The Chris Moeller Archives

Waiting for Obama

President-elect Obama and Washington Democrats are not off to a blistering start:

In addition to having career senator Joe Biden in his cabinet in the role of Vice President, Obama added Bill Clinton hatchet-man, DLC veteran, and generally-oily operative Rahm Emanuel last week as his Chief of Staff. Barack's choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder, earned his Profile in Courage in 2000 as Deputy AG in the Clinton Administration when he went AWOL during Clinton's pardoning of convicted pal and fundraising heavy-hitter Marc Rich. Then Holder, after the Patriot Act was signed into law in 2002, said that we should "get rid of" any dissenters employed in the Justice Department. And reports indicate that Hillary Clinton has been definitively offered the role of Secretary of State in the cabinet.

Is this the type of change we were promised by the "Obama for President" campaign? Is this what Americans thought they were voting for? It sounds more like-- at best-- a time machine back to the corruption of the 1990s.

As a saber-rattler on Iran and a key Democratic vote to authorize the War on Iraq, Hillary's one of the biggest hawks in Washington. I contend this despite a half-successful public relations effort during the Democratic primaries to inform the contrary. Hell, she's been endorsed for the Secretary position by Henry Kissinger. What more do you need? This is setting up to be Obama's first catastrophic mistake. It goes without saying that Hillary's one of the worst team players in town, and he's going to be stuck with her politically good or bad. Her husband's a snake with a list of interest conflicts a mile long; and as Chris Hitchens pointed out on television Monday, her principal foreign policy experience is having falsified a story about a trip to Bosnia.

Presumably in the spirit of "moving forward" and "bipartisanship," Obama advisors said this week that there is little if any chance that the new president's Justice Department will pursue legal action against anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out torture prosecutions during the "War on Terror." In very short time, that Justice Department will be asked to deal with legal challenges to the warrantless wiretapping ok'd by Bush and the Congress on behalf of the National Security Agency. When he was courting left-wing Democratic voters last spring, Candidate Obama called the program illegal and threatened a filibuster, but then he voted to extend the program later in the year after he had secured his party's presidential nomination. Anybody taking bets on how that one will turn out?

As for Senate Democrats, they're in a class all by themselves. They'd probably grab ankle even if they had a 99-1 voting advantage in that chamber and the sole Republican was Chuck Hagel. Against all human reason, they voted (in secret) today 42-13 to allow Bush-cheerleader Joe Lieberman to not only remain in their caucus, but to keep his chairmanship within the powerful Homeland Security Committee. (President-elect Obama first gave the approval on forgiveness. "He called the shots," one insider said.) Lieberman had practically begged out of the caucus this year. He was a keynote speaker at the GOP convention! Does anyone remember this?! Maybe the Democrats will let Ted Stevens retain his committee assignments next year. The Democrats couldn't be more spineless if they were still being led by Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt.

Please note, I couldn't care less about party loyalty. Really, fuck that. But how about booting Lieberman from the chair just for having helped establish Homeland Security as one of the most bloated, expensive, corrupt federal agencies in American history? Americans of all political stripes should be outraged.

The war profiteers are skating. The torturers are skating. Greedy Wall Street speculators have skated. Exactly who will be accountable during the Obama presidency? How many of his supporters plan to make President Obama accountable? Is the new Chief Executive only going to be asked to outperform his dimwitted predecessor?

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All of the above actions are being done in the name of "bipartisanship," the healing of some type of mythical rift between Democrats and Republicans. The increasingly-baffoonish Howard Dean said of the Lieberman vote today that there was an electoral "mandate for reconciliation" on November 4th. Is Dr. Dean alluding to the manner in which conservative candidates were kicked to the curb on ballots coast-to-coast? For Christ's sake, there are 33 new Democratic members of Congress. I shudder to think what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich could do in this current climate with a majority like the Democrats have just been given.

"Bipartisanship" is a phony bill of sale. In the last eight years, Democrats and Republicans have bipartisaned their way to two Patriot Acts, the invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq, the abolition of habeus corpus, warrantless government wiretapping, the declaration of part of Iran's government as "terrorists," a $700 billion Wall Street bailout, "No Child Left Behind," crippling top-heavy tax cuts, and a record-shattering trade deficit. There's no way we could have done it without both groups.

posted by CM @ 9:10 PM