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Audacity of Truth
Whiner-in-Chief:
"[W]hether the grumbling is about Republicans on Fox or bloggers in pajamas, there's a word for what the president and his aides are doing. That word is "whining." And nothing [...] does more damage to Obama's credibility or authority than the sense that a popular president is becoming the whiner-in-chief."
- John Nichols, Nation Magazine - 10/12/09
Obama, Reid, Burris and the Chicago Way
ChiTribune colmnist John Kass serves up stinging criticisms of how Obama handled the Roland Burris drama. What, you, ask? You didn’t know Obama got involved in it and pushed Reid into accepting Burris? Indeed, he did:
So the Chicago Way hauled off and slapped the U.S. Senate in the face—one of those backhands with the knuckles to unsuspecting lips—and guess who blinked?
It wasn’t Chicago.
It was the Senate.
Get used to it, America. And it won’t be the last time either.
Roland “Tombstone” Burris, the amiable Illinois Democratic political hack who is being called eminently qualified by the national Democrats—perhaps because he’s from Illinois and he hasn’t been indicted—has almost reached his goal of being addressed as “Yes, sir, Senator.”
Now Tombstone has President-elect Barack Obama behind him, muscling Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid in a phone call earlier in the week. So much for transcending the old politics.
Only a week ago, Obama, Reid and other Democratic leaders were adamant that they’d block any Senate appointment made by tainted Illinois Gov. Rod “Dead Meat” Blagojevich, who has been charged with trying to sell Obama’s seat to the highest bidder.
Their statements back then were stern and inflexible, invoking the honor of the Senate and how they’d never let an allegedly corrupt governor put his greasy paws on their august dignity. Those statements weren’t bland. They were so tough they had hair on them. More hair than Blagojevich, even.
But today’s news is that Obama, often treated by the national media as the gentle Mr. Tumnus of American politics, got privately hardball with Reid over the Tombstone issue.
According a story in the Tribune by Rick Pearson and Mike Dorning, Obama didn’t want the Chicago Way on parade in Washington, less than two weeks before his inauguration, when he formally becomes the agent of the change we can believe in.
Obama is perfectly within his rights to try to wriggle out of an embarrassing political situation, and what could be more embarrassing for him than to have Illinois political corruption constantly on the news in Washington?
People might start asking questions, wondering how Obama could come out of a city run by the wrought-iron fists of the Daley machine but smell like the neck of a baby after a bath.
I’m still wondering.
This story sort of reminds me of the report done a year and a half ago on how the city of Denver wanted to “clean up the streets” before the Dem convention by “hiding the homeless.” They even went so far as to pay for haircuts for some of them. In the end, the homeless weren’t seen on national TV screens across the country, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking around the corner.
The same, of course, can be said for the Chicago Way.
Here’s the Tribune piece Kass mentioned in his op/ed.
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7 Responses to “Obama, Reid, Burris and the Chicago Way”
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One of the great scenes in American film history, even with Costner.
Why do I feel the Republicans should be studying this closely…
Wasn’t Obama also saying that they shouldn’t seat anyone Blago appointed. I wondered what changed his mind? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I have never accepted that Obama, despite being a product of the Chicago Machine, was tough. The man’s a creampuff, a softie, a pu**y (putty? puffy? hmmm…)
He has others do the arm twisting, the bullying, while he smiles affably and puts on the Mister Post-Racial, Reach Across the Aisle act. And nobody notes that he has invariably reached for the race card first in every difficulty, has never reached across the aisle, and in fact has never gone head to head against the entrenched party interests. He’s a weakling and has never demonstrated moral courage or strength of character.
Fortunately for us, the current Prime Enemies of the Republic, the odious would be fascists Reid and Pelosi are as stupid as they are maladroit, and they will not find themsleves in the driver’s seat despite their grandiose dreams.
Unfortunately for us, we don’t know who really will be calling the shots. Who in Obama’s past (and he has been so cunning in presenting only the carefully crafted personal history he wants us to see, aided and abetted by a media which has betrayed the principles of democracy, that we may have no clue who it could be) has the kind of leverage to make Obama dance to his tune?
It’s going to be an interesting four to eight years.
I loved the Untouchables! A great movie from the 80s! But, on the point, we were asking the same thing when another Democrat went to Washington on the white horse. Remember Bill Clinton? He WAS the culture of corruption! And cronyism made its way to the highest echelons of power then as they are now. If we are smart, we will not have to do much. The other side will do all the hard work for us. We just have to keep pointing out the dirt slapped in our faces by Team Obama. Hope and change, baby! Hope and change!
So much for transcending the old politics, indeed.
Here’s what I don’t understand: Chicago politics is a whorehouse. Everyone knows that. So why are so many infected with the notion that Obama is the only virgin in the whorehouse?
You don’t advance in Chicago by “transcending the old politics” or bringing “change”. You advance by putting party above everything, by toadying up to the powers that be in the machine, and by pulling every underhanded political dirty trick known to man. THAT is Obama’s background.
So I’d really like alchemist or someone else from the left to explain why they willingly deny that reality and adopt this zombie-like infatuation with the idea that Obama is some sort of post-partisan, reformist, lightworker.
Not that I expect a response. Questions like that tend to make them hide in the tall grass.
Ah, GWR, just think, what if there were no rhetorical questions?
It’s past the election and thus perhaps moot, but this comment thread is a good place to pitch David Freddoso’s book The Case Against Barack Obama. It’s a non-sensationalist, heavily footnoted examination of Obama’s career and character, and much of it deals with the question of how he could have risen through Chicago politics while still looking like Mr. Clean. I highly recommend it.