By Obama’s appointments shall ye know him
I have said that Obama will show us soon enough how he intends to govern: from the Left or towards the middle. His first acts will reveal more than all the campaign “promises” in the world.
Right now he’s engaged in appointing aides and considering potential Cabinet members, and the press is engaged in speculation. The Left and particularly feminists are up in arms about the rumor that the disgraced and reviled Larry Summers (whose controversial remarks about women at the highest levels of science I analyzed and defended here and here), might be Obama’s choice for Secretary of the Treasury.
If Obama appoints Summers, it might be a signal that he is prepared to defy the most vocal and doctrinaire PC wing of his party. This would be a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
Summers is an abrasive man according to most reports. But his remarks about women and science have been widely mischaracterized and simplified, and then unfairly demonized. He’s widely considered to be a pretty good economist and somewhat of a centrist, and if Obama thinks he’s the best man (or woman!) for the job, then he should defy the left wing of his party and appoint him.
Then again, there’s Jamie Gorelick. Another rumor has been circulating that she might be Obama’s choice for Attorney General. It’s hard to think of a worse one, although with effort it could be done.
Gorelick has a Zelig-esque history of association with disastrous epidsodes. From the erection of the firewall between the CIA and the FBI in the 90’s (see this post for my in-depth study of the lengthy history leading up to that decision), to the debacle at Fannie Mae, to defending Duke against the lacrosse players it had so maligned, Gorelick has been on the wrong side of so many issues it would hardly seem humanly possible that she could still be on a list for consideration for a Cabinet post. And yet there she presumably is.
If Obama appoints Gorelick to the AG post, or John Kerry as Secretary of State (well, why not—after all, the institution is known as “foggy bottom”), that would tell us something about Obama, and it would not be good.
In the meantime, we do know one post Obama has already filled: that of chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Hardly a kindler gentler soul, Emanuel is an exemplar of Chicago-style take-no-prisoners politics.
Some of the buzz about Emanuel brings up an odd association for me: that of Nixon’s chief of staff H.R. Haldeman. The similarities are that both are supposed to be ruthless and abrasive as well as exceptionally tough and loyal, easily able to erect a firewall (shades of Gorelick) between the President and those he wishes to keep out.
One huge difference however, (in addition to the haircut, and the fact that Emanuel is an observant Jew), is that Rahm was a ballet dancer. This has been much remarked upon, since it appears at first blush to be so at variance with his ferocious image. Not a pit bull in lipstick, but a pit bull in tights?
Here’s Rolling Stone’s version of the story:
When Rahm was a boy, his mother forced him to take ballet lessons, and he threw himself into it with the same intensity he would later bring to politics, winning a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet. Friends jokingly theorize that his toughness is actually an outgrowth of being a ballet dancer: With that sort of thing on your resume, you had better be ready to fight if you hope to survive in Chicago politics. “The guy had been a ballet dancer in college,” says Bruce Reed, “yet grown men lived in mortal fear of what he might do to them if they couldn’t get the answer he wanted.”
I agree that male ballet dancers need to be especially tough to deal with the merciless teasing. And in fact all ballet dancers are exceptionally disciplined, at least about their craft. No one gets to be a dancer of any skill without an enormous amount of hard work on a daily basis, and the ability to endure a certain amount of discomfort.
For boys, there is the added stigma of assumptions of homosexuality. Although it is true that gay men are represented in ballet in higher numbers than their percentage in the general population, it is also true that there are quite a few heterosexual men in the field, and Emanuel was/is apparently one of them.
And it’s a little known fact that heterosexual male ballet dancers have it made. If they can take the heat, it’s not a bad kitchen to be in. All those lovely female dancers and so little competition for their favors. So all that teasing is actually quite misplaced.
My guess is that dancing also provided an outlet for Rahm’s intensity. That theory is supported by this:
In person, Emanuel projects the hyperactivity of an attack dog straining at the leash. Although he swims and works out several mornings each week before most of his colleagues are out of bed, the exercise evidently does little to drain his energy—he is constantly fidgeting, gesturing, spinning, always on the move. He’s notorious for driving those around him mercilessly: When he joined Clinton’s campaign team, he reportedly introduced himself by standing on a table and yelling at the staff for forty-five minutes.
Maybe a ballet barre should be installed at the White House to harness a bit more of that energy. I think it might be a first. And speaking of firsts, I believe this is the only post I’ve ever written—or ever will write—that’s been assigned the two categories of “Obama” and “Dance.”
[ADDENDUM: Not a good sign.]
Obama is a leftist radical at heart, but he is willing to be practical to maintain power. Rahm Emanuel understands how to maintain power. For Obama to naturally be a wild-eyed radical at this stage would trigger an enormous backlash against Obama’s revolutionary change. Corruption will trump revolution until there is not so much to lose by revolution.
Gorelick is a rich and powerful insider with enormous influence. She is also a disastrous choice to administer any position of responsibility.
Obama ran as “the great chameleon.” Instead of being honest about what his administration would be like, he put a big “X” in its place, for each voter to instantiate, fill in the blank, shade in the picture.
Obama voters will be slow to admit what morons they have been taken for.
Ironic that you used a poster with the words “Heller” in it, considering Rahm Emmanuel’s activities under the Clinton administration, as well as more recent whispers of what’s to come under the Obama regime, all only months after the Supreme Court ruling of the same name.
“Pit bull in tights!” Brilliant.
This resembles more and more a circus parade alle (sp?).
I can’t believe Obama’s aides would leak the contents of a PRIVATE MEETING between the sitting president and the president elect…………..
Good thing the discussion wasn’t about the secret code numbers to the nucular football.
I have a new name we could use for Jaime Gorelick. Let’s just call her “Typhoid Mary.”
That woman would be a terrible, terrible choice. To afflict the nation with her judgment would exact inestimable harm.
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Gorelick – Emanuel. Remember how much congress complained about the Bush white house not being forthcoming with information. I think the Obama white house weill make Bush’s seem like a sieve. And I wonder how loudly congress and the so-called press will complain?
Wasn’t Gorelick one of those feeding at the Fannie/Freddie trough? Be she had to reapply HER lipstick constantly in those days.
If Obama appoints Jamie Gorelick to AG it will prove to my satisfaction that he has a lot to hide.
Gorelick or Kerry would be a sop to the kook liberal fringe to appease them for appointing Summers. If I read ‘The One’ correctly, he’ll use this as a opportunity to sneak a lefty through while the fawning media is too preoccupied with self-congratulatory orgiastic ecstasy.
Dane, you should know Emmanuel is known to leak like a sieve – strategic leaks which boost Emmanuel’s goals and career. However, I like the appointment of the disciplined and capable and decisive Emmanuel to Obama’s staff. The undisciplined, incapable, indecisive Obama needs someone of Emmanuel’s particular talents. I also like the use of Podesta on the transition team.
Emmanuel has a big job: the 7 days since Nov. 4 foretell disaster for an Obama Presidency.
Obama has misled the PM of Poland; told staff too much and then watched them leak Pres. Bush’ private conversation; watched supposed staff at several levels seemingly announce their own versions of what his policies will be; definitively begun reneging on campaign promises; and already reversed course on “mandatory” national service. No one knows how Obama intends to govern – not even closest aides – and the result reminds of Jewish pagans partying when Charleton Heston as Moses shows up with the Ten Commandments tablets in tow. Emmanuel gets to play Moses in this already wild paganistic scene of aides worshipping their own private gods and partying with primitive abandon. We’re one week post Nov 4, and I already declare FUBAR. Emmanuel is the best bet to actually accomplish an organization of and a disciplining of the scene. It’s a shame he has to to so after only 7 days. It’s not a certainty he will be able to do so. If he wants to have a chance, he must call upon every bit of the considerable ruthlessness at his disposal. After only 7 days, it’s already the only way and the only hope.
To speculate about Gorelick or anyone else for AG at this point is comically premature (though one cannot fault news agencies for indulging in the gossip). I would be disappointed in either Summers or Gorelick — Summers was, to my mind, a sloppy intellectual and hardly one of my favorite presidents of my alma mater, regardless of his anti-feminist gaffe. Gorelick’s baggage is excessive and I agree with you, Neo, it would be a terrible appointment — but as I say, it’s way premature to worry about such things at this stage of the game.
Just a little source material. The text of Summers’ remarks is up on the Web. I don’t think it was when the controversy first emerged. You can read the whole thing here.
After reading it all I don’t think there’s much there for women to be incensed about. Summers did NOT list biological differences as the primary cause of the science/math tenure gap; he was careful to characterize his remarks as designed to stir up questions; and he characterized the existing information as needing much more study. I figure that if there is no innate difference between men and women in their science and math abilities further studies would be a good thing since they’d make that clearer.
There is one cautionary note about all of this: description must never become prescription. Even if it eventually turns out that there truly are more men than women at the high end of science and math ability that does NOT mean there are no women capable of high-end science and math. In other words, statistical probabilities should not bar women (or men) from certain fields.
Elise: Summers bent over backwards to be PC while trying to point to a need for further research into the fact that there are fewer women than men at the very highest elite levels of science. But that didn’t save him from the Feminist Furies.
Obama voters will be slow to admit what morons they have been taken for.
Obama voters are slow.
Larry Summers, Hot Damn! Not only did he piss off the feminists, as if that’s hard to do, but I like his Affirmative Action plans. Especially for more Jewish farmers. As soon as I get my gummit chickens and cows I’m moving to Red territory!
Neo- Too true about the heat in the kitchen. Having been around the Ca.ballet scene for some time now, (two dancer daughters 18 and 13), I’ve remarked to many young guys,”why would any red-blooded guy want to be in sports? This is where the girls are”. No doubt they couldn’t take the heat. Too bad. Dance needs more males.
Emmanuel is certainly tougher having undergone what I’m sure he went through. I just don’t trust his character.
Elise: Summers bent over backwards to be PC while trying to point to a need for further research into the fact that there are fewer women than men at the very highest elite levels of science. But that didn’t save him from the Feminist Furies.
I don’t think I said otherwise and if it sounded like I did, I didn’t mean it. I think from the full text of his remarks it’s pretty clear he’s committed to doing whatever can be done to make sure women get a fair deal.
> It’s hard to think of a worse one, although with effort it could be done.
Not much effort at all… Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers….
Since Gorelick should be brought to trial under the exact same rules which brought the leaders of Enron to the docket, however, it presents obvious issues with him as filling any cabinet position.
> (well, why not–after all, the institution is known as “foggy bottom”)
Yeah, but in his case, that’s no the end that’s foggy.
Nothing the drive-by media does these days should be treated as a joke. They successfully manufactured a sham candidate to be the unqualified president elect. It’s never too early to channel a little sanity. There will be little of it in ‘The One’s’ thugocracy if we judge by the choice of a Gorelick, Kerry, or similarly corrupt figure.
Also troubling…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aNCFKvAMUQ6w&refer
I’d love to see Obama rile some feminists; I think it’d make the divide between him and Hillary legions all the deeper. To quote SNL’s McCain visit, “Go ahead. Fight amongst yourselves.” The leftist special interests groups keep the Democratic party in a continual tug-of-war. The liberal illuminati may turn on their golden boy more quickly than anyone could’ve guessed.
Neo-neocon,
This is completely unrelated to the topic of this thread, so I beg your indulgence – and everyone else’s.
Many months ago during the primary season you called Obama a classic narcissist. And I agreed with you then. And here’s more proof of it. This is a man who will abuse any protocol and human being to get what he wants. By allowing his staffers to divulge the material of discussion he and President Bush were having in the White House the other day, he shows what an evil man he is. He will put on the charm and smiling face to disarm those he wants something from, and when he gets what he wants he then falls back on his own designs.
This is very, very bad news for the nation. He and his people are totally committed to the ethics of expediency. I hate to beat a dead horse, but I must say that I saw this sort of thing among many Leftists I kept company with many years ago. And it may be why I retreated more from keeping company with the activists into books and pondering the critiques of socialist thought. There were so many creepy moments and so many solid facts of history that I was discovering that it just cascaded and multiplied over time until it wore me down.
I have tried to warn many people about what a faulty and immoral movement socialism is. And now we have a leader who does not even have the decency to respect confidential conversations with the man whom they viciously savaged for eight years. They beat him up. Spat on him. Poured salt in his wounds. And then they peed on his carcass. They utterly abused his hospitality and graciousness.
lets see. he is a red diaper baby, with all his parental units being communist. his mentor was a god to communist movement. his other friend is a unrepentant stalinist. his daughter alex, or shall say Sasha, has a russian name. and the list goe on..
however, flakiness is in the air… we have a suposed dec 1st deadline for a birth cert to be presented, while supposedly (flaky), an imam who stole records of the blessing of obama at his birth in kenya (did i mention his uncle with help from the soviets, assisted in the overthrow of the country), and the granting of the name hussein.
oooh boy… if that plays out will there be a coupe?
which is soemthing i mentioned a bit ago. they avoided one bullet by the courts dropping investigating the money issue, now it seems the birth cert issue is not totally dead, not alive either, but it can sprout legs if its not ducked and enough churning happens. the big question is whether something will happen to the person in transit.
on another note, hammas isnt the only one that likes him (and he is dealing with supposedly), but CPUSA is ecstatic, thanks to spreading the wealth.
you guys realize that this may have been the last election depending on how the wind blows… there are SOOOOOOOO many ways to read this and other things that no one can get a handle on it. that in itself is not good, but you can think of dozens of different angles from the hopeful one where he realizes reality and snaps to. to he slams us left with help from the left friends in state. to he is removed from office on a false point that was checked, there are riots and the result is a coupe (or a low simmering civil war under the surface).
and more if you angle it… of course all of them cant work out, some of them can overlap, and it may not be any of them.
hows that for a screwy point in history?
i say he isnt a narcisist, he is a sociopath. duping delight, cargo cult behavior (form without substance), no morals, a foil, etc.
and socialism?
basically one small group of people convince a large group of people that if they say its ok, they will basically steal from (and perhaps kill) other groups of people, and between them they divvy up the spoils, and call it a goodness.
the biggest con in the world, everyone like moonies, gives up all their belonging and leverage and power to a few… who will be better stewards of it than they will, and will not abuse their power.
sure.
To speculate about Gorelick or anyone else for AG at this point is comically premature…
Mitsu — Point taken, though I know some Obama supporters who were downright surprised when Obama selected a discredited, comic windbag to be his VP.
It’s also comically late that we have little idea what sort of people Obama will appoint, since we have little idea what Obama’s intentions are as president–thanks to people like you who just said he’s against the war, he sounds smart, then pulled the lever for Obama a week ago–and where he intends to “rule from” as the co-chair of his transition team comically put it.
To speculate about Gorelick or anyone else for AG at this point is comically premature
Gorelick’s problems are not speculations. They are fact. Something which you need to familiarize yourself with, Mitsu, cause you sure as hell don’t pay much attention to facts.
Gorelick’s baggage is excessive and I agree with you, Neo, it would be a terrible appointment – but as I say, it’s way premature to worry about such things at this stage of the game.
Gorelick’s previous problems and her current problem causing influence are not premature. They are real. As for “worrying” over such things before we need to, I am sure it would be better to simply be caught off guard in the future.
Rahm Emanuel growing stronger from forced ballet – my mental image’s background music is Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue.”
There are two schools of thought concerning the notion that he’s stronger for his experience.
One is the ‘That which does not destroy me, makes me stronger’ school of Nietzsche.
Alternatively, Somerset Maugham said in one of his books that this was nonsense. (Can’t recall which; have to look it up.) He believed people often were warped by the events that tested but did not finish them.
Wit Emanuel, I guess we can assume he’s been in the hot seat long enough that, in his case, Nietzsche is right. On the other hand, maybe the flaws just aren’t apparent yet. Or are too apparent to some.
Personnally, there’s another quote by Maugham that I like that may apply better to Emanuel and the Obama Administration:
“Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by make-believe.”
“there are fewer women than men at the very highest elite levels of science”
Damn, there are fewer women than men at the very highest elite levels of anything, from culinary to tailoring clothes, and the higher the plank is, the bigger is the difference. But math, physics and engineering require especially high performance, so here men/women ratio is especially high. Exactly this Summers tried to explain, when some idiot woman get hysterical and made a fuss.
…Summers was, to my mind, a sloppy intellectual and hardly one of my favorite presidents of my alma mater… –Mitsu
Perhaps this is the source of Mitsu’s never explained certainty that Obama is “extremely intelligence.” Mitsu and Obama are both Harvard graduates.
Let’s just call Jamie Gorelick “9-11 Gorelick” and be done with it. Oh, and pronounce the last name as though it were two words; she helped spill that blood.
No one single American citizen in our history has displayed so much incompetence as to result in so much loss of life and vast loss of treasure. This woman also is the lead counsel for Duke University’s defense against the lawsuits brought by the innocent lacrosse players and coaches against Duke.
Mitsu has cranial rectumitis.