Office of the President Elect? What’s next, Office of the President In-Training? Complete with little wheels? Then Office of the President In-Crisis? With a seal of Mr. Bill screaming, “oh, nooooooo!”? All leading to Office of the President of the World! That one comes with an embossed global seal of Obama in full Burger King regalia sitting on an ornate throne with a lion and a lamb at his feet and a serpent under the left one. All hail!
Heh, heh, heh.
Ah, the Dawning of the New Day has arrived! We are standing on the precipice of deliverance from all oppression, despair, and yucky stuff. Oh, yes, Barack Obama will now lead us to betterness. Like all Americans, I want the next president to succeed. However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to fervently praying for just one good “told ya so” smack upside the head moment to rub in the face of all the balloon heads who voted for pr driven campaign slogans of “hopey-changey-happy-happy” as if that had something to do with actually governing this country out of the hell or handbasket we’re riding so jubilantly toward. And even if “hopey-dopey-happy-crappy” really was a governing strategy, how on earth could a dour, humorless theoretician who’s natural reaction to anything is “Umm, uh, let me think about it and consult with some smart people” lead us skipping trippingly to NeverLand? But anyway, like I said, good luck with that. Because where we once could limit repercussions-suffering to Obots, what happens from now on is on all our heads.
And, oh, are we in for some fun, fun, fun. While everybody was busy watching the Obamessiah’s “happy-changey” right hand, nobody was paying attention to what his (dominant) left hand was doing; which is basically flexing for the screwing we’re going to get. If Obama has his way, we’re all about to get “volunteered.” Media Matters quibbles that Obama’s “we need a Civilian National Security force” statements refer to expanding existing programs:
Summary: On Bob Grant’s radio show, Ann Coulter suggested that President-elect Barack Obama’s “civilian national security force” would lead to “a lot more Waco raids, Elian Gonzalez snatchings.” In fact, Obama’s comments about the necessity of a “civilian national security force” referred to expanding the Foreign Service, AmeriCorps, and the Peace Corps.
Their point is that Obama’s comments were taken out of context. Hmmm, where have I heard that before? Anyway, here’s the whole July 2, Colorado Springs, “Call To Service” speech, with the money quote coming at about 16:42, judge for yourself.
Whatever it means, Examiner.com says Obama’s new Chief of Staff agrees with it. Quoting from Rahm Emanuel’s book, “The Plan: Big Ideas For America:”
It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. …
Here’s how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They’ll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we’re hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities’ most pressing needs.
Obama and his running mate, now veep-elect, Jo(k)e Biden, believe in community service, too. For college students:
Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.
For seniors:
Retired Americans have a wide range of skills and knowledge to contribute to local and national public service efforts. Obama and Biden will engage more interested seniors into public service opportunities by expanding and improving programs like Senior Corps to connect seniors with quality volunteer opportunities.
Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. They will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama and Biden will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.
Just about everybody. Now, I’m all for doing my part, but “volunteering” for government stuff is spooky. Especially when you remember Michelle Obama saying this:
“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual – uninvolved, uninformed.”
Oh, happy, happy, joy, joy. Bring on the freakin’ prancing unicorns, will ya?
That’s my prediction; when all is said and done, the Obama administration will look like the VIP section of Comiskey Park . The selection of Rahm (Take Your Knitting And Shove It) Emanuel is the first step in that South Side headed direction. Other names to look for, in my opinion, will be Valerie Jarrett, William Daley, and Jamie Dimon, to name a few. AP reports Obama will be meeting with his finance committee Friday, Dimon and Daley, both of JP Morgan Chase, are on it, as well as Chicagoan Penny Pritzger.
Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden were to meet Friday with 17 members of their transition economic advisory board. Members include former presidential Cabinet officials and executives from Xerox Corp., Time Warner Inc., Google Inc. and the Hyatt hotel company. Investor Warren Buffett was participating by telephone.
In a July 28, CBS News article, Obama’s finance team was partially named thusly:
The list of attendees was long and impressive: Warren Buffett participated by phone; former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.; JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, former SEC Chairman under President Bush, William Donaldson; Chairman of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi; Former Treasury Secretary under Bush, Paul O’Neill; Former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, Robert Reich; Google CEO, Eric Schmidt; AFL-CIO President John Sweeney; former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, among others.
Dimon’s name has been floated as possible Secretary of Treasury, Google it, the stories are numerous. Jarrett has already been named to Obama’s transition team according to the Telegraph:
In one of his first appointments, Mr Obama named Valerie Jarrett – an African American businesswoman, senior advisor and close family friend – as one of the leaders of his White House transition team.
Transition team appointee John Podesta is also a Chicagoan, while Pete Rouse, the other team member named by the New York Times, is linked to Obama through Harvard Law. I expect that most of Obama’s administration will be made up of Harvard and Stanford alumni and/or Chicagoans. Pay no attention to the media insistence on Clinton links, they’re coincidental. Also look for the names David Axelrod, David Plouffe and Austan Goolsbee to be prominent in the coming days. One prominent Obama supporter with University of Chicago ties, Lawrence Lessig, just might not make the cut. It’s a very telling toss-up on that one. At any rate, the Hyde Park-ization of the Democratic party will soon be extensive and dramatic, unless I’m wrong. In that case, Obama’s cabinet will be entirely different. But I don’t think so. Like the move of DeaNC headquarters in June, “Washington to Chicago” is likely the “change” Obama has always been talking about.
PUMA site after PUMA site, mine included, repeatedly warned Republicans not to fall for the tactics employed by “Axelrod’s Tools of Astroturfing,” i.e., the mainstream media and the bullies of the blogosphere. We told you they would try to create a culture of inevitability designed to suppress Republican enthusiasm and voter turnout. We told you we would do our part and vote against the Democratic ticket, “Country Before Party” was the PUMA rallying cry. Did the Republicans listen? No. And I blame Karl Rove.
For some reason, the Republican leadership was perfectly content to let this one go; hell, that’s why John McCain got the nod in the first place. But cross-partisan Americans could have prevented an Obama presidency if Republicans had held up their end of the bargain. However, it seems that cross-partisanship the other way held sway. Karl Rove and Donna Brazile have had a weird kind of “strange relationship” since at least 2000. From Donna’s website:
Last year, following the Supreme Court intervention in the 2000 presidential campaign, I called my friend and Bush chief strategist Karl Rove to wish him well. I offered to send him a map of Washington, DC and recommended that the President sit down early with Mayor Tony Williams and with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. He listened and I appreciate Karl’s tenacity and commitment to making things happen. We also talked about cooking — one of my favorite hobbies when I am not running around stirring the pots and cooking up ways to win a campaign.
Karl and I met over a year ago at a small restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire. Like most political operatives who meet for the first time, we made a bet on the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. Karl also likes a hot kitchen, so we bet on a meal. The winner would cook his/her favorite dish; the loser would probably pick up the tab. Back in December, Karl reminded me that it was time to get back to cooking. We planned the menu: I’ll stir up some Louisiana-style Creole — red beans and andouille sausage. Karl will likely provide some Texas-style chili and rice. With the election no longer in doubt, and two Southerners in the kitchen, all we have to agree to is who will fry the chicken.
Then a couple of days before the election Rove wrote this:
The final Rove & Co. electoral map of the 2008 election cycle points to a 338-200 Barack Obama electoral vote victory over John McCain tomorrow, the largest electoral margin since 1996. All remaining toss-up states have been allocated to the candidate leading in them, with Florida (27 EV) going to Obama, and Indiana (11 EV), Missouri (11 EV), North Carolina (15 EV), and North Dakota (3 EV) going to McCain. The two candidates are in a dead heat in Missouri and North Carolina, but they go to McCain because the most recent polls conducted over this past weekend show him narrowly ahead. Florida, too, could end up in McCain’s column since he’s benefited from recent movement in the state.
However, CNN had this to say about the actual voter turnout:
“A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican voters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout,” the report said. Compared to 2004, Republican turnout declined by 1.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent, while Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 points from 28.7 percent in 2004 to 31.3 percent in 2008.
If Republicans had just matched their 2004 totals and added a lousy 1.4 percent, or maybe held on to those “Obamacans” who voted for “hope and change,” we’d be talking about President-elect McCain right now. So, to those Republicans who care, don’t blame us. We did all we could.
And then some.
