Limbaugh/Rove: Separated at Birth?

If Spy Magazine had survived the Clinton era, its satire would have had a hard time competing with the news. What would the political pranksters have made of two rotund figures in the headlines this week?

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says with a straight face that Rush Limbaugh is the “voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”

Then Limbaugh lookalike Karl Rove complains on Fox News that Emanuel is practicing "old-style politics" in the White House:

"How does this serve the country for us at this point when we’re discussing these big, vital things like the budget and health care and the stimulus bill and the omnibus spending bill--how does it well serve the country for this little sideshow concocted in the chief of staff’s office in the West Wing?"

Rove, now a paid bloviator for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, is not in the same paycheck league as Limbaugh, who has a talk radio contract worth $400 million, but as the biggest gasbags in the conservative alternate reality, there are striking similarities.

Limbaugh is thriving on the negative notice from the White House and the backtracking Republican Chairman Michael Steele, and Rove is putting a brave face on the upcoming Congressional grilling about his role in firing US Attorneys for not being political enough, calling it a "show trial."

All that's missing is Spy showing them side by side and asking, "Separated at Birth?"

Blagojevich, Fitzgerald--and Obama

As the President-Elect vacations in Hawaii and the besieged governor hunkers down back home, the relentless prosecutor keeps chipping away at their state's institutionalized corruption.

Today there is a leaked backgrounder in the Washington Post, headlined "Secret Tapes Helped Build Graft Cases In Illinois," detailing five years of what Fitzgerald calls "wide-ranging schemes where people are seeking to make people pay contributions to get contracts or appointments or do other stuff."

In the interconnected stories of this threesome, there are clues to the nature of 21st century political life and the human beings who struggle with its temptations and contradictions.

Fitzgerald and Blagojevich are stereotypical--the crusader who never sleeps and the corkscrew pol who never stops stealing--but their collision is moving beyond clichés into a more complicated picture of people and power in a new century and raising questions about how Barack Obama managed to navigate that world without being tainted by it.

The Obama organization wants to take Rahm Emanuel off the hook by insisting the prospective chief of staff had "only had one phone call with Gov. Blagojevich. It wasn’t even really about the Senate seat.” But the governor's new phone friend, Willie Brown of California, is saying "there were some pretty heated conversations between Blagojevich and Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, which I understand will burn your ears off."

Be that as it may, the melodrama of New Politics vs. Old is likely to go on for some time now, at the cost of an empty Illinois Senate seat, while the Obama administration struggles with the high-profile problems that are plaguing the country.

As Fitzgerald keeps plodding forward, nagging questions involving the new president will center on convicted fixer Tony Rezko, described by the Post as the "gatekeeper to Blagojevich, advising him on appointments to boards and commissions."

During the campaign, Obama returned Rezko's contributions, stressing he had not been accused of any wrongdoing in his association with him while admitting that Rezko's involvement in the buying of the Obamas' Chicago home was a "boneheaded" mistake.

The Fitzgerald-Blagojevich confrontation is a high-wire media circus of good vs. evil, but the peripheral role of the new president who is shouldering the burdens of America's future is a reminder that what human beings do when the stakes are high is never that simple.

An incident from 40 years ago keeps coming back to mind. As a delegate to the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, I found myself alone in a hotel elevator with political boss Stanley Steingut, a decent man, after his egregious power play had cut off an antiwar resolution in the state caucus meeting.

Enraged, I asked him, "Does your mother know what you do for a living?"

He gave me the kindliest of smiles, took my elbow and said sadly, "Politics, kid."

The Spreading Blagojevich Blot

Illinois' governor has gone on a “political corruption crime spree” with actions that have “taken us to a truly new low. The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave,” US Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said at his press conference today as the scandal unfolds with multiple questions about Barack Obama's replacement in the Senate.

Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, who ironically pushed the state's Whistleblower Law, calls on Blagojevich to step aside and urges the General Assembly to enact legislation removing his power to fill the Obama seat.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democratic leader, agrees and suggests the legislature schedule a special election, effectively pushing Blagojevich aside.

Meanwhile, there are reports that Obama's designated chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, another Illinois politician, may have blown the whistle on Blagejovich, while the President-Elect says today:

"I had no contact with the governor or his office and so I was not aware of what was happening. And as I said, it's a sad day for Illinois. Beyond that, I don't think it's appropriate to comment."

With everything else going on in the transition, it now looks as if Illinois may be without a second Senator for a while, but one political prediction looks safe: In the next gubernatorial election, Republicans will be putting pressure on Patrick Fitzgerald to accept their nomination on a platform of cleaning up the mess.

The Coming of a Can-Do Government

In the wreckage of this week's news, it's encouraging to watch the Obama Administration taking shape with an emphasis on extreme competence (no heck-of-a-job Brownie in the lot).

Today's New York Times describes it as "tilting toward the center, inviting a clash of ideas," but the left-right analysis seems less to the point than the question of getting things done as transition team members "believe that the new administration will have no time for a learning curve."

Starting with the choice of Rahm Emanuel, a can-do guy if there ever was one, the new President clearly intends to surround himself with brains and real-world experience rather than like-mindedness and loyalty.

That was reflected in the leak yesterday about the new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, a pragmatist with deep experience, whose choice sent the stock market into euphoria. As America's face to the financial world, he will represent steady resolve compared to former Treasury chief Lawrence Summers, a bombastic figure Obama considered putting back into the job, who will likely end up in the White House as a senior economic adviser.

After such choices as the new Attorney General Eric Holder, Peter Orszag as Budget Director and Greg Craig as White House Counsel, conservative David Brooks calls the new Obama team "more impressive than any other in recent memory...open-minded individuals who are persuadable by evidence...admired professionals" who are "not excessively partisan" and "not ideological."

How does Hillary Clinton fit into this picture? She certainly would not blend into the Obama woodwork, but there is something more at stake in her choice as Secretary of State. For those who have become unsure about American values, she would make the Bush-Cheney worldview look like the aberration it has been and reassure continuity of our good intentions and good sense.

As with all of Obama's other choices, personal loyalty would be beside the point.

Rivals, Retreads and Other Irrelevance

As he picks Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, Tom Daschle and flirts with the former First Lady, there is a predictable chorus of criticism that going back to the Clinton years is not the change Barack Obama promised in his campaign.

Some of that was heard when he chose Joe Biden as his running mate, but Obama's goal all along was to persuade voters wary of his inexperience that the best of the past would not be swept away in rhetorical enthusiasm for the new.

He is fulfilling that promise and concentrating on the real change from the Bush-Cheney years, bringing competence back to Washington, wherever he finds it--in the over-touted Lincolnesque "team of rivals" or in the best of the 1990s.

Holder, the new Attorney General who served under Janet Reno, will have the monumental job of restoring Justice to its pre-Ashcroft, pre-Gonzales stature, as he indicated in a speech last June, citing that "disrespect for the rule of law is not only wrong, it is destructive in our struggle against terrorism."

"Our government," he said, "authorized the use of torture, approved of secret electronic surveillance against American citizens, secretly detained American citizens without due process of law, denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants, and authorized the use of procedures that violate both international law and the United States Constitution."

Obama's apparent willingness to consider keeping Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense is based on Gates' capable performance following Don Rumsfeld's ideological reign in the Pentagon, and there may well be places in the new administration for Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel and other able Republicans.

So far, Obama's choices have reflected well on his judgment about the judgment of those who will be helping him, regardless of their resumes. January 20th can't come a minute too soon.

Transition and Tone

President-Elect Obama has little time to savor his historic victory and has to start addressing the challenges he stressed last night with a swift and sure transition from the paralyzed government now in place.

The names will be important, but decisiveness without delay would help lay to rest the doubts raised about his inexperience during the campaign and reassure an American public on the edge of panic about the economy.

Leon Panetta, the former White House chief of staff who has been advising his transition team, says, "You better damn well do the tough stuff up front, because if you think you can delay the tough decisions and tiptoe past the graveyard, you’re in for a lot of trouble. Make the decisions that involve pain and sacrifice up front.”

The rumors are that Obama will start by naming Rep. Rahm Emanuel, with experience in the Clinton White House as his chief of staff this week and will go on quickly to appoint future cabinet members.

In today's political climate, a new Treasury Secretary will be as critical as the choices for State and Defense, and whoever it is and the President-Elect will have to get involved in the financial crisis long before Obama raises his hand and takes the oath on January 20th.

Obama Calls Out Bill Clinton

On "Good Morning America" today, Barack Obama takes on the other half of the Clinton team, the non-candidate who has been contesting him in the primaries:

"The former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts--whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas.

"This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate."

So now we have the unprecedented spectacle of a Presidential candidate being double-teamed and responding directly to both Clintons who have been challenging him.

"I understand," Obama concedes, "that there are going to be sharp elbows in a primary and certainly there's going to be some rough and tumble in a general election" but claims that Bill Clinton has gone too far.

He is not alone in that opinion. The new Newsweek reports that leading Democrats, including Sen. Ted Kennedy and House Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel, who worked in the Clinton White House, are telling the ex-President to "pipe down."

The man who coordinated Clinton's impeachment defense in 1998 and is now a senior Obama adviser argues that "recent events raise the question: if Hillary's campaign can't control Bill, whether Hillary's White House could."

Obama has apparently decided to stop waiting for an answer to that and start providing his own critique.

Governing by Tantrum

"I veto, therefore I am" is the new theme of the Bush Administration.

In 1948, Harry Truman got to stay in the White House by railing against a Republican "do-nothing" Congress, and George W. Bush is now using the tactic in an effort to remain "relevant" as he prepares to leave the Oval Office.

"Congress has little to show for all the time that has gone by," he complained at his last press conference, a bizarre charge for a President who has vetoed Iraq appropriations bills, S-CHIP health insurance and this week is threatening to send back a water projects bill with enough bipartisan support to override his veto.

There is a kind of spoiled-rich-kid intransigence to the new Bush that is consistent with his behavior for six years when Republicans controlled both Houses and rubber-stamped whatever he wanted. Now, in the face of opposition, he is stamping his feet and threatening to hold his breath if he doesn't get his way.

"He may decide that all he wants to do is veto and stop progress," says Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the House Democratic Caucus. "But everybody will know who wants to change things, and who wants to keep them just the way they are."

But if Congressional Democrats are confident that voters will make that distinction next year, they should look closely at their approval ratings, which are lower than the President's.

To dramatize his claims about a do-nothing Congress, Harry Truman had called a special session on what was known as "Turnip Planting Day" in Missouri. His opponents obliged with inaction and made his point.

If today's Democrats want to avoid looking like turnips in '08, they had better start moving now.

Dumbed-Down Democracy

Watching Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican Chief Deputy Whip, on PBS’ News Hour last week was a depressing experience. He was debating Rahm Emanuel on the S-CHIP legislation and, with an infuriatingly smug smile, making Bush’s “philosophical” case for denying needy children health care.

Now here we are this week without enough votes to override the President’s heartless, brainless veto. Why? A USA Today/Gallup poll today shows how, in this age where You are Time’s Person of the Year, too many you’s are not motivated to get past slogans and charades on an issue that affects millions of children’s lives.

Although 49 percent have been following news about the bill “not too closely or at all,” 55 percent are concerned that “expanding this program would create an incentive for middle-class Americans to drop private health insurance for a public program.”

The Gallup people, by framing the question this way, are contributing to the confusion and their USA Today partners are still doing what mass media have been doing throughout the Bush years, letting the Administration set the specious terms for public debate.

Through the obfuscation, a solid majority of voters still manage to get the point and “have more confidence” in Democrats than Bush to handle the issue, by 52 to 32 percent, but with a President who listens only to himself, that won’t be enough.

Nancy Pelosi talks about fighting on, but the lack of enough public outrage will force Democrats to accept a defeat masked as a compromise.

If sanity in both parties can’t prevail on an issue this clear, we are in deeper trouble than any of the ’08 candidates is willing to admit.