What’s The Beef?

What exactly is behind the current Center For American Progress/Matthew Yglesias/Third Way beef?  Seems acting CAP CEO Jennifer Palmieri (regular CEO John Podesta is currently otherwise occupied heading Barack Obama’s transition team) took exception to an Yglesias post on his CAP Think Progress blog critical of Third Way.  Politico’s  Ben Smith writes:

Matthew Yglesias, who now blogs on the website of the Center for American Progress, wrote Friday that Third Way, another Democratic group, puts out “shallow” policy and that its domestic agenda is “hyper-timid incrementalist bull***.” This isn’t the worst thing anyone ever said about anyone else on the Internet (“incrementalist” hasn’t always been a fighting word), but executives at the nonprofits seem to have taken it pretty seriously: In an unusual, unexplained move, the acting CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Jen Palmieri, posted an item to Yglesias’s blog expressing the group’s “respect for their critical thinking and excellent work product.”

“[W]e look forward to working with them in the future,” Palmieri wrote.

Yglesias himself doesn’t seem to think it’s any big deal, but a lot of  friends of his apparently do.  From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, who calls Palmieri’s action a “Major Error in Judgment:”

In any case, I think it would be reasonable for CAP, if they had some institutional disagreement with what Matt wrote to say so on their front page or perhaps say so on some CAP company blog, if there is such a thing. I can’t think of an example where I’ve done that. But if someone who writes at TPM wrote something I strongly disagreed with, I don’t think I would refrain from doing a post on TPM saying I disagreed with them. But forcing a post onto the person’s own blog, their own editorial turf, completely undermines the whole organization’s credibility and all the writing that gets done at the site and frankly for the whole organization — which is too bad, since a lot of it is extremely good.

Given CAP’s Clintonian influence; founded by former Bill Clinton Chief of Staff Podesta, claimed by Hillary Clinton, who says she helped found the group and Media Matters, and DLC’s Third Way philosophy, you might think any objection to support for the Third Way organization might just be another example of Clinton Derangement Syndrome rearing it’s ugly head on a slow news day.  Maybe the idea that any Clinton-inspired group so entrenched in the Obama White House is “looking forward” to working with another Clinton-affiliated group is just too much for the already put upon “progressive” wing of Left Blogistan to take.

Or, maybe they’re finally waking up to the fact that the currently vacationing “Actor-In-Chief-elect” is just a TelePrompTer reading, SAG quality, West Wing inspired, front man for the only real power brokers the Democrats have put forth in decades.

RahmBlago’s Woman Problems

Blagojevich spin:  I wanted to appoint Lisa Madigan to Barack Obama’s Senate seat to get her out of my hair, but Team O went ballistic and insisted on Valerie Jarrett.  Rahm Emanuel really wanted Jarrett because he didn’t want her competing with him for the president’s attention in Washington.

Obama spin:  We just wanted a qualified person to fill the seat, who that person would be was entirely up to the governor.  As far as we know, no one on our staff said otherwise.

So, who’s telling the truth?  Truth?  What’s that, you say?  What we know from the press is that Barack Obama’s team seems committed to the “what, who me?” defense; according to ABC, the much bally-hooed internal investigation absolves both Team O and Rahm Emanuel of any impropriety, since Rahm only had a total of 5 perfectly innocent contacts with Blago or his boys.

However, the Washington Times says that the “one” direct contact between Blags and Rahm wasn’t quite as clean as Team O might wish:

Mr. Emanuel did contact the governor’s office about the appointment, and left Mr. Blagojevich with the impression that he was pushing Valerie Jarrett, a close Obama friend, so he wouldn’t have to compete with her in the White House for Mr. Obama’s attention, said a source close to Mr. Blagojevich. The source requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to talk about the governor’s discussions regarding the vacancy.

But, as we discussed yesterday, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown hints in the San Francisco Chronicle that Rahm’s suggestion might have been offered as a counter solution to the one Blago had in mind:

I can’t go into details, but my impression is that the whole mess started because the governor had been considering appointing a political rival, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, to the Senate so she wouldn’t be able to run against him when he went up for re-election in 2010.

So, where are we?  Blago says he had specific plans for the vacant Senate seat; sensible plans considering the enduring enmity between him and all things Madigan, until Rahmbo inserted himself into the process, making “polite” demands with only vague promises of “appreciation” in return.  If that is the case, “fuck that” is a reasonable response.  It’s also plausible, because if Rahmbo was indeed operating outside of Team O’s official purview, or more likely, charged with making it seem as if he were, Rahm would have nothing concrete to offer.  Similarly, Blagojevich would have no incentive to cooperate.

Whatever the motives and machinations involved, we may never know the full extent of Team O’s complicity, given that they don’t have to release any documentation associated with their investigation.  According to Politico:

But for now, a spokeswoman for President-elect Barack Obama said the transition team was not covered by a public information law that Politico cited in requesting copies of Obama staffers’ emails and notes about Blagojevich’s efforts to fill the Senate seat Obama vacated after winning the presidency.

Asked if the team would voluntarily release the records, the spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, was non-committal. “Let’s wait and see what we put out after our internal review,” she told Politico. “I don’t even know if there’s any correspondence to be had, so one step at a time.”

As we know from the Camp Obama response to questions of donor fraud, they’re not likely to do anything they don’t have to do.  Besides, Obama’s internal investigation, worthless in the best of circumstances since it’s hardly likely to be impartial, is exponentially worthless-er given their lack of access to any official pertinent information, like, say, oh, maybe, at least 16 other wiretapped conversations and stuff.  From the  Associated Press:

An official familiar with Obama’s internal review said the president-elect’s team wrote their report without having access to transcripts of the FBI’s taped conversations. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the review publicly.

Looks like Rahm’s headed out the door and under the bus.