Reconciliation without Truth

It is said that Barack Obama has read Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, Team of Rivals, about the war cabinet of Abraham Lincoln. It is said Obama wants to constitute his cabinet out of former rivals because he liked the book and he models himself on Lincoln.

Implausible as it sounds, this is the best explanation anyone has given of the offer of the position of secretary of state to Hillary Clinton. Lincoln took William Seward at State, and Seward was a rival indeed, but he had fought for Lincoln with ferocious loyalty and all his eloquence throughout the campaign, and he put his considerable vote-getting power at Lincoln's disposal. What can be said for Hillary Clinton? She fought against Obama until the last possible moment, and on the way exploited, for the purpose of discrediting him, most of the devices the Republicans would later tap in the general election. She said Obama had not shown himself fit to be commander-in-chief. She pretended not to know for sure whether or not he was a Muslim.

Team of Rivals is a pleasant work of popular history, only harmful to the extent that you weave fantasies around it. Anyone who cares about Obama's fortunes after his first large public mistake (for even to offer Clinton the position was a mistake) should close his copy of Goodwin and open the actual words of Hillary Clinton on Iraq, and the things Barack Obama said about those words.

It may seem an incidental detail but none of the people in Lincoln's cabinet had a husband who was a former president with a pronounced need to be at the center of the national stage at all times. Why not repeat the truth? Barack Obama's election was a real breakthrough, without precedent--something he did by himself with the help of a million workers who were not working for Hillary Clinton. When the reading is done and the analogies played out, we should also admit that no two situations in history are much alike.

The wars President Bush has involved this country in, awful as they are, don't in any way resemble the Civil War: not in magnitude, not in necessity, and not in the domestic threats that can be supposed to attend them.

Is Obama's misstep part of a larger pattern? Signs going as far back as July, and as near as yesterday, from persons "close to Barack Obama" ranging from Patrick Leahy to Cass Sunstein, have suggested there ought to be no serious investigation of crimes around domestic surveillance and torture. What of the hundreds of Bush appointees sown throughout the departments and the agencies? These people's ideas of right and wrong will come in part from what the new administration shows itself to care about and what it prefers to disregard. Indifference in this setting is not magnanimity.

Tuesday the Democrats voted to allow Joe Lieberman to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Lieberman did his worst to tear down Barack Obama in 2008 by questioning his love of his country and his fitness to lead a secure government. Compare Lieberman and Clinton now with another person who has been mentioned for secretary of state, Chuck Hagel. Hagel accompanied Obama on his foreign tour even as Lieberman accompanied McCain. That we are not now at war with Iran may also be owed in part to a courageous letter that Hagel wrote to Admiral Fallon last October, on the recklessness of American saber rattling--this, when Clinton and Lieberman were voting the AIPAC line and saying, with docility, that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was a terrorist organization. They hoped if there was a war it would be over by the election.

Any president needs around him people of courage, judgment, and competence who share his fundamental views. If Hillary Clinton all along fit that description for Obama, why did he not tell us so? A party in control must in some respects resemble any other institution that hopes to maintain itself. Reward those who sap and undermine, and you likewise discourage those who are loyal. People will practice the bad arts that they see are profitable. And who that voted in 2008 was looking to have a government of reconciliation without truth?

Comments

[Rucio]

Hillary will be out of the Senate, replaced by a Paterson appointee (Mark Green?!), and as Secretary of State she is likely to disgrace herself if she tries to go her own way, thus ending her political career. Obama has her right where he needs her to be.

[HybridTea]

The most important "change" that was promised was to govern without lobbyists calling the shots. I think Obama has stuck to this so far. He himself sent an election night e-mail saying that his victory was due to the millions who donated time and money to his campaign. So he is not under pressure to pick anyone that he doesn't want to. He is trying to find the most effective people he can for the job. Given the magnitude of the financial crisis , he is needed full time to deal with just that.

He needs someone with enough smarts, skills and charisma to carry his foreign affairs agenda - Hillary is perfect. Can you think of anyone better than Hillary who can sit down with the Israelis and the Palestinians? If there was no Obama would the Liberals have stayed home instead of voting for Hillary? Not a chance.

It is bad enough that Republicans have already started attacking Obama as an ineffective President who is making the recession worse - do we need the Obama supporters also to start attacking him?

Everyone who voted for Obama needs to give him a chance - he was voted into power by a diverse coalition of of the American political spectrum. He has to what is best for all of them - not just the left.

[Metome]

Come on, Obama isn't even in office yet. He will be the one in charge, not anyone else. Give the man a chance. All this negative speculation doesn't do anything to help anyone.

[Konstantine]

As usual, David has hit the nail on the head.
Obama got elected largely thanks to the efforts
of millions of liberals in this country, and
it now seems that he's turning his back on them
and gearing up for more of the same - establishment
ideas and policies, delivered from center-right.
Nothing in his appointments and comments so far
suggest anything progressive. Clinton, in particular,
is a horrible choice for SOS - just as much of
a bully and saber-rattler as Bush.

[stateretiree]

The man is not even in office yet. Wait and see what he does, then if it doesn't suit you gripe all you want.

[Konstantine]

Fair enough, to say that he should still get
the benefit of the doubt. But who he appoints
to key positions says a lot about how he intends
to govern. Time will tell, yes, but what we've
seen so far should give any liberal cause for concern.

And contrary to what you seem to suggest, liberals
should *not* sit back and wait 4 years to see how it
all plays out first, before they say or do anything.
They should start holding O's feet to the fire
immediately, and put the pressure on him to move
this country in a more progressive direction.

[sloLes]

Obama is a creature of the mainstream! He has offered mainstream views of the Bush wars. He was slow to understand that we were losing everywhere we've started one of these wars, And he promised to win in Afghanistan and win the Bush-defined 'war on terrorism.' Even SoD Gates has said that we can't beat the Taliban; we need to negotiate and compromise with them.

So, it really shouldn't surprise anyone that Obama has turned to those who have served Clinton or are part of the Democratic mainstream. He was a creature of the media, even though his grassroots organization, strategy, & fund raising were beyond anyone's expectations.

My primary hope is that the people he picks will be competent. I can swallow Hillary, even though I hate her warmongering. She is an executor of policy, not the primary maker of policy. And her total unawareness of her role in approving the war in Iraq, her fantasies of dodging bullets in Bosnia, and her saber rattling against Iran, show just how little she knows about the world. So, while sitting in the discussions about policy, I expect her to be following, not leading.

The Bush team's incompetence was so great and their arrogance so blinding that any group of comteten people, whether liberal or conservative, will do better. Let's be glad that this new team leans to the left and sits near the center. If people want more, then they need a new political party.

[Empire551]

Let me guess, you probably thought that impeachment would be a good use of time also. You must have a safe job. Obama is all about helping real people with real issues. If you think looking for wire tapers or waterboarders is a good use of his time or energy you are not in touch. If you still think that the votes people made leading up to the war 6 years ago are important you live in a bubble. Obama wants to put people in place who can get things done. He wants to get the mideast safer, the ecomomy on track and health care reformed. He does not care about the far right or the far left. and their pet issues. it is a new kind of politics, remember. God bless him

[julianne]

Illegal aggressive war, massive war profiteering, institutionalized torture, implementing the concept of the Unitary Excecutive, false imprisonment including American citizens and a Governor of a soverign U.S. state, are all "real" issues. In a nation where Harvard and Yale grads regularly put girls into labor camps for doing drugs and prostitution, it's not being "real" to forgive and forget these atrocities, or are we living in the wrong country?

[qwr]

David,
I agree completely. The word "change" has itself changed. I always read "change" as change from Bush AND Clinton, from the corporate greed, from the pervasive influence of contributions, from policies of torture, from intractability on the ME. These characterized both administrations (Clinton began that whole ticking-bomb scenario BS.) If I had known that "change" only targeted Bush, I probably would have voted for Obama, but I wouldn't have volunteered for the campaign. I never thought that Obama would begin the saber-rattling (toward Iran) even before the inauguration! As always, Prof. Bromwich, I look forward to your posts. And I love your work on Hazlitt.

[Elliott32]

David Bromwich, please launch your own blog or write at HuffPost daily. I completely agree with you frequently. Your analysis is always spot on. Obama's recent moves have been a buzzkill. If he doesn't change our foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, then his presidency will remain status quo from the get go. It's not just a majority of Americans voted for change, most of the world wanted change too.

Mr Bromwich, we are not the only ones disappointed in Obama's recent decisions, people around the world are suffering from the same short changed.

I really hope Obama proves us wrong. I really do. Most of us voted for him. If Obama fails, we really have to begin a third-party progressive movement. Yes. We. Can.

[boing007]

If Obama fails, we really have to begin a third-party progressive movement. Yes. We. Can.

We should have started a progressive third-party years ago.

[AbbieXHoffman]

You ask, "Any president needs around him people of courage, judgment, and competence who share his fundamental views. If Hillary Clinton all along fit that description for Obama, why did he not tell us so?"

BECAUSE HE WAS TRYING TO WIN YOUR VOTES. The same reason HRC tried to make it look like she was a better CIC. The were trying to win and had to distinguish themeselves from each other somehow since they were just about identical on the issues. Even BO admitted that during the primary the rhetoric was overblown.

Can we all just grow up now please?

[mulegino]

This augurs a co-presidency, where Obama takes care of the domestic side, and the Clinton administration redux takes on foreign policy. I daresay that this is not what most Obama supporters wanted, or expected, but it looks like a done deal. It doesn't surprise me in the least, though, since this is the way of most, if not all, presidents since the end of WWII have begun their administrations.
We are faced with the revolving door of Washingtonian elites who systematically, it would appear, provoke, manage, and precipitate crisis after crisis, conflict after conflict, and war after war. It is a perpetual oscillation in power between the "smiling internationalists" and the "transatlantic hawks"-although the Bush II neo-cons made the pendulum go awry for a time, and nearly caused WWIII (or WWIV depending on who is doing the counting). Another analogy-it's the same game, and the same deck of cards, but there are some new/old players at the table, while the old (soon to be new again) players go for refreshments. Sad, but look how little the names change over the years.

[refah]

Perhaps, Mr. Bromwich, you may be thinking the page has already been turned on the politics of the past. Though President elect Obama has made exceptional progress in this regard, it may be paleos, or is it neos, like you who refuse to support one of the most remarkable victories for America we may have the blessing to witness in our lifetimes.

As far as Mrs. Clinton's appointment, personally speaking, I would rather see you wait until the official announcement before spreading the panic of fear across the globe and even that would be too soon. One more thing that you may not remember is that Mr. Obama repeatedly told us he was looking forward to the Clinton's help with which I believe he was referring to the most pressing and dire state of crisis this world has ever seen. Furthermore, I don't know if you are using the Rumsfeldian meter of war, however our recent engagement in Iraq has put the whole of humanity at risk by the simple fact of being a black hole for its blood, treasure, and attention and I would include Iraqis and the whole of the Middle East in my assessment.

[Wylde]

So much negativity­.........I­t's amaxing to me that so many of you who voted for Obama and supported him, are now busy picking apart everything he does, says, is "leaked" from his advisors, etc, etc. It is a truly sad commentary on the state of mind of our country. Without Palin and McCain et al to bash, it seems as if you are in serious withdrawal from your 24 hour-red meat news cycle. How about taking a few days off, getting some exercise, enjoy your families, and look at what you have to be thankful for. The cynicism and hate displayed by some of the comments is so strange.... and so old school. Try being the change you want to see in the world. We all create our own reality, get out of the misery, and have a little faith.
Peace Out!

[noam4prez]

Politicians will usually obey those who pay them the most. In this case, small donations from "we the people" paid Obama's ticket to the White House. But, if we fail to voice our objections and simply "have faith", Obama will do whatever the next-highest bidder demands.

As Michael Moore, famous Obama supporter, said recently, "I hope he breaks all his campaign promises" because otherwise we are in for nothing but politics as usual, with a cherry of "hope" on top.

Change never comes from the top down. Having faith is a loser's strategy. Just ask the religious right, exploited and screwed by the Republicans.

[piul05]

rwe2late put it very well, some posts below:

"It should never be 'my president, right or wrong', nor 'Obama right or wrong'.

You are attempting to frame criticism of Obama's policy statements and appointments as unwarranted personal attacks on Obama.

If he adopts good policies, he will have earned and deserve support.

So far, indications are that the coming "change" will not be substantive. Excuse us for bringing that to everyone's attention in the hope that it will generate pressure on policymakers to adopt substantive change.

'Hope', however, is not optimism."

I would add that one does not vote and wash one's hands for four years; for democracy to fulfill its potential, it requires that each of us feels (and acts) as engaged as during electoral campaigns.

[holeybuybull]

No one, not even Obama, gets to be president of USA, Inc.., without the vetting and blessings of the corporate hierarchy and the merchants of death. Obama signaled this during the campaign with his plan to surge in Afghanistan, against all historical evidence that it's not a winning strategy. The only viable industries left in the US are bullshit (advertising), and bullets (weapons). The change will be largely cosmetic.

[ljmck]

I absolutely agree, Mr. Bromwich. Each day's announcements and rumors lessen my hope for change.

Economy tanking. Hope sinking. Change lost.

[stateretiree]

Grow up and let the man get in office before you believe all the doom and gloom. These people spent 2 years covering an election, they now are trying to find anything to push to keep themselves looking relevant.

[BN2112]

Has Alec balwin read this? Perhaps he should.