Barack Obama Quickly Moving To The Center

[PearlHowardman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us...er=rss&emc=rss

 

Obama Tilts to Center, Inviting a Clash of Ideas

 

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: November 21, 2008

 

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination with the enthusiastic support of the left wing of his party, fueled by his vehement opposition to the decision to invade Iraq and by one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.

 

Now, his reported selections for two of the major positions in his cabinet — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Timothy F. Geithner as secretary of the Treasury — suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.

 

The choices are as revealing of the new president as they are of his appointees — and suggest that, from its first days, an Obama White House will brim with big personalities and far more spirited debate than occurred among the largely like-minded advisers who populated President Bush’s first term.

 

But the names racing through the ether in Washington about the choices to follow also suggest that Mr. Obama continues to place a premium on deep experience. He is widely reported to be considering asking Mr. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, to stay on for a year; and he is thinking about Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander and Marine Corps commandant, for national security adviser, and placing Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary whom Mr. Obama considered putting back in his old post, inside the White House as a senior economic adviser.

 

“This is the violin model: Hold power with the left hand, and play the music with your right,” David J. Rothkopf, a former Clinton official who wrote a history of the National Security Council, said on Friday, as news of Mrs. Clinton’s and Mr. Geithner’s appointments leaked. “It’s teaching us something about Obama: while he wants to bring new ideas to the game, he is working from the center space of American foreign policy.”

 

The reason, several of Mr. Obama’s transition team members say, is that they believe that the new administration will have no time for a learning curve. With the country facing a deep recession or worse, global market turmoil, chaos in Pakistan and a worsening war in Afghanistan, “there’s going to be no time for experimentation,” a member of the Obama foreign policy team said.

 

That explains Mr. Obama’s first selection: Rahm Emanuel, another centrist Democrat and former member of the Clinton White House, as his chief of staff.

 

In some ways, the choices made so far are reminiscent of the way the last senator to be elected president, John F. Kennedy, chose a cabinet. As president-elect, Kennedy soon picked three top officials significantly more conservative than he was: Dean Rusk as secretary of state, Robert S. McNamara as secretary of defense and C. Douglas Dillon, a Republican, as secretary of the Treasury. They helped him navigate the Cuban missile crisis, but also got him bogged down in Vietnam.

 

Of all the choices Mr. Obama has made so far, it is the selection of Mrs. Clinton that appears the biggest gamble, in part because she has never had to engage in the give-and-take of high-stakes diplomacy, and in part because no one really knows how she will mesh with the Obama White House.

 

In her discussion with the president-elect, several members of his transition team said, Mrs. Clinton expressed no doubt that she could be a loyal member of the Obama team — though she was reportedly deeply conflicted about giving up her Senate seat and the independent power base it afforded her.

 

During the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton went out of their way to point out their foreign policy differences, with Mrs. Clinton portraying herself as a hawkish Democrat and defending her decision to vote in favor of the 2002 resolution that Mr. Bush later considered an authorization to use military force against Saddam Hussein. (Later, she said she fully expected Mr. Bush to use diplomacy first — and was shocked that he did not.)

 

Now the question is less one of ideological differences than whether a Clinton State Department could become something like Colin L. Powell’s: an alternative, though weak, power center that made little secret of its differences with the White House.

 

“Anyone who tells you they really know how this is going to work out,” one senior transition official said Thursday, “is telling less than the truth.”

 

If Mrs. Clinton is taken from the “Team of Rivals” model, Mr. Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is from the Team of Neutrals.

 

“He’s no liberal,” said a former colleague at the Treasury Department, where he managed the American response to the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s.

 

At the time Mr. Geithner developed a reputation as the ultimate pragmatist, putting together a package of more than $100 billion in aid to halt the financial contagion. That turned out to be a training session for his role, a decade later, in the bailouts of Bear Stearns, A.I.G. and the injection of nearly $350 billion in Congressionally authorized money, whose exact use has become something of a political football.

 

Mr. Geithner grew up in Asia — in Tokyo, New Delhi and Bangkok — and keeps his ego well in check. He asks a lot of questions, but does not have Mr. Summers’s overwhelming — some say overbearing — personality.

 

“He clicked with Obama,” one outside adviser said. “If you think about it, their sort of cool, distant styles are alike.”

[molson_golden2002]

But...but...but...he's a radical muslim, socialist, bomb throwing, commie!

[PearlHowardman]

But...but...but...he's a radical muslim, socialist, bomb throwing, commie!

 

Less than three weeks since he won the election and he sounds more like a Conservative with each passing day. How soon before people mistake Obama for a Republican?

[Steely Dan]

To anyone with a brain he's doing a very good job filling his cabinet. However, there is no such thing as moderate anymore. It's either ultra-conservative or liberal. So a middle of the road approach doesn't exist.

[molson_golden2002]

Less than three weeks since he won the election and he sounds more like a Conservative with each passing day. How soon before people mistake Obama for a Republican?

A black elected Republican?

 

And it looks like Obama is going to try and push through comprehensive health care reform. Is that a Republican thing to do?

[PearlHowardman]

And it looks like Obama is going to try and push through comprehensive health care reform. Is that a Republican thing to do?

 

At some point a Republican would have to.

 

So far, too many Hawks and Conservative economic people around Barack Obama to qualify as "change".

[blzrul]

Why are labels so important? What's important are peace and prosperity. restoration to our standing in the world and a government which we don't have to be ashamed of. For starters. It's pretty clear that the GOP, which sheathed itself in the "family values" label, was anything BUT a government for the bulk of the American people. Rich, corporations - yeah, their yours. Rest of us, forget it.

 

Anyone who ever thought Obama was a screaming leftie is a Fox-watching moron. Call him what you will. It's the results that people care about.

[finknottle]

What's going on right now has all the insight and value of Kremlin-watching.

 

Obama will be his own man, and his appointees will take their marching orders from him. Whether he governs from the center or from the left won't be known for a year.

[PearlHowardman]

Anyone who ever thought Obama was a screaming leftie is a Fox-watching moron. Call him what you will.

 

Moveon.org, et al, are not Fox-watching morons.

[blzrul]

Moveon.org, et al, are not Fox-watching morons.

My MOTHER is 75 and belongs to Moveon.org. She hasn't lobbed a molotov cocktail in her life. She voted for Barry Goldwater for Chrissakes.

 

"Moveon" for those who don't know it, was founded not to be leftist but to try to get our stupid government to, literally, MOVE ON and do it's damned job. Like, not spending bazillions of dollars of taxpayers' dollars on lobbyists, special interests, politically-motivated investigations and other bull sh-- that is not in the interests of the American people.

 

If you a sheep that needs label to tell you what to think, that's your prerogative. But if you looked at Obama's record and read his proposals, he's only "far left" if you consider it "far left" to speak out against an ill-advised war and try to forward an agenda that benefits families over corporations.

[John Adams]

I don't care if he fills his cabinet with dishes. I just want to see an effective solution to this crisis.

[Steely Dan]

I don't care if he fills his cabinet with dishes. I just want to see an effective solution to this crisis.

 

Dishes?

[KD in CA]

Dishes?

 

 

Most overrated group of nasty skanks EVER. They make the Spice Girls look hot.

 

 

(Uh oh...now this thread's gonna get moved to OTW)

[GG]

"Moveon" for those who don't know it, was founded not to be leftist but to try to get our stupid government to, literally, MOVE ON and do it's damned job. Like, not spending bazillions of dollars of taxpayers' dollars on lobbyists, special interests, politically-motivated investigations and other bull sh-- that is not in the interests of the American people.

 

What a crock. US government does not spend money on lobbyists. The government spends money on causes that lobbyists champion through their Beltway connections. Usually, the lobbying is greased with monetary contributions to causes that legislators support. A verifiable gravy train for everyone. Moveon.org is just another lobbying outfit, except they do it in mass scale and on the Internet instead of the back hall of Congress.

[bills_fan]

I was very skeptical of Obama at first, but so far, I really like his choices to run the new administration. I am hopeful that we will have a competant administration for the first time in years.

[blzrul]

What a crock. US government does not spend money on lobbyists. The government spends money on causes that lobbyists champion through their Beltway connections. Usually, the lobbying is greased with monetary contributions to causes that legislators support. A verifiable gravy train for everyone. Moveon.org is just another lobbying outfit, except they do it in mass scale and on the Internet instead of the back hall of Congress.

They raise money on behalf of candidates - not corporations. And not even "special interests" unless you consider ending a war to be a special interest.

[GG]

They raise money on behalf of candidates - not corporations. And not even "special interests" unless you consider ending a war to be a special interest.

 

Another crock. Can you even define what a "special interest" is? I can, it's "Anything that I oppose." Nothing more nothing less. That's why a special interest is thrown out as a buzzword by whatever talking head you listen to and snag the feebleminded to believe that the other side is more nefarious than their side.

 

Yeah, those bad corporations surely must have much worse special interests than whatever leftist cause du jour that moveon.org trots out of Uncle Karl's closet.

[IDBillzFan]

Why are labels so important?

In the words of Joe Biden, "Woah, woah, woah....!!!!!"

 

You ask why labels are so important, and then say this?

 

Anyone who ever thought Obama was a screaming leftie is a Fox-watching moron.

 

And then you add this?

 

If you a sheep that needs label to tell you what to think, that's your prerogative.

 

Way to motivate people to stop using labels.

[PearlHowardman]

Three weeks since the election and Obama moved from the left to the center and now to the right. Retaining Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense? This is inexcusable and indefensible. So much for "change we can believe in".

 

What's next? Is Obama going to retain Dick Cheney?

[Dante]

Three weeks since the election and Obama moved from the left to the center and now to the right. Retaining Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense? This is inexcusable and indefensible. So much for "change we can believe in".

 

What's next? Is Obama going to retain Dick Cheney?

If he can in some way morph to Ron Paul then the US has a chance. If he can't manage that, then any move from himself is a good one.