Friday, November 07, 2008

Who's He Gonna Choose?

I'm pretty certain I never attended a whit at this point in the election cycle in the past to who the next electee was appointing to the cabinet and/or staff. I wonder if I will ever be able to return to such a state of ignorance, trust, or innocence. It ain't gonna happen soon, from what I can tell. I sense a distinct need for citizen self-education and involvement. We dare not any longer let our government try to run itself without the critical input of the citizenry. That doesn't work.

I instinctively had strong negative reactions to a couple of the first names floated and even officially in one case now destined for key Obama role. But I'm working on that open-mindedness, mind you, and in that spirit have uncovered counter-arguments for both Messrs Emanuel and Summers.

As for Mr. Rahm, I was quite annoyed with his role in thwarting good-spirited actually liberal and progressive candidates in 2006, in favor of semi-scumbag center-right Democrats-in-name-only (most proceeding to lose their elections). I believe he tried to play bully with Mr. Dean, he of the 50-states campaign (which Rahm I believe mocked) that I have to feel was a big catalyst for the success this week. So the history there is far from uniformly good. He is notoriously hard-charging and, at least in this relative innocent's impression, a product of the Democratic Machine, whatever the hell that might mean.

I offer first the coverage of the NY Times, somewhat gray/bland, as we used to want it:

President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday afternoon that he selected Representative Rahm Emanuel, a fierce and consummate navigator of the capital’s political terrain, as his chief of staff because he has “deep insights into the challenging economic issues that will be front and center for our administration.”

“I announce this appointment first because the chief of staff is central to the ability of a president and administration to accomplish an agenda,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “And no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel.”

A veteran of the Clinton administration and a fellow member of Congress from Illinois, Mr. Emanuel has been a close adviser to Mr. Obama. He informed Mr. Obama of his decision on Thursday morning, saying he would step down as the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives to help guide the Obama administration.

“Now is a time for unity,” Mr. Emanuel said. “I will do everything in my power to help you stitch together the frayed fabric of our politics, and help summon Americans of both parties to unite in common purpose.”

In a statement, he added: “Like the record amount of voters who cast their ballot over the last month, I want to do everything I can to help deliver the change America needs. We have work to do, and Tuesday Americans sent Washington a clear message — get the job done.”

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The selection of Mr. Emanuel, known by some as “Rahmbo” because of his toughness, was met with criticism by some Republican lawmakers. The House minority leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, said in a statement, “This is an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”

But Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who campaigned strenuously for his close friend Senator McCain called it “a wise choice.”

“Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political skills,” Senator Graham said in a statement.

He added: “He’s tough but fair. Honest, direct, and candid. These qualities will serve President-elect Obama well.”

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That somewhat mollifies me, I admit. John Nichols at the Nation (h/t Common Dreams) gets closer to my concerns but also helps me manage my dander:

House Minority Leader John Boehner and other Republican insiders in Washington are griping about President-elect Barack Obama's selection of Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel to serve as White House chief of staff. Emanuel, they complain, is too partisan.

If only that were the case.

Partisan true believers stand strong for the ideals and principles of a party, they want to follow the dictates of the platform and stay in tune with grassroots activists.

That's not a description of Rahm Emanuel.

In fact, Emanuel is the opposite of a partisan. He is someone who has worked very hard for a very long time - first in the Clinton administration and then in Congress -- to change the Democratic party into a more cautious, centrist and compromised institution. As head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, he actually undercut efforts by progressive candidates who had a chance to win in order to advance the candidacies of more conservative candidates who lost.

Why? Because on the most vital issues--economic and trade policy, war and peace, civil liberties--this true believer in the worst compromises of the Clinton era has frequently been at odds with labor and progressive forces within the party.

So how worried should Democrats who want change they can believe in be about Obama's decision to make Emanuel the face of the transition process?

Emanuel is best understood as a disappointing choice rather than a definitional selection.
If Emanuel was in line for a key Cabinet position (Treasury, Commerce, Labor or Agriculture), or for the job of US Trade Representative, there would be every reason to fret. In fact, it might well be appropriate to openly and aggressively challenge the appointment of someone so at odds with Democratic values and policy goals to any of those posts.


But a White House chief of staff is not, traditionally, a policy maker or implementer. Rather, the chief of staff is the member of the president's inner circle who gets things done. A chief of staff who goes against the president's instincts or goals, or who cannot work with people who hold views different from his own, does not last long.

Rahm Emanuel - whose selection owes more to shared Chicago connections than to shared ideology -- is not being brought on to define the Obama administration.

It is Barack Obama's job to do that. Emanuel's job is to make sure that what the president wants done actually gets done. He's good at that, and that is why the new president picked the congressman from his hometown.

Obama wanted someone he knew well, someone he had worked with in the past and someone who he was sure could get the job done to serve as his chief of staff.

He gets all that with Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. But Emanuel is not going to be the president, Obama is. And if this administration adopts Emanuel's compromised positions, it will not be the fault of the chief of staff. It will be the fault of the president.

And then there is Larry Summers, apparently a candidate for Treasury. The last I heard of him he had been chased out of Cambridge for serious abridgement of gender-sensitivity. I took it seriously and had the sense that despite having attained a prominent academic platform for a spell, he had the people-skills of a tarantula. Josh adds on here:

Am I missing something or are there like four or five completely independent reasons not to appoint Larry Summers Treasury Secretary? I'm really having a hard time understanding this one.

Just at the level of optics, since the economy is issue number one right now (and not just the real economy of jobs and living standards but the financial architecture itself) and you're trying to look forward not back, why would you pick someone for Treasury who was not only in the Clinton administration but was actually Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration. Not understanding that.

Next, management shortcomings and controversial statements about women's brains that got him canned as President of Harvard.

And on top of that, the new Treasury Secretary will be charged with instituting a beefed up framework of financial sector regulation. But Summers was a key player in the 1990s deregulatory consensus that laid the groundwork for a lot of these problems. Not that that makes him verboten -- a lot of other people did too. But it does create an element of of cognitive dissonance going into the job.

I'm not sure any of these strikes against would be determinative in themselves. Perhaps each taken together would not be if the crisis of the moment demanded Summers. But is he really the only one available?

I don't mean that in a snarky or denigrating sense. Clearly, Summers is an extremely bright and accomplished guy and a highly respected economist. But really, he's the only person with the economist chops and political instincts to manage this arduous task?

But then there's this (oh that damned "on the other hand" thing!). Freaking nuances, subtleties, and context and all that crap; I thought they were officially abolished once-and-for-all back in September of 2001. I don't feel I can do less than take it at face value (and, ok, it does have that "Huffingpost" stamp!):

Larry has been a true advocate for women throughout his career. In 1992, as Chief Economist of the World Bank, Larry argued in front of the world's Finance Ministers that the highest return investment they could make in their economies was to educate their girls. Through his work, girls' education became a focus for development experts and a topic not just in education ministries, but in financial ministries worldwide.

I first met Larry when I was a junior at Harvard. A friend and I were forming a new student organization, Women in Economics and Government, to encourage women to major in these subjects. We told all of our professors of our efforts and of all of them, the one who helped us the most was Larry. He served as our champion and helped rally the support of his fellow professors behind our efforts. The following year, when I wanted to write my senior thesis on the economics of spousal abuse, Larry volunteered to be my advisor because he recognized the importance of the issue.

I went on to work for him both at the World Bank and at Treasury. At the World Bank, he was a tireless advocate for girls' education. At Treasury, he fought for social security benefits for women working in their homes, better enforcement of child support obligations, and an expansion of child care tax credits. And through all of these years, he was a supportive and deeply caring mentor for me and many other women who had the opportunity to work for him.

Larry has been attacked by some in the women's community for remarks he made about women's abilities. As he has acknowledged himself, this speech was a real mistake. What few seem to note is that it is remarkable that he was giving the speech in the first place - that he cared enough about women's careers and their trajectory in the fields of math and science to proactively analyze the issues and talk about what was going wrong. To conclude that he communicated poorly -- and even insensitively -- is fair. To conclude that he is opposed to progress for women overlooks the fact that improving this progress was precisely the subject he was addressing.


Many people note that our nation has few economists with his intelligence. They should also know that we have few leaders, if any, in the financial world who have done more for women.

So I'm doing what I can to deal with my issues on those two. Here are what seem like two more great impromptu suggestions from the void. Remember the Office of Legal Counsel? I'd heard of it, I guess, but never realized what a critical role it played (or cesspool it could be) until the last couple years:

To be perfectly honest, I don't care all that much who Barack Obama chooses to appoint to the multitude of positions that now have to be filled. I'm confident that he'll choose competent people who generally share his views, at least with respect to the area of government under their charge.

I will make one suggestion, though. Obama should consider appointing Georgetown Law Professor (and prolific legal blogger) Marty Lederman to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

As we saw with the Bush administration, the OLC is a tremendously powerful office. It functions as the chief internal arbiter of legality within the executive branch. After 9/11, John Yoo used his perch at the OLC to authorize a number of illegal activities--from torture to warrantless surveillance--that are not only deeply troubling but have badly damaged America's image in the world. Yoo was allowed to do most of this because the head of the OLC at the time, Jay Bybee, was not familiar with the relevant executive power issues and therefore allowed Yoo to run amok.

To be perfectly honest, I don't care all that much who Barack Obama chooses to appoint to the multitude of positions that now have to be filled. I'm confident that he'll choose competent people who generally share his views, at least with respect to the area of government under their charge.I will make one suggestion, though. Obama should consider appointing Georgetown Law Professor (and prolific legal blogger) Marty Lederman to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.As we saw with the Bush administration, the OLC is a tremendously powerful office. It functions as the chief internal arbiter of legality within the executive branch. After 9/11, John Yoo used his perch at the OLC to authorize a number of illegal activities--from torture to warrantless surveillance--that are not only deeply troubling but have badly damaged America's image in the world. Yoo was allowed to do most of this because the head of the OLC at the time, Jay Bybee, was not familiar with the relevant executive power issues and therefore allowed Yoo to run amok.

When Jack Goldsmith took over the OLC in 2003, he discovered--to his horror--that a multitude of Bush administration programs rested on entirely indefensible legal opinions drafted by the OLC during his predecessor's tenure. He was forced to walk most of them back, a move that caused a major internal dispute within the Bush administration and nearly resulted in the total implosion of the administration just prior to the 2004 election.

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Professor Lederman is exactly the sort of person I would want in charge of this important task. First, he's deeply familiar with all of the relevant executive power issues, having written about them extensively over the last few years. He is also intimately familiar with the workings of the OLC, having worked there from 1994-2002. And most importantly, I think Lederman has a good sense of what the OLC's role should be (i.e., not merely rubber-stamping whatever the president wants to do).

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And bmaz at Firedoglake has a terrific suggestion for Attorney General (I wince at the last name, based on hard-core neo college classmate, hopefully no connection):

The election is nigh 24 hours in the bank, and the rumor wires and scuttlebutt are exploding with discussion of the makeup of President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet and staff to be. Attorney General is a critical post in any administration; but perhaps at no time in the history of the United States as important as at this moment.

The thankless task of recreating the once shining star that was the Department of Justice will take a special skill set from the person chosen to be the next AG. DOJ Main is a festering mess; stocked with Cheney/Bush political lackeys and consiglieri, unqualified and inexperienced Regent plants, and literal criminals that have aided and abetted the evisceration of our Constitution and commission of torture and other war crimes.

A department of expediency over honesty and integrity was grown by the Bushies. From DOJ Main down through the line level career prosecutors in the various District US Attorney Offices, credibility and trust have been felled. The once shining continuity of impartiality, justice and rule of law is in dysfunctional chaos.

Janet Napolitano is the right person, the best qualified and most suited, by far, to meet the daunting challenge ahead at Attorney General.

Napolitano is well versed and experienced with constitutional law and civil rights, having been mentored as the hand picked protege of one of the country’s great Constitutional scholars and authorities, John P. Frank, one of the two legal fathers of the Miranda decision. She has sizable long term experience not only as the Arizona Attorney General (a huge office), but also as chief executive of an entire state government as Arizona Governor. Of critical significance, she was the US Attorney for the District of Arizona for six years under President Clinton, prior to her terms in state office as Arizona's AG and Governor.

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