" crew on the other team.

EDIT: It sucks a little bit worse when YOUR OWN team does it to you though - the betrayal and all.

[mucifer]

32. It's all a Jewish conspiracy! We do control the world!

:sarcasm:

[Enrique]

36. if you don't like something Obama does, blame Obama

don't scapegoat Rahm, all of those things you list are consistent with the pre-Rahm Obama.

[ShadowLiberal]

44. In terms of cabinet picks, I've heard most chosen were on Biden's short list

Some weeks ago on Meet the press one pundit said that Obama was asking several people to make short lists of people to recommend to him to choose for his cabinet positions.

Of all the people chosen, almost all of them were on Biden's list. That pundit mentioned that Biden had a very big role in getting Hillary Clinton chosen for secretary of state.

The other stuff you mention though I don't know.

I honestly think that the Obama people didn't think that inviting Warren would be that big of a deal to anyone, I think part of the reason for the big reaction to inviting Warren is Prop 8 passing so recently still leaving a lot of us angry.

I don't really see why everyone says Obama made a mistake getting involved in the senate appointment issue. I mean remember when people were criticizing Obama for not saying anything, or saying things too weakly and not distancing himself from Blago enough? Obama had to make statements on what he thought about the whole scandal over his senate seat, and after getting criticized for not speaking out strong enough against Blago originally when the story broke his people likely felt they had to speak out against the Burris appointment.

I have no clue about the Dean thing.

[Jennicut]

52. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't

I wonder what some here want. Maybe Dennis Kucinich but he never was nor will ever be that. Nor is he a DLC-er or a blue Dog Dem. He is Obama. He is to the left of Bill Clinton and thht is about it. He campaigned that way, I just love the false outrage over every single thing.

[Undercurrent]

45. .

[bvar22]

50. Rahm is not at the wheel.

The people who own Rahm are at the wheel.

[Jennicut]

51. Um, the chief of staff helps directs the presidents goals

If I had won the presidency and was an intelligent man like Obama I really would let the guy I hired as chief of staff direct things. Hilarious! Warren was Obama's idea, Burris should never have been appointed to begin with, Obama is the one who directs policy not his cabinet. Howard vs Rahm might be real but Obama would never subjugate his entire presidency before it began to someone, sorry he is not dumb as rocks like Shrub. If you don't like Obama's cabinet or ideas, etc then blame it on Obama at the very least.

[countingbluecars]

55. LOL

Rahm is the new Cheney.

[Jennicut]

57. If Obama is the new Shrub then please kill me before it starts

[countingbluecars]

58. Not even close! n/t

[Beacool]

54. Obama is in charge. Next question..........

What's this, blame anyone else other than Obama if he displeases some of you?

He picked Warren, he picked his cabinet, and Dean would have been invited if he had chosen to do so.

You wants to see fingerprints, look at Obama's hands............

:eyes:

[Radical Activist]

56. reality check

1. How many is a "lot" of DLC people? Three or four? He has some very good liberal picks too. It already is a wide cross section of people.
2. I don't like that Warren is speaking but if you think it's a "completely meaningless gesture" then it must not be worth worrying about.
3. How has he gotten involved in the Senate appointment? He stayed pretty far away as far as I can tell and he was criticized for it.
4. The "dissing" of Howard Dean is contrived baloney coming from people who want to stir shit and cause divisions.

Don't be so gullible about every criticism of Obama.