The Obama File

 

By Wes Clark

 

 

10 December 2008: “On a series of wiretaps, the 51-year-old Democrat (Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich) who earned nearly $180,000 a year as governor was recorded talking in Al Capone-like displays. At one point, he says bluntly that his family is hurting financially and adds, "I want to make money." He discussed with an adviser that he wanted someone to approach an unidentified adviser to Obama - widely speculated to be incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel - about having the president-elect help get a nonprofit foundation set up for Blagojevich to run.”

 

Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s take-no-prisoners Chief of Staff. This is beginning to look, and smell, a lot like the Clinton days. Obama had better manage this issue, and fast.

 

But I’m not expecting little incidents like this to occur again in the next four years, however. I think this is purely an artifact of the waning days of a Republican Administration. When the Democrats politicize the FBI - remember the Clintonian Justice Department? – stuff like this won’t be allowed to happen. It’s a feature of the one-party rule that the American electorate foolishly gave the Democrats.

 

And I had to laugh last night watching the “Situation Room” coverage with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. (I normally wouldn’t bother watching, but I was a captive audience in a line at a McDonald’s.) Various talking heads were assuring viewers that there’s no possible connection to Barack Obama. Richard Nixon got no such benefit of the doubt from the Newsies during the Watergate Era.

 

The important question now is, how is the next senator from Illinois to be chosen? And who does it?

 

I nominate Al Franken for Illinois senator! (Although a professional comedian like Franken would have stuff competition in writing material of the caliber recorded as having been uttered by Governor Rod Blagojevich.)

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama said he was unaware of the criminal investigation into an alleged attempt by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to trade an appointment for Obama’s Senate seat for financial gain. “I had no contact with the governor or his office and so I was not aware of what was happening, ” Obama told reporters today in Chicago. “It’s a sad day for Illinois. Beyond that, I don’t think it’s appropriate to comment.”

Translation: “Please make this story go away.”

 

 

9 December 2008: “Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich wanted President-elect Barack Obama "to put something together…something big" in exchange for going along with Obama's choice to fill his vacant U.S. Senate seat, according to a FBI affidavit unsealed following the governor's stunning arrest. "I've got this thing and it's f***ing golden, and, uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for f***in' nothing. I'm not gonna do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there," Blagojevich said in a phone call secretly...”

Chicago politics… So what did Obama say to him in response to this? I’d like to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, but isn’t this a bit early to be playing damage control?

8 December 2008: “WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama says you won't catch him lighting up a cigarette in the White House. Noting that the White House was a no-smoking zone, Tom Brokaw asked the president-elect during a televised interview on Sunday, "Have you stopped smoking?" "I have," Obama replied, smiling broadly. "What I said was that there are times where I have fallen off the wagon." "Wait a minute," Brokaw interjected, "that means you haven't stopped." "I've done a terrific job, under the circumstances, of making myself much healthier and I think that you will not see any violations of these rules in the White House," he replied on Sunday's "Meet the Press" on NBC. Obama told the magazine Men's Health in an interview for its November issue that he wished he had more time for staying fit and that he still occasionally smoked a cigarette. Obama said in that interview that he had bummed a cigarette a couple of times during the campaign. "But I figure, seeing as I'm running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack," he said.”

On this one I’m willing to cut Obama some slack. Smoking is a bad habit, period, but I can see why people fall into it when bored, tired, depressed, stressed, etc. However, unfortunately for him, what with the Presidential Physical Fitness Program in schools and all, he either has to quit smoking or lie about the smoking he does. Far better to decisively quit.

1 December 2008: “President-elect Barack Obama on Monday officially introduced the members of his national security team, including former Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state and Robert Gates, who will be remain as defense secretary.”

I suppose every Democrat has to have a Sleeze Element in his Cabinet, and Hillary Clinton certainly fulfills that role. I well recall the days of the Clinton Misadministration, when subpoenaed documents mysteriously appeared on the table in the White House Library, or in a suitcase in the trunk of an abandoned car somewhere in Arkansas. Then there were the various officials called in to testify, chanting “I don’t recall” in a mind-numbing procession. His fellow Arkansans didn’t bequeath the sobriquet “Slick Willy” for no reason at all, and Hillary has been learning at the Master’s knee for some time.

Scratch that last sentence. Like everything else associated with Bill Clinton it sounds like a bad double entendre.

I suppose, given the extreme ethical challenges of the Clintons and Hillary’s well-developed sense of hubris, it’ll only be a matter of time before Obama has to tell the nation that he can no more disavow his new Secretary of State than he could, say, his pastor.

Oh, wait, he did.

26 November 2008: “Defense Secretary Robert Gates will keep the top Pentagon job for at least the first year of the Obama administration, FOX News has learned. There was very strong support for Gates among Democrats, said one Democratic source in the Senate whose boss was intimately involved in bringing Obama and Gates together to see if they were compatible.”

This is exceedingly curious. I thought that Democrats were foaming-at-the-mouth opposed to anything George W. Bush did defense-wise – at least I was led to believe that the left wing of their party was. I would have figured Bush’s Defense Secretary would be at the very front of the chopping block, to repudiate the Iraq War. “Very strong support for a Republican among Democrats?” I don’t know how to interpret this. This may be a commendable effort from Obama to move parties closer together or a suggestion (as my friend assures me) that there really isn’t much difference between Democrats and Republicans.

19 November 2008:  The news today is about the estimable Senator Ted Stevens (R- Alaska): “Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who couldn't survive a conviction on federal corruption charges. …Stevens' loss was another slap for Republicans… It also moves Democrats one step closer to the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters in the Senate. Democrats now hold 58 seats, when two independents who align with Democrats are included, with undecided races in Minnesota and Georgia where two Republicans are trying to hang onto their seats. ‘With seven seats and counting now added to the Democratic ranks in the Senate, we have an even stronger majority that will bring real change to America,’ Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement.”

…a statement that makes a cold shudder run through my body. As I stated below, I believe that no one party should have control of the House, Senate and White House, and certainly no party should have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. What new socialist nanny-statism will the likes of Chuck Schumer and his cohorts ram down Americans’ throats?

Elsewhere in the news:  “There is a certain slice of Washington breathlessly waiting for the Obamas to decide on which private school Malia, in fifth grade, and second-grader Sasha will attend, because the daughters' presence will confer social status on everyone associated with the school, even the ones who have a lot of it now. A pal of mine with a kid at Georgetown Day School said Malia was spotted there on Monday. The teachers were told to "look normal" because the girls just wanted to see the school in its normal state. Another buddy of mine with children at Quaker-run Sidwell Friends told me that there were Obama family spottings Tuesday at the upper campus of Sidwell in northwest Washington and at the lower campus in Bethesda. The Maret school may also be in the running; friends of the Obamas send their kids there. Mayor Adrian Fenty pitched the public schools when we talked recently, but that seems a long shot since the girls now attend the private University of Chicago Lab School. ‘Our goal is to have D.C. public schools be as serious an option as any charter or private schools, not just for the Obamas but for any family making the decision,’ Fenty told me.”

Yeah, right. Get real, Mayor Fenty. Obama is a Democrat, which means that he’s a champion of public schools – for our kids. The outspoken champions of the public school system invariably send their kids to private schools (as when the Clintons sent Chelsea to Sidwell Friends), and I have no doubt that’s where the Obama girls are headed. I will gleefully point this hypocrisy out the first time President Obama speaks out against voucher plans.

And this: “Washington attorney Eric Holder is poised to be selected by President-elect Barack Obama for attorney general… Holder, a former U.S. attorney who served as the No. 2 official in the Justice Department under President Bill Clinton, would have to go through a Senate confirmation. An Obama official and others close to the process told The Associated Press that feelers are being sent around the Senate to see if he'd pass muster. "It is basically done. There's some paperwork that they need to complete and some other things they want to vet a bit more, like the Marc Rich pardon during the Clinton administration. But unless something changes, I get the impression it's done," the aide told FOX News. Marc Rich was the fugitive billionaire who was given a pardon by Clinton on his final day in office. Rich's estranged wife, Denise Rich, was a high-paying donor to Clinton. …Holder has publicly apologized for what he said was a snap decision that he should have paid more attention to. Had he taken more time to review the case, he would have advised against a pardon, he said.”

Oh, yeah… the Marc Rich pardon. Crooked billionaires getting pardons by Democrats. But that’s okay, Holder has issued his repentance statement, which makes it cool for him to become the attorney general.

“The kind of change we can believe in.”

Let’s see if Republican senators are happy being in the political minority and roll over and play dead for Obama and Holder. I bet they do.

17 November 2008: “CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and vanquished rival John McCain met for the first time since the November 4 election on Monday, pledging to work together to face the financial crisis and other national challenges.”

Yawn - Obama and McCain vowing to “work together.” As if anyone cares. John McCain is fully entitled to enter into the ash heap of history as far as I’m concerned. He was a lousy candidate and can merge back into the Senate as one face in the crowd of 100 (which includes John Kerry’s cadaverous puss).

14 November 2008: A reenactor I know tells me that the upcoming Obama Inaugural Parade will include local Civil War reenactors. (Of course… what’s a social occasion without Civil War reenactors?) When I asked if this would include Confederates, he suggested not. While unifying the Blue and the Red might be a priority for the new administration, unifying the Blue and the Gray is not.

There’s also talk of Hillary Clinton becoming the new Secretary of State, to which I quote an old Mad magazine: EEEECCCCHHH. Exactly what definition of the word “change” encompasses those arch-crooks the Clintons?

10 November 2008: Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell admits her paper's uneven handling of Obama and McCain: “The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement.”

Gee, what a surprise. This admission is convenient timing, now that the election is safely over. But even the most crazed liberal must understand that the conservative Washington Times is now the paper to go to for complete coverage and investigative reporting of the Obama Administration. The Post and the New York Times won’t do it – they go into protect mode. (Actually, they remain in protect mode.)

Also, I see on November 5th Ann Coulter wrote: “…we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president. Starting tomorrow, if not sooner.” I see we were thinking along similar lines that day…

8 November 2008: President-elect Barack Obama called Nancy Reagan today to apologize for the careless and off-handed remark he made during today’s press conference, said transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. Obama was asked at his press conference today if he'd spoken to all the "living" presidents. “I have spoken to all of them who are living," he responded. "I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any séances."

The president-elect’s first major press conference and he insults an 87 year-old widow. Classy. What surprised me about this comment was that it seemed to come from nowhere, right out of the blue. I have a feeling Barack Obama has a hidden mean streak.

7 November 2008: Yesterday I mentioned the historical nature of the Wednesday papers; this morning outside the Metro station a guy was selling special reprints of the Washington Post for $1.50 each. The Post endorses Obama, he wins, history is made, and special edition papers are sold in a heavily African-American city. Very tidy. Will the half-baked socialist op-ed writers for the Post classify this as another example of capitalism run amok?

I must be politically more flexible than I think, or a more optimistic soul than I think. I was watching television last night (depressing statistics about the economy – the worst October in retailing for 35 years), and, of course, the topic of the upcoming new administration was discussed. I was surprised to find myself feeling hopeful, rather than pessimistic, about Obama.

The morning after the election I asked a Bolivian guy at work what he thought, did his man win or not? He paused for a while, and said simply, “Change is good.” The more I think about it, the more I see the wisdom in this simple expression. Certainly a change in management is called for. Whether a change in the prevailing political philosophies of the nation is needed is an entirely different question. Conservative columnist Cal Thomas, writing immediately after the election, maintains that America is still a center-right nation. We shall see; I hope so!

From a news article: “Obama, who bested Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, has made it clear he will rely heavily on veterans of her husband's eight-year administration, the only Democratic presidency in the past 28 years. (John) Podesta was President Clinton's chief of staff, and several other former Clinton aides are on Obama's short lists for key jobs, Democratic officials say. Some helped write a large briefing book on how to govern, assembled under Podesta's supervision.”

Uh-oh, Clinton retreads. Does not bode well for the notion of change. Waco II? More Susan Thomases telling investigative committees “I don’t recall?”

 

6 November 2008: The newsies are having a heyday with this election; I see they're still using large font headlines with the word “historic” in order to sell papers. (I saw a news report last night about people collecting yesterday's papers for historical reasons. The papers have clearly caught on.) I saw a headline this morning that really annoyed me: "Bamalot." Being an avid reader and admirer of Arthurian literature, I have always been extremely annoyed with the media's connection of King Arthur with John F. Kennedy (and, by extension, other young Democrats). Last I read, none of Guinevere's hand-maidens ever cooed "Happy Birthday King Arthur" wearing a skin tight, flesh-colored gown. The whole thing is due to the fact that the Kennedy Administration roughly coincided in time with a Broadway musical version of T.H. White's "The Once and Future King," a favorite book. The musical was, of course, "Camelot," which JFK reportedly admired. (Too bad "Urinetown" wasn't wrtten then.) The journalist Theodore White connected the two in a December 6th, 1963 LIFE magazine article. I suppose the pressies are now going to resurrect it, a New Camelot - gag me with a spoon. Frankly, if I were Barack Obama I'd find this whole thing a bit ghoulish. The Kennedy/Camelot myth began only after Kennedy was assassinated. Geez, the guy is only 47 - cut the youngster some slack!

 

 

5 November 2008: The great American electoral temper tantrum has subsided and Barack Hussein (may we use his middle name now?) Obama is the president-elect. Kenyans are exultant and we have boldly met the expectations of the French. Joe Biden (R. Emmett Tyrrell calls him the delightful Joe Biden) of the semi-demi-state Delaware is his mentally sluggish associate.

 

By the way, I had an interesting conversation with a fellow who used to meet with Sen. Biden and various generals and other brass on armed forces sub-committees. He said that Biden was always “the dumbest guy in the room.” If so, and none of his published comments thus far lead me to believe otherwise, it will be interesting to watch if the newsies give him a pass they never gave Dan Quayle.

 

Everybody I voted for lost. Virginia now has another tax-and-spend Democratic senator, Mark Warner. In 2001 he campaigned for Governor saying that he wouldn’t raise taxes. However he reneged (is that term now forbidden?) in 2004.  My representative in the House is Gerry Connolly from the loathsome Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, a man who never met a tax he didn’t like. Clearly, an assault upon Virginians’ wallets is in the works. Why voters choose to do this to themselves is beyond me.

 

Last night was an awful blow to the conservative movement, but to call it a death blow would be premature. Every sweeping victory like the one yesterday has within it the seeds of a future defeat. Democrats, controlled as they are by the Loony Left, will surely overplay their hand or misread the electorate sooner or later. Besides, hubris is in their DNA; it comes with their moral anointment. And Obama can no longer get away with voting “present” while sitting in the Oval Office. A higher level of engagement will be expected of him. I’m guessing that with the present economic problems the American people will have little tolerance for the extensive on-the-job training this most inexperienced of president-elects will require. So conservatives should do what the liberals did in 1980, bide their time and look for opportunities. Let’s see how long the honeymoon lasts. It will be extended by the press who helped put him in office in the first place, of course. (I can’t help but think of that SNL skit about the fawning press corps.) But as Bill Clinton learned, more than anything else, the newsies crave news. And if it’s negative, oh well… at least the guy reading the copy about malfeasance looks important doing so.

I am greatly sobered by the emerging threat to American security last night’s election results presage. While America-hating terrorists may be under funded, desperate and, right now, on the defensive, they surely must be encouraged by Obama’s election. Like the Viet Cong war planners of a generation ago, reading about American anti-war protests, they now know that our hearts really aren’t in the fight. The election of Obama to the position of commander-in-chief is a big white flag of surrender to them, and, thus heartened, they may attempt to attack us again. But you needn’t take my world for it. From the delightful Joe Biden: “Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.” In this respect I am hoping that events confirm the assessment of him as the dumbest guy in the room and not as a prophet, but I fear otherwise.

There are certain advantages to being in a minority political status. For instance, I’m looking forward to not feeling defensive about members of the Bush Family any more. (I think Bush Senior was the Gipper’s biggest mistake.) And come January, the Democrats will control the White House, the Senate and the House. The recession, global terrorism, etc. will become their recession, terrorist attacks and other problems. Blaming Republicans won’t go far.

 

Thank goodness, however, that the electorate fell short of giving the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority. That would keep me up at night.

 

California, my native state, has a lesson as well. This most liberal and politically trendy state in this most liberal of elections still voted for Proposition 8, banning gay marriage. The message implied there for Democrats is to govern from the center, not the left. Obama becoming the Robin Hood of the Potomac, letting in additional floods of illegal immigrants, nationalizing health care, etc., will surely set the clock ticking for an eventual GOP takeover of the House and/or Senate.

 

So.

 

I now become a member of the Loyal Opposition to my elected officials. I could write that I grant them the same hopes, prayers, wishes, support and encouragement that the Democrats offered to George W. Bush and his associates as the loyal opposition, but it would be transparently obvious that I’m being disingenuous and really hoping for the worst. While I have been known to bite my nose to spite my face (that’s in my DNA), I really do hope that the Obama Administration will do well for America.

 

I remain, however, a political cynic.

 

 

4 November 2008: I voted this morning. Heavy turnout; the line was all the way to the front door of the elementary school, something I’ve never seen in eleven years of voting in my precinct. The inside line was a bit shorter for the paper ballot option, so I cheerfully went low tech this time.

 

I have never voted with such a resultant sense of gloom. Tonight I tune in and watch the newsies wet their pants over the prospect of acclaiming Obama The One (while half-pretending to kinda sorta seem objective).

 

From Wondermark. I won’t miss the robocalls. One day we got home and found no less than eight of them on our answering machine.

 

 

27 October 2008: It appears that Mr. Barack Hussein (his middle name is a hush-hush thing, uncomfortably resembling as it does the name of a former Muslim tyrant) Obama, helped greatly by a national Press Corps who is obviously ga-ga in love with him, is going to win the general election next week. (The hapless George W. Bush didn’t hurt matters, either.) This means that the House, Senate and White House will all go to the Democratic Party – a terrible mistake, in my opinion, and something the American electorate doesn’t do very often. It is my belief that Americans, who are generally ignorant about history, will re-learn why this is, hopefully by the mid-term elections in 2010.

 

The House, Senate and White House… I am a conservative Republican (even though these days being politically Independent is a better match for my views), and I wouldn’t even want to see the GOP have this much power. I think compromise is behind the success of the American representational democratic political experiment, and I like politicians to have to fight, argue, scrap and haggle over everything – and, in the end, compromise. I think this results in better laws and public policy. So I am not one of the people whining for comity in Congress. The heck with that. Duke it out!

 

Having lived through eight disreputable years of the Clinton Mis-Administration, it seems like a good idea to catalog the mistakes of the new administration – something I wish I had done the last time a Democrat was (chasing skirt) in the White House. Hence, this Obama File, where I plan to document the follies of incoming administration, and comment.

 

I am one of the many Americans who would earnestly like to be able to vote “none of the above” in the upcoming election. The primaries this time gave us four very inferior candidates. And I am truly stunned by the ridiculous, Oprahesque adulation given to Obama – “the One” and all that messianic nonsense. My political views contain a strong dose of cynicism. Politicians are, after all, only human, and rarely rise to the level of their ceaseless rhetoric. True statesmen are few and far between.

 

Is everyone thrilled about the prospect of a black man coming to presidential power in the United States? I’m not, really. (Remember, I’m a cynic when it comes to politics.) For one thing, only in America can a white person and a black person have a male child and the result be deemed a black man. He could just as easily be called a white man. Secondly, I recall the same sort of racial hoopla when my present state of residence, Virginia, put a black man, Doug Wilder, in office as the governor – the first black man so elected in a former Confederate state. All Doug Wilder tried to do was run for president in 1992. Seriously, if there was any sort of significance behind his term other than symbolic, I’m unaware of it.

 

Perhaps what gives me the greatest pause about an Obama Administration is the fact that, 1.) Our global enemies, terrorists, would prefer him over his much more bellicose opposition candidate, John McCain, and 2.) The Europeans are rooting for him as well. When have the Europeans ever gotten anything right (other than table manners and British comedy)?

 

And so I await the election, when I will trudge to the polls as I always do, pinch my nose tightly, and yet again vote rather against somebody than for somebody.

 

Oh, well. If it makes Michelle Obama proud to be an American I suppose it’s worth it.