Excuse me, but where's the buck stop?
Evidently in the Obama era, it stops with Rahm Emanuel -- anywhere but with President Barack Obama.
That's because Democrats are having a terrible time figuring out what they do if the problem really is the President. He's got three more years, then a re-election, so if this far out he's the one gumming up governing and leading, the Democrats are in for it.
This all began recently when Edward Luce wrote a column in the Financial Times saying that, not only does Obama need to enlist a larger group of advisers, but before corralling them, Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, has to go. Then, because it fits the navel gazing narrative of the Concerned Crowd, it's repeated over and over again, with other Smart People chiming in that something was wrong in the Inner Obama, so that now everyone's chattering. Some of the points well made, but the Can Rahm Crowd is still missing the nut of it.
That Mr. Emanuel's latest defender is John Sununu isn't going to change anyone's mind.
Enter Dana Milbank, the wisecracking, klieg light obsessed Washington Post op-ed columnist who got everyone in an uproar yesterday over two little sentences.
Let us now praise Rahm Emanuel.No, seriously.
Stenographer! Channeling Rahm! How dare he betray the core of the Obama Choir, Gibby, Axe and Val!
But at least Milbank is doing his job, bringing hits to the Washington Post, because no one could resist taking a big bite at such bait written by someone everyone loves to hate.
I wasn't going to touch this one because it all seemed so silly election season obvious.
But then Les Gelb went at again the other day on the Daily Beast, a follow up to his "Replace Rahm" starter piece, when he also asked for a scrambling of the deck chairs, not to mention the firing of Gen. Jim Jones (though it's hard to argue with his suggestion to dump Larry Summers, who should never have been hired in the first place). Gelb asserting that Rahm Emanuel has used Dana Milbank, who's denying he talked to Emanuel for his piece, to strike at Gelb.
And maybe Rahm is actually out the door or perhaps someone is opening it for him and pushing him out, something that concerns me not in the least. However, what all this says about Pres. Obama is troubling.
This is all very interesting for people who can't afford or won't deal with the obvious. The people who are trying furtively to figure out what's gone so terribly wrong with Obama in the first year, including on foreign policy which has stalled in several arenas, but particularly as some see Obama's Afghanistan strategy as a real policy blunder (though, as I've written before, I do not agree). Working mightily on their inner guru to make sure the proper pressure is brought to bear, Rahm Emanuel simply must be exposed for who he really is. Operation Pressure the President meant to make it too hot for Rahm to stay. After all, it's all his fault.
The alternative is just too terrible to consider.
But I assure you people outside Washington, D.C. have never heard of or care one whit about some guy chosen by Pres. Obama to be his chief of staff. To normal, average Americans watching this colossally incompetent circus go 'round and 'round in circles, it's about Obama, and it will be even if Rahm Emanuel gets axed.
Chief of staffs are notoriously strong and often unpopular. See Don Regan v. Nancy Reagan. Alexander Haig, who recently died, was chief of staff to Nixon, managing also to get out unscathed from Watergate, reportedly also responsible for convincing Nixon to resign. Haig was also chief of staff for Ford at the start, replaced eventually by Donald Rumsfeld. Jim Baker and his iron hand, velvet tongue, an Arabist without getting caught, and the man who maneuvered the 2000 post-election fight and gave Democrats a collective ulcer some of us are still nursing. But what of the presidents they served?
Barack Obama's first year didn't come off very well. The electorate is restless. Independents have buyer's remorse. Republicans are out for blood. There's got to be a fix, a fall guy. It can't be the President, because after all we've got him for 3 more years, plus a re-election.
But what if the problem isn't Rahm?
It's the question most Democrats can't, won't or refuse to face, because they can't do anything about the answer. Because if they pretend it's all about Rahm, hoping for his ouster, at least Democrats might get a re-set. With Gibby, Axe, Val and now even Dave still around, it's better than nothing.
Taylor Marsh is a political analyst out of Washington, D.C.
Follow Taylor Marsh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/taylormarsh
Nevertheless, I must agree with your understated premise -- President Obama is, in fact, the President. The policies and "process" that are advanced from the executive branch are, ultimately, the responsibility of the President. We've certainly seen examples in recent history where "advisors", or the VP, have had a powerful influence on executive policy, but I think it has to be recognized that there is never going to be an executive policy to which the President is *firmly* opposed. Any implemented executive policy has at least the tacit approval of the President.
I have not been seriously disappointed by President Obama, because I never had any expectation that he was a liberal politician. He was, and remains, by far the best choice in the 2008 election. I did, however, hope that he would use the blanket of goodwill surrounding his election to steamroll through one or two big-ticket items. That he chose not to do so may mean that he is a better Constitutionalist than I, but I'm afraid he has squandered his chance to be a transformative figure in American political history. It's too late to fire Rahm. Hell, it's too late to fire Geithner and Summers. The damage has already been done. The magic has gone away. All that's left is politics as usual.
~A lot of us, including me, were calling for the firing of Rahm for a long time now. We are NOT a bunch of lemmings just repeating something Luce wrote recently.
~Marsh misses the whole point of the Progressive call to fire Rahm. It's not that we want a more competent COS. It's that this administration is going in the wrong direction: the corporatist, 'pragmatic', business as usual direction. We want Obama to change course. That necessitates he get a new COS that is committed to this new course.
FIRE RAHM
We witnessed Democratic incompentence in slowing down GW Bush after their Congressional victories in 2006.
We have witnessed even greater incompetence since their additional victories and increases in their Congressional majorities in 2008.
Rahm Emanual is a symptom of much larger and fundamental problems with Democrats
1) Their inability to talk effectively to the American people
2) Their fear of Conservative ideas
3) Their derision of Progressive ideas
4) Their inability to Whip their membership
5) Their lack of legislative skill - especially with majority leader Reid
6) Their inability to forcefully confront Repuublican aggression and cheap shots
6) Their love of Corporatism
Rahm represents the WORST of these qualities
Very well said. Obama stumbling and bumbling around with Rahm as the evil no good foil at least gives the Obamaites some peace of mind that their guy is not the totally useless tool that they, in fact, voted for.
Today's debacle was the sorriest and most boring, broken thing I have ever seen on TV.
How astute. You nailed it in one sentence, saying something I've not seen written anywhere. Thanks for sharing that, which I just quoted over at my new media site, with attribution, of course.
Simple. Obama may or may not make it to a second term. But there is one thing I am sure of.
If the United States of America gives its people either Universal Health care or Universal Medicare or at the very LEAST, a public option...and puts it into EFFECT almost immediately...so that people can FEEL the relief...there will be a re-awakening in America.
You know how when you're in trouble and you're sick too and you are desparate? And kind of panicky? Well, if you get relief...if you are able to face your challenges without going bankrupt due to health...once you get better and fill your belly with food and have a job and don't have to sell your house...then the anger will set in. People will take a look back and see how they have been forced to live for decades under the Republican way of 'Insurance Rules' and they will vote with their anger.
And they will remember the names of the ones who denied them this new way of living. For a long, long time.
The problem is, which is why Obama has blundered so badly not leading, is that the Republicans have made headway on their doing nothing mantra, while Dems reiterate "bipartisanship," instead of just saying this needs to be done and we're doing it. You're either part of the solution or you are part of the problem.
You seem to follow my step-dad's mantra...
(which he tried to pass on to me whenever I pulled out my excuse for non-action, that being, "but I really meant to do it, dad")
...which was 'Good intentions pave the road to he.ll'
"This needs to be done and we're doing it" is EXACTLY what it will take to get that re-election. =]]
His obsession with bipartisanship at the expense of good policy. His inability and unwillingness to take on entrenched interests instead choosing to coddle them. His reluctance to activate his base to fight for his agenda. And the disdain his administration, especially his COS-Rahm Emanuel, have for the causes that the people who struggled, fought, and worked hard to get them where they are believe in(for example the enormously popular and smart public option).
All these flaws are flaws that Rahm Emanuel embodies and if the President gets rid of him then it will represent a new start and a new strategy. To me, and probably many other people who worked hard to elect Obama, the people he has chosen to surround himself with(like Emanuel, Geithner, and Summers) have led to the failure of his first year. I will know that he's decided to take a different path when he decides to get rid of them.
The problem is that Pres. Obama is taking the position as mediator at a time we need a leader.
I'll leave foreign policy aside today, because the HCR summit is in the forefront today. Pres. Obama and a Democratic majority have not been able over the last year and counting to enact health care legislation that the American people want, the public option that polls high in every poll across the country. What this means is that even with power and the people behind them, Pres. Obama doesn't have the WILL to do what's needed, because he's evidently afraid of the Republicans not being included, even though they are intent on stopping him because they can't politically afford Dems to enact another leg on the FDR domestic safety net, which helped the Dems rise in the eyes of the people of this country.
This isn't Rahm Emanuel's fault, though I understand people want to have a fall guy, because they can't bring themselves to weigh in that the problem is Pres. Obama.
I read that Milbank article and he should get fired for that article alone. That he would undermine the man he works for in such a way just shows you the caliber of his character. Rahm Emanuel is out for himself, he ain't out for Obama.
The President made a huge mistake in hiring him. Firing him would go a long way into making a major course correction.
I can't recall in my lifetime a Chief of Staff with SO much influence and press...
I dunno what it is....but Rahm Emmanuel has a real bad vibe all around him...so bad I can feel it here...
..
Send him packing Mr. President....and you might get one more chance at convincing us things are really going to change....
nope, repubs are playing hand grenades and the administration is playing russian roulette...
d