President-elect Obama has fulfilled expectations that he would hit the ground running and has already named the leaders of his transition team and three members of his White House staff. Some of those appointments come from Obama’s own campaign team, but a larger number have a background of service in the Clinton administration.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was particularly concerned on Thursday with Obama’s selection of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who worked in the Clinton White House, as his own White House chief of staff. She noted, “The Emanuel pick has also caused some confusion among those who thought change wasn’t just a break with the Bush administration but also with the politics of the last 16 years.”
Maddow suggested that there are two interpretations that could be placed on the choice. One is that Obama is merely looking for experienced “old hands to accomplish his agenda in Washington,” but it could also be that “the politics and policies of .. Washington in the the 1990s … come with these guys too.”
Reactions to Obama’s selection of Emanuel have so far tended to focus on the second alternative. Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough was incensed on Wednesday, seeing it as a promise of the continuation of partisan politics and a message to Republicans to “drop dead.”
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In contrast, an article at the Politico commented that “Although Emanuel is undeniably a partisan fighter, his selection is not an ideological statement. The Chicago Democrat does not share the reflexively liberal views of many of his House colleagues. In the Clinton years, he helped pass the North American Free Trade Agreement and pushed for anti-crime and other centrist measures.”
“Are we looking at Bill Clinton’s third term?” Maddow asked, as she brought in Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly to “talk me down.”
Benen expressed a skeptical position towards the idea that Obama is deliberately skewing towards Clinton veterans, noting that among Democrats, “almost anyone of a certain age or a certain political background is bound to have spent some time in the Clinton White House or the Clinton administration in some capacity.”
“If we accept that it takes Washington insiders … to govern effectively from the White House,” Maddow asked, “then should we be scaling back our expectations in terms of how realistic the change message is in the first place?”
“Obama’s policy agenda hasn’t changed since his election,” Benen replied. “Everything that he promised, he’s going to continue to fight for.”
Benen acknowledged that “Emanuel comes from the DLC wing of the party, whereas I think Obama comes from the more progressive wing of the party, and so it’s disconcerting that there’s something of a difference between them.”
However, he reassured Maddow that “Emanuel worked in the Clinton White House. He understands the role of the White House chief of staff. I think he’s there to help execute an agenda, not necessary to shape the agenda. … Emanual probably wouldn’t have taken the job if he wasn’t prepared to act on what Obama promised to deliver.”
“You have talked me down two-thirds of the way,” Maddow concluded.
This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast November 6, 2008.
November 8th, 2008 at 6:42 am
It’s nice to see that MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is shaping up to be a good counter-voice to the Obama delusion.
The disillusion on the left is about to set in.
Let’s just hope she doesn’t get pressured into changing her views down the line.
Kool aid drinker she is not.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:11 am
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=aBNuQGudgf4
November 8th, 2008 at 8:21 am
If we don’t pressure the Obamites to push this sonofabitch to deliver, then we need to grab them by the ear, slap their faces a couple of good ones, and scream…”WAKE THE FUCK UP”
November 8th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Yes, this guy was an intern, and undoubtably, he wore the intern knee pads.
November 8th, 2008 at 11:25 am
So much for “Change We Can Believe In”! How do the sheople feel about their Messiah now?
November 8th, 2008 at 11:26 am
America is a whore which suckles at the teat of her Zio-Fascist master.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
She’s alright sometimes, but she thinks the bigger the gov’t the better. On Colbert the other night she said something along the lines of: “i don’t understand why conservatives want to elect someone to run something that they want to get rid of.” I think that is a silly argument.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
These people are either playing stupid are they really are stupid. Joe Scarborough whines that they are telling “Republicans to drop dead.”
LOL!
Did he ever think they ever felt otherwise?
This shows why Republicans are hopeless. They actually believe all that BS about collegiality and bipartisan ship.
-Ken
http://www.LaserGuidedLoogie.com
November 8th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCdkBFUU6Y
November 8th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
If that guy was able to talk Rachel Maddow two-thirds of the way down with that horseshit, she’s far more trusting than I am. At least she’s somewhat bothered by the pick of Rahm Emmanuel, though. Everyone else on MSNBC are still going on with their after-school-special about how we’ve broken some huge barrier with a black president… Doesn’t matter if he’s already sold us (ALL of us) out to Israel on his third day and will keep borrowing money from China to fund bailouts and more wars for oil, which will be redundant since no one will be able to afford gas… How about a President with a brain and some semblance of a soul? That would be a real broken barrier.
November 8th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I am wondering who Keith and Rachel will now make fun of now that the Republicans are out of the picture. Will they do what Fox did with Bush – be lap dogs of the democratic party? It is promising to hear her question Rahm Emmanuel, but I didn’t like her hawkish rank on election night. For those who down play the historical significance of an African American president, I ask you to put politics aside for a moment and understand this moment and what it means to African Americans regardless of who Obama is politically. I say lets not throw in the towel and become clairvoyant about what is to come, most of you thought Hillary would be the next president. We don’t know what is going to happen. All we can do now is look at Obama’s appointments and see if he will really get us out of Iraq. The saga will uncover soon. Obama is a very smart person, just perhaps not informed. I don’t know his soul and neither do any of you. I don’t even know his intentions, I just hope that those 20 years under Rev. Wright taught him something about the real world. Only God knows a person’s intentions and heart. Lets pray for our leaders and our nation-we need it.
November 8th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
None of these former Clintonite appointments surprise me; they were probably all originally set to slide right into a Hillary Clinton presidency but alas (heavy sarcasm added) things didn’t turn out that way.
November 8th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I don’t think 4 more years of Clinton would be a bad thing at all!
November 8th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
No, no, no dummies. Hillary would be Clinton’s third term.
November 8th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
obama is a jewish puppet that is why he is hiring mossad agents to run the white house
November 9th, 2008 at 12:56 am
ac tually this is more like Bush 3. same platform, only cosmetic changes to obfuscate the reality. you can change the clown but the circus stays the same
November 9th, 2008 at 11:17 am
This will be Jimmy Carter’s 2nd term. The Republicans could run almost anybody and beat Obamanation with how far our economy will fall after the next four years. That’s why they THREW this election! They just couldn’t risk Paul waking up enough people to win and screw up their staged farce of an election.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:36 am
This is Bill Clinton twilight zone… http://www.youtube.com/v/sQXXD.....autoplay=1
November 9th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Did you write this before or after the DNC?
November 9th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Look more closely. The fellow is a Mossad agent. This is a new term for Ariel Sharon.
November 9th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
A black Rockefeller sockpuppet on a japanese stage is to ignored as merely a ghost.
November 9th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
thanks Pete P for the hookk link. Brilliant!