Thursday, June 12, 2008
Underneath Obama's bus
Barack Obama has tossed another advisor, Jim Johnson, under his bus for another trivial scandal. This is now happening so often it is losing its impact as news.
So, another Obama associate is thrown under the bus. One might begin to wonder if there are more people riding on the Obama express or underneath it. Think of all this guy's friends, staffers, spiritual advisers, and assorted far left radicals who have been given the equivalent of a pair of cement galoshes and thrown into the Chicago River. A partial list:
1, Samantha Power, foreign policy advisor, who ended up being just a little bit too frank about some of Obama's less than mainstream plans for Israel and other places if the candidate were to win office.
2. Austan Goolsbee, economic advisor, who whispered to the Canadian government sweet nothings about his boss's NAFTA switcheroo in Ohio -- Obama running around the state, breathing fire about the evils of NAFTA and how he would renegotiate the treaty while Goolsbee was telling the Canadians that the candidate was just politicking and had no intention of touching the treaty.
3. Reverend Jeremiah Wright, friend and spiritual advisor for whom the candidate bravely stood up -- at first -- until Wright's performance at the National Press Club caused the candidate to open the door himself and push the old man under the wheels.
4. Father Michael Pfleger, friend and spiritual advisor, whose spittle flecked rant at Trinity Church against Hillary, America and white people forced the candidate to leave his boot print on the good father's rear end as he too was impelled from behind under the Obama Greyhound.
5. William Ayers, terrorist and future Secretary of Education in an Obama Administration. Well, probably not. But Obama's dismissal of his former boss and friend as "just a neighbor" no doubt hurt the terrorist's feelings but became necessary when the press started to get curious about what a candidate for president was doing associating with someone who doesn't regret blowing people to smithereens.
There are more -- the undercarriage of that bus is bloody indeed.
Obama seems to have reversed George W. Bush's famous and costly loyalty to his friends and associates; he writes people off, in public, at the first sign of a pseudo scandal, rather than defending them.
What does this disloyalty tell us about Barack Obama? Perhaps nothing, but it might be evidence of the following:
Machiavellian expediency -- perhaps Senator Obama is simply willing to do anything to win, and perhaps that is just fine with his adoring supporters (including those cast aside)
Extreme sensitivity to scandal -- the "politics of change" requires actual change, so anything that smacks of mere business-as-usual is dangerous to the core Obama image
Poor judgment about people -- a politician with national aspirations hanging out with William Ayers? Seriously?
Naivete -- maybe he just does not dig too deeply before he befriends somebody or accepts their help
So what does this mean for an Obama presidency? One obvious possible answer is that anybody with even the slightest vulnerability to partisan criticism ought to decline an invitation to serve in it, because at the first sign of trouble the President will abandon you. Worse than that, weak top-down loyalty would make an Obama presidency extremely vulnerable to back-stabbing leaks -- if relatively minor public relations problems lead to dismissal, ambitious appointees will be very tempted to leak damaging factoids and rumors about their rivals. This will be doubly true if Obama recruits sharp-elbowed and battle-hardened veterans from the Clinton era, which he has to do unless he wants an administration of rookies (most of the Carter era veterans being, er, past their prime).
Drudge will have a field day.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Jun 12, 07:16:00 AM:
This guy has horrendous judgment. I'm hoping that he's Machiavellian just because I think a naif running the show would be horrible for us internationally. We expect this guy to deal with guys like Ahmadinejad and Chavez?
By , at
Thu Jun 12, 08:55:00 AM:
But, but I thought that Barack was a new kind of politician, and he was the person we were all waiting for?
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss........
-David
By 
Cardinalpark, at
Thu Jun 12, 01:17:00 PM:
he's such a lightweight its hilarious.
and what's even funnier is that nobody even mentions Tony Rezko.
By , at
Thu Jun 12, 04:13:00 PM:
meet the new bus, same as the old bus
By Miss Ladybug, at
Fri Jun 13, 12:46:00 AM:
Especially after today's obscene SCOTUS ruling re: GITMO detainees, the thought of an Obama presidency is truly frightening...
By , at
Fri Jun 13, 08:56:00 AM:
obama is the best person to run the country, mccain flip flopped on the gitmo issues
What about the Asian Americans.
Candidates on equal pay.
McCain Getting Special treatment
DNC Should be more like RNC
Most unattractive states during the primary
http://sensico.wordpress.com/
By Gordon Smith, at
Fri Jun 13, 09:49:00 AM:
"On Monday, just days after it issued new rules to address conflicts of interest, the McCain campaign was furiously sifting through the business records of aides and advisers. The new rules were prompted by disclosures that led to the abrupt departure from the campaign of a number of aides who worked as lobbyists, including some with ties to foreign governments."
- link
Are you going to do the hackery thing this go 'round Hawk? This post smacks of hackery.
Maybe focusing on Senate and House races will be more fun for Republicans.
