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Five Ways Obama Has Already Changed Washington
Emmanuel Dunand, AFP/Getty
In a few short weeks, he has ended the score settling tradition, eased Congress' inferiority complex—and made Stephen Colbert welcome again.
President-elect Barack Obama doesn’t take office until January 20, 2009, but his win has already affected the nation’s capital. Here are five indications that Obama has already changed the company town.
1. Competence over competition.
The Bush administration made enemies quickly and made them for life: Dick Cheney wasn't above personally quashing the careers of those who had wronged him. From sitting down with John McCain to appointing a roster of Clinton cohorts to administration positions, Obama has signaled to his colleagues that he is not interested in settling scores or drawing out rivalries that flourished just weeks ago. While his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has reputation for fierce loyalty, one should not confuse that with blind adherence to a party line; he met last week with both conferences in Congress and impressed both sides with his willingness to listen and eagerness to work together. "He and Obama want to do big things," said one Republican attendee who is optimistic about finding ways to work with the administration. "They are not interested in small ball."
2. MoCs are BMoC (Members of Congress are Big Men on Campus).
Relations between the Bush White House and Congress were notoriously frosty—even before Democrats retook it in 2006. With Karl Rove running things, the legislative branch was seen as a hindrance not as an equal branch of government (of which there were actually four by their count, remember?). Now, the White House is stocked with legislators, from the president on down, and they'll be working closely to make the most of their majorities in both houses. This means that congressmen might actually be as important as they think they are. One way to tell: All the attention that's been given to Obama's appointments comes in part from the delicious anticipation MoCs feel for the upcoming confirmation hearings—none of which will be quite the same without Joe Biden, but they probably won't take as long.
3. The press corps has a new dean.
David Broder is, of course, Dean Emerita, but the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet will probably be taking over the daily duties. What do those entail? The unofficial position is part institutional memory, part guardian of journalistic purity: the walking, talking conscience of the press corps, there to remind them that he's just a president. Sweet, already a well-regarded reporter and infamous for her acerbic personality, has been covering Obama for years and never really swooned for him as so many of her colleagues did.
4. The celebrities are coming! The celebrities are coming!
The last eight years have seen only the dimmest stars at Washington events, a phenomenon particularly noticeable the annual White House Correspondents' Association gala, where D.C. journalists often settled for the thrill of seeing an American Idol cast off or a random Republican country star. This year, publicists have already begun making inquiries on behalf of their clients and the event's organizers are prepared for an avalanche of requests when tables go on sale. Will Oprah liven up C-SPAN's usually drab red-carpet pre-show? Will Washington's least fashionable finally have a reason to upgrade from Ann Taylor? At the very least, maybe Colbert will come back.
5. Working in government is cool.
Not "cool again," because for many of the 300,000 or so people who have applied for a job in the Obama administration (there are about 8,000 openings), government has never been cool. Bill Clinton was personally cool, perhaps, but as president he was like the high school prom king who deigned to visit Model United Nations. Obama promises a government identified with the digital age, not red tape.
Wonkette emerita, political junkie, self-hating journalist, and author of Dog Days. She has worked for Time, Mother Jones, Suck, and most recently, Radar. Follow her on Twitter.
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Obama is a breath of fresh air all around...this country needs lifting up right now and he seems to be doing that already and he's not even President yet.
We are going to see such a difference in the way this country is run and I feel we can all be very hopeful about our future in more ways than one.
I am full aware the task he has before him is very very hard, and patience will be required, as we all know....Rome wasn't built in a day!
I do feel very confident in our new President elect and look forward to Jan 20th to see him sworn in.
Interesting that these five items are all positive examples (with the possible exception of the celeb bit- political celebrities are kind of... windy?)
I'm partial for sure, but I can't think of 5 changes Bush made before his 1st inaug., or really 5 *good* ones since. NCLB had promise, until he decided not to fund it. Nothing else comes to mind.
Oh- guest workers. What ever happened to that?
And I agree with Cajola- right now is a good time to be an idealist.
He has already done so much good for this country just
It's nice to see DC working together again. I just hope it last. Mr. Obama has a long row to hoe.
Many Americans, especially younger ones, are getting their first taste of what a team of people consisting (for the most part) of the brightest and the best looks like. Granted, it doesn't always end up working out, and often the reality of making great things happen is a LOT stickier than the public is generally aware of, but that much talent and ability working together is a thrilling thing to behold, no matter what arena it's in. Let's hope this administration 'supergroup' is more like Led Zeppelin or Cream, and less like The Highwaymen (which included Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson) or The Dirty Mac (which produced a grand total one (albiet BRILLIANT) performance for 'Rock and Roll Circus', and one shitty Yoko Ono backing track).
David Broder is a woman?
Good things, all.
Perhaps the most effective yet subtle change we can attribute to Obama and his "flow" is our renewed belief that CHANGE can actually happen.
The idea that "if something doesn't work, we can fix it" is back in style.
Right on.
I'm caught up in this too. I am an old man and I have never been this excited about a new administration in my life. And so many others on line have expressed that feeling. There are right wingers and just plain nuts who are complaining about everything.I can feel for them a little because I found myself in total despair--at least until 2007 when Grandma Pelosi showed her new gavel to her grandchildren. It is like we have had two years to prepare for this. I feel like I am part of a brand new nation. I cannot even feel embarrassed about this new feeling.
Depending on which criteria used, Obama is the first 'Generation X' president. Also, there seems to have been a generational skip, with both Bill Clinton and GWB born in 1946, and Obama in 1961, skipping the 1950's. There were similar jumps when Kennedy, Carter and Clinton were elected. Kennedy's was the most significant, being not only the 2nd youngest at the time, but the first president born in the 20th century (almost post WW1).
6. Notice to the supreme court. We have a constitutional Lawyer in the Oval office. Boys and girl, be on your P's, and Q's.
Coming in at No. 7 -
Barack and Michelle bump each other. And in public, too!
A RESPONSE TO: "Obama promises a government identified with the digital age, not red tape." I've been a supporter of President Obama, worked on his Rapid Response Network since the beginning, and I am now going into my second month of trying to reach someone in the Obama camp regarding my contribution song for their Inaugural Ball. I'm beginning to see every star and famous celebrity listed on websites as performers and attendees. Apparently, they can get through to our new president, but what about the little guy? I've written to all the website addresses that have been provided for contacting President Obama, as well as setting up my webpage on the Obama-Biden "official website". After 60 days of trying to make contact with the Obama camp, with NO RESULTS, I'm beginning to feel as though big government is STILL not so accessible after all. What will it take to get this message out to President Obama? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tia253AMjHA
A sixth way Obama has changed Washington is that he has changed a snide, satirical critic, Ana Marie Cox, into a
starstruck sycophant.
StarDust, you poor fellow. You drank the Obama koolaid, chanted "Yes we can", and never really took an objective look at the Community Organizer. He has a history of using people and then dropping them, or even turning against them.
Look for another hero to idolize.
Forget going Big. Go HUGE. Even Ban Ki Moon, SecGen UN, is calling for a Global Green New Deal. Suppose we turned 1/2 the War-so-called-Defense moneys to getting solar panels on every gov building in the nation solar panels over every parking lot in the nation in 2 years. The key is the ramping up the methods for getting small amounts of power into the grid.
Our commitment to Green (NOT ethanol -- we're already at Peak Soil) has to be napoleon/alexander/caesar/machiavelli/we gotta conquer green in desperate profligate haste. No joke. Green is the new Gaul.
Forget rocket science -- Here we come solar science. THEN I would know that DC has been changed.
Too much forgiveness is not a cool thing .. The vile things Hillary, Bill and those those two over there on the other side shouldn't have been forgiven for their conduct ... it's demoralizing that Obama rolled over so quickly and easily.
Now, he in turn won't be forgiven by those who supported, contributed to and voted for him.
When you write that Cheney quashed the careers of those who wronged him, don't you really mean "disagreed" with him?
It's hard to believe anyone could "wrong" Cheney. No one is as vile as he is except for one other person.
Funny, Obama is so quick to forgive, but we can invade a defenseless country and cause the violent deaths of over a million Iraqis because we couldn't forgive them oddly enough for 9-11 .... No genius inside the beltway minded then ...
Fear is the key, Republicans in contrast to Obama
In the L.A. Times, Neal Gabler has an article that analyzes exactly what "conservative" Republicans have been doing, tracing their strategy back to Senator McCarthy, not to Senator Goldwater, who in 1964 lost in one of the biggest landslides in American electoral history and wrested the party from its Eastern establishment wing.
According to Gabler, the myth tells how Nixon co-opted conservatism, talking like a conservative while governing like a moderate, disenchanting true believers. Ronald Reagan, next, embraced it wholeheartedly, becoming the patron saint of conservatism and making it the dominant ideology in the country, even though he didn't practice it in terms of fiscal responsibility or size of government. George W. Bush picked up Reagan's fallen standard and "conservatized" government even more thoroughly than Reagan had, cheering conservatives until his presidency came crashing down around him. That's how Gabler believes the mythology tells it.
Gabler's thesis is that the real connection is from Sen. Joe McCarthy, to Nixon to Bush and possibly now to Sarah Palin. McCarthy attacked alleged communists and the Democrats whom he accused of shielding them, as well as the centrist American establishment, Eastern intellectuals and the power class, many of whom were Republicans, including moderate ones. McCarthyism became a means to play on the anxieties of Americans, convincing them of danger and conspiracy even when they didn't exist, which he used to build power and support. George H.W. Bush used it to get himself elected, terrifying voters with Willie Horton (and denigrating Dukakis as a commander-in-chief). His son used fear of 9/11 and convincing voters that John Kerry was a coward and a liar and would hand the nation over to terrorists, tried and true McCarthy tactics used very aggressively, and W. then used fear and stealth in pushing through totalitarian unconstitutional measures. The thread continued through McCain and then Palin, probably through Rove (who also coached W.), and I quote from Gabler, "That's why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama's relationship with onetime radical William Ayers."
What Gabler believes is that, because of this tradition, the Republican Party will continue to move rightward. Fear and blame; rabble-rousing; the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys and Bill O'Reillys; and now Palin. This is the direction the Party will take. Probably because it cannot be believed as the party of small government or fiscal responsibility or moral integrity; all credibility lost in the harsh reality of events; at least not until people forget and these actualities become memories and fade. It is a dangerous approach because it incites people to do violent things, especially as times become more stringent.
It is, I believe a shame, because some of the original precepts of fiscal responsibility and keeping government out of peoples' lives and moral integrity are well worth preserving. The Republican Party which stood for those princples was a Grand Old Party. But, I hate to say it, those are all too easily trumped by fear-mongering and, I might add, difficult to achieve. I would nominate the Republican Party today as the Party of Fear, as opposed to the Party of Solutions. And, if that's the direction it's going in, yes, it's a shame.
The consistent thing about guys like Jeb Bush, in line with the old Republican philosophy, is to be against something, not for it; to be in a position to scare people, not to advocate good positive things. Putting people and ideas down is the tack they have taken; witness McCain's whole campaign; witness Sarah's natural proclivities. So Jeb Bush starts off by surfacing and proposing that the Republicans start a "shadow government" to watch, and criticize, and follow what Obama's Administration does closely. What bothers me about this, deeply, I might add, is the fact that it is not being supportive in any way. No one is saying, if we want to survive, we have to work together, guys. No, the implication is that "they" (Democrats) are the enemy. And in this terrible time, when the country is literally falling apart, and everybody is unsettled, these isolated Republicans are settling in to be critical. As if they aren't losing their savings, too; as if they are exempt; as if, should the country really fail, they wouldn't be affected. Quite a blind spot. isn't it. They aren't even pretending to help, to support, to work with their counterparts to make things better for everybody, themselves included. How antedeluvian, how "old school", how traditional, how like McCarthy and all of the Republican demogogues, to stand back and continue criticizing the Democrats who are working very hard, very earnestly, to fix what went wrong with this country. So Jeb Bush is nothing more than another toxic Republican, joining in the long line of negative right-wing naysayers and destroyers, no better than Limbaugh and Hannity and O'Reilly. Pretty disgusting, I'd say. Stand on the sidelines and criticize while the Titanic goes down; criticize everything the crew and captain does. Disgusting, guys, absolutely disgusting.
For more, see: www.ocpatriot-runningcomments.blogspot.com.
Is anyone other than me angry about this subject?
A Christmas present from our outgoing POTUS:
I have sent the following to both of my Senators and my Congressman. Please do the same and let's get something going to put a stop to rewarding wealthy, incompetent CEO that have already made millions using questionable, if not illegal, practices..
Dear Senator, Congressman,
There are reports that loop holes were added to the financial bailout that basically eliminates the control over CEO compensation. The reports indicate the only CEO under scrutiny are those companies that sold troubled assets to the government, which is zero or a small portion.
If this is true and these CEO are being 'handed' taxpayer dollars, them we will begin a movement to fire all Senators and Congressmen in office, regardless of whether they voted for this package and refuse to step in and put a stop to this situation.
Barack Obama needs to do one more thing before it is to late for the people who elected him.He needs to take a page out of the book of every Nation on earth that has an elected government, LEAD the Nation as the elected leader. Barack Obama won, not the Confederate republicans, Barak Obama won & needs to take control like any other leader os a freely elected nation would & LEAD!!!!!!! We don't need 60 votes, 50 plus the VP is all we need to bring this Nation back to where it & who it belongs to, the vast of what is left of the middle & lower income people, not the religious & wealthy class that republican represent. LEAD Mr. President, forget this ets do everything together crap, Newt & Tom are laughing at you. LEAD Mr. President the way the Confederate right did for 12 years while they destroyed the lower & middle class earners of the Country. Lead Mr. President before the jealous that surround you build the power to stop you.....
Thank you.
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