"Better Than Cats!" Neocons, Republicans and War Criminals Rave About Obama's 'Team of Rivals.'

As Barack Obama's opus, "Team of Rivals," continues its rolling debut, the early reviews are in and the "critics" are full of praise for the cast:

"[T]he new administration is off to a good start."
--Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.

"[S]uperb...the best of the Washington insiders...this will be a valedictocracy -- rule by those who graduate first in their high school classes."
--David Brooks, conservative New York Times columnist

"[V]irtually perfect..."
--Senator Joe Lieberman, former Democrat and John McCain's top surrogate in the 2008 campaign.

"[R]eassuring."
--Karl Rove, "Bush's brain."

"I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain...this all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators, and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign...[Hillary] Clinton and [James] Steinberg at State should be powerful voices for 'neo-liberalism' which is not so different in many respects from 'neo-conservativism.'"
--Max Boot, neoconservative activist, former McCain staffer.

"I see them as being sort of center-right of the Democratic party."
--James Baker, former Secretary of State and the man who led the theft of the 2000 election.

"[S]urprising continuity on foreign policy between President Bush's second term and the incoming administration....certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to continue the course set by Bush..."
--Michael Goldfarb of the neoconservative Weekly Standard.

"I certainly applaud many of the appointments..."
--Senator John McCain

"So far, so good."
-- Senator Lamar Alexander, senior Republican Congressional leader.

Hillary Clinton will be "outstanding" as Secretary of State
--Henry Kissinger, war criminal.

Rahm Emanuel is "a wise choice" in the role of Chief of Staff
--Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, John McCain's best friend.

Obama's team shows "Our foreign policy is non-partisan."
--Ed Rollins, top Republican strategist and Mike Huckabee's 2008 campaign manager

"The country will be in good hands."
--Condoleezza Rice, George W Bush's Secretary of State

**Team of Rivals will be playing all day, every day for at least the next four years**

Follow Jeremy Scahill on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeremyscahill

Comments

[mheister]

Loved Scahill's rundown.

Now, in fairness, Obama's still roughly six weeks away from putting his hand on the Bible. We don't yet really know what these appointments mean to Obama's agenda.

The best thing we can do is be supportive of these appointments while continuing to remind the incoming president that more progressive policies in most cases make more sense.

[JudgeCCrater]

Just as "the rot starts from the top" (see Bush, George W.) so does change. Obama has to start with competence and build from there. Wait and see, folks, wait and see.

[motoGpifupleez]

Jeremy Scahill, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman are the only TRUE journalists out there. If they say it, I believe it. And certianly more so than the Rethuglican trolls who try to denegrate everything our President Elect does. Let go of your hate and join the rest of us in the 21st century.

[krocklin]

You have to include Olbermann and Maddow too. It is a miracle they had and have the podium they do.
Still, just about the only glimmer of hope on the entire cable TV landscape. Although a nod should go to a reformed Mathews and more credit to Larry King as well.
Obama won by only 6% against the two worst candidates of all time (with assistance from Joe the Plumber).
That should be enough to put a shudder down your spine - to realize that in the entire media there are so few sane voices who have any exposure.

[mgloraine]

Obama's merely following the orders of his corporate owners, just like Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Reagan, and just as McCain would have done if he had been elected. There is only one political party in this country, and it's the Fat-Ass Corporatist Party. Every single thing Obama does is exclusively to serve the interests of the fattest of the fat cats. Ordinary citizens are expendable or disposable, so if you're not a major cash contributor to the new regime, you are less than nothing - just like during the criminal Cheney-Bush regime. There will be no change while there is still money to steal from the powerless unwealthy. No one should be surprised; Obama made it very clear during the lead-up to the election that he was planning to serve the corporatist agenda every step of the way, with retroactive immunity for telecoms, offshore drilling whenever the whim strikes the oil companies, retention of the thieving health insurance industry in plans for national health care, bail-outs for the biggest crooks on Earth, but no action for ordinary citizens losing their jobs, homes and life's savings. Obama will let all of the BushCo criminals avoid prosecution and keep all of the stolen loot, because he is a puppet for the Greed Consortium, just like his predecessor. America has been swindled again.

[LeoMarvin]

You know where else I see and hear this conveniently deterministic narrative of an omnipotent oligarchic cabal? From the far right-wing Israeli settler movement. Check it out:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/Author.aspx/1179

So are the extreme left and right the only sane people in the world? Or are they just unhinged in eerily similar ways?

I report. You decide. (I forgot which nitwit(s) that gem belongs to.)

[smitallica]

Why can't people see that the change O will bring is called COMPETENCE, mixed with some transparency and accountability? Some regard for the rule of law will be nice, too. That's the change we need, not just different names on the doors.

[krocklin]

Well said.

[exmate]

When an athletic team gets a new coach because there are changes needed to be made, he does not replace all the players. He just gets the players to do things differently. Critics of Obama will use any argument,fair or unfair, that they think might convince someone. Reading the comments here, they have succeeded to some extent.

[exmate]

Obama is not about to throw out the baby with the washwater. He never said that he was going to change EVERYTHING. He is going to change STRATEGY and some ot the tactics. He, as anyone else, must have people who know where things are and which buttons to push. Anyone who who would bring in a team totally composed of outsiders totally unfamiliar with Washington would be a fool!
Obama and Hillary may have disagreed about foreign affairs. Apparently Hillary is comfortable with Obama as boss and he is comfotable with Hillary as Secretary of State. They are both intelligent and should bring out the best in each other.

[vigilantwarrior]

Well noted, Mr. Scahill.

"Change we can believe in", the musical.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/meet-the-new-boss/

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/turn-around/

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/the-ones-who-attacked-us/

[Luvial]

Obama's campaign and subsequent turn right in cabinet appointments show he is nothing but another opportunistist Democratic politician, going "left" to get elected and then governing from the "right". Progressives have been triangulated again (and once again by the Clintons). No more money from me for Clinton's Obama machine. Nader in 2012? I want my vote back, Obama.

[exmate]

Max Boot said ""I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain...this all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq,"

One person who will not be part of the Obama team would be McCain's top foreign policy advisor, Randall Scheunemann. The same Neocon who helped push us into the Iraq invasion and was a lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia while a McCain advisor.( Anyone remember McCain's position on the Russia / Georgia dispute?)

[adambum]

The thing is, I am bewildered by some of the gripes people have.
It's like some people expect everything to be changed snap.. just like that. For your information (to whom it may concern), this is how politics works... if Obama would indeed try to carry out his agenda by bringing completely new people in and neglecting everybody else, don't you think he would be destroyed immediately? I mean politically. People shouldn't be so naive.

Of course you CAN say this is not right, but in a sense it is also our fault. It is the media that WE support that continues to support the whole political system. It is our expectations that drives talented candidates (hmm.. Ron Paul?) down the political gutter (just because they have something unusual and interesting to say, thus not conforming to everything else we have ever seen)... our inclination to listen to every single word, to parse every single gesture (debate anaysis) in terms of our own expectations of the archetypical powerful leader. So in the end, we should not be surprised.

If Obama does make change, he has to be very careful with every one of his moves. And he seems like someone who knows that.

[Abo]

The evidence speaks for itself--the only criticism comes from the people who actually voted for Obama based on his own claims. So, I wonder if this is who he has to please to play, than what is the point of playing? At what point does the change start and for how long will you give him cover and throw your lot with the Right?

You do realize that Obama's embrace of the center is based on moving towards the Right and puts the entire Democratic base and, for that matter, most of the country marginalized as the fringe Left based solely on the issues?
These "Centrists '(read Republicans) do not represent majority views and Obama was NOT elected to serve their interests in opposition to ours.
Obama continues to disappoint.

[KQuarksSuperKollider]

You forget to put quotes from progressives like Paul Krugman who gave Obama's economic team the seal of approval. Krugman correctly pointed out that Obama has a relatively short list to chose from since anyone with any executive experience who is a Democrat would have to have worked in the Clinton administration.

Like Bush did coming into office the left leaning pundits are making a false assumption that any thing Clinton did or anyone who worked with Clinton was bad.

[infinity]

Perhaps you're too young to remember or it wasn't brought up in your history classes, but there was a cult figure in the late 70s named Jim Jones who got his followers to drink poisoned "kool aid". The difference between HRC and Condi Rice is Rice has real experience. The difference between Gates and Kissinger is Kissinger has more NSA and foreign relations experience than Gates. Based on your's and other posts' "team of rivals" cult logic, Rice and Kissinger should have been P-e Obama's choices. I voted for Barack Obama because he said he would remove US forces from Iraq in 16 months. I will withhold judgement until Jan. 20 when he makes that official policy.

[exmate]

Infinity
Heny Kissenger's behavior as secretary of State was such that he cannot travel to certain foreign countries because he would be arrested. In late 2001, the Brazilian government canceled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in Sao Paulo because it could no longer guarantee his immunity. Earlier this year, a London court agreed to hear an application for Kissinger's imprisonment on war crimes charges while he was briefly in the United Kingdom. It is known that there are many countries to which he cannot travel at all, and it is also known that he takes legal advice before traveling anywhere.

The secret government files on Chile, which the Clinton Administration says will be opened to the Spanish prosecutor of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, will prove a major embarrassment for Henry Kissinger, the American most tied to the U.S.-assisted plot to the 1973 overthrow the elected government of President Salvador.

[waitforme]

I've seen many of these comments, these affirmations by completely uncredible people of the choice of Hillary Clinton a SecState. I had the same reaction. And there have been many credible people who have said the opposite, that Clinton is not credible and not up to the job. I fear she will botch it and botch Obama's presidency and get us close to war. n addition to her extraordinaryily un-stateswomanlike comments in the recent past, which show her propensity toward war, I also have not seen any clue that she knows how to negotiate or mediate between warring factions, such as the Palestinians and Israeli government, on the contrary. Also, she so loudly and repeatedly said she would refuse to 'talk to' leaders 'without preconditions', as if she wants to have the answer done before she even tries to have a dialogue; her comments seem reminiscent to those of C. Rice, whose approach to diplomacy was shaming, patronizing, and refusing 'to talk with leaders' until they did her bidding. What leader would bend to this treatment? But bend is what she seemed to want them to do.

[smag]

I wish President Elect Obama and his Cabinet appointees the very best. I pray that they will exercise sound judgment in the best interest for the United States period. Let’s get our house in order before we continue telling others how to live. Let’s keep our foreign aid to a reasonable amount (since we have to borrow it). And let’s realize that I wish President Obama and his administration the best and will be praying for him and we can not buy the love and affection of the world. And for god sakes lets outlaw SPIN. I think that one of the worst things that has happened to this country in the past 100 years is the Political Party system.

[DonL]

Perhaps they are more centrist than left. Perhaps the right wing pundits are doing what all syncophants do--sucking up to power. Perhaps the different views of what is happening are at their root constructive. The difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration to be is the center. We now have someone with brains, education, morals, and a vision at the center, someone who is strong enough to lead these voices. We're turning the Queen Mary here, you can't do it with a couple of speedboats. Perhaps i'm naive, but we made our choice. Now let him lead.