Is everyone lawyer’d up now?

Since I spent one miserable year of my life running a law office for a blowhard bag o’ batshit attorney in San Diego, I pay attention to legal news. Today we find Obama’s team members who visited recently with Patrick Fitzgerald did in fact lawyer up for the event, which I don’t blame them for one bit.

Rahm went local, as in a DC barrister. From the BLT:

Obama’s transition team tells Legal Times that Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, has hired W. Neil Eggleston, a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton. Eggleston and Emanuel briefly served together in the Clinton administration in the early 1990s, when Eggleston was associate counsel to the president and Emanuel was a senior adviser.

Eggleston specializes in securities litigation, white-collar defense, and internal investigations. He has represented President George W. Bush’s former political director, Sara M. Taylor, in the investigation of U.S. attorney firings. He also represented former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and he helped President Bill Clinton during Kenneth Starr’s investigation.

Eggleston has friends in high and low places wouldn’t you say?

Valerie went with a Chicago firm. Again from the BLT:

Jarrett, set to be a senior adviser in the Obama White House, has hired Vincent Connelly, a partner in Mayer Brown’s Chicago Office, according to the transition team. Connelly is a former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. According to his online biography, “His criminal trial experience includes cases involving securities, antitrust, government contract and program cases, RICO, commercial and financial frauds, FCPA, and public corruption.”

He doesn’t seem to have any political ties like the dude representing Rahm does. Lawyers..can’t hang em, can’t do without em..ya know?

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Rahm and Obama-both part of the Chicago Machine.

TAP has an interesting read up that gives us a little history of Rahm Emanuel and Obama with regard to the infamous Chicago Machine, aka the Daley family and their place in it.

I personally have never been a fan of Emanuel’s. He ran the DCCC which hates liberal ideology with a passion as witnessed by the fact that many times they refuse to fund liberal candidates when there is a centrist democrat running for the same office.

Emanuel loves big business. He adores it in fact. He is a member of the New Democrat Coalition which professes it’s love for all things centrist and pro-business. From the TAP writeup:

So why is Obama hiring Emanuel as chief of staff? Probably for the same reason Daley hired him way back in 1989. He’s ruthless, cunning, and absolutely unafraid to be a jerk. In fact, I think Emanuel enjoys being a jerk. Moreover, by being a jerk, I predict Emanuel will do a great service for Obama. By the time Emanuel is finished irritating, humiliating, and infuriating folks in Washington, Obama will look like an angel. People will probably like him even more just because he’s not Emanuel.

That doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy, not by a longshot. As a Progressive, I am reserving judgment of Obama until he actually does something as our 44th President. But I tell ya…Rahm doesn’t like liberals, not one damn bit. But he does love the corporatocracy.

And that bothers me…a lot.

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red rum

So it is finally over, or is it? True, I was wrong about whom I thought would win based on a history of 43 prior white men, but as for my reasoning I was not. This past 22 months has reinforced all of the positions I have laid out in text from my dissertations regarding the economy to why we as human being must obviate race from our lexicon if we can, for although this past week was historic, and the world now see America in a different light, we still see ourselves in the same fashion, well at least many of us do.

First, it is obvious that many folk prefer to emote in contrast to think. I was hard on McCain (but this was ok). Unfortunately I was just as hard on Obama (but for many this was not). I have never approached any subject matter with respect to feeling with the exception of family, my children and how I would treat my woman. Oh, and food. But with respect to politics, I have never based any decision on feeling. This has lead me to understand than many folks make selections based on feeling when I make my as a function on thinking. For I know that if there was no TV or Radio, and folks were forced to read the history and positions of the Republican and Democratic selections for this past election - you would have seen that there were basically no difference between the two and that they were more similar than dissimilar. I also learned that many folks tend to vote for the individual whereas I vote for the policy positions.

True Obama won, and I’m pleased with that, but American may be in the same position historically it has always been. Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Georgia, Utah, Montana and Idaho among others still remain GOP and in strong support of the divisive politics that have historically been a function of race (many in the South). And I know folks don’t like to use history to project future speculation and to form opinion - but I do. These states have been red for the longest and no end seems to be coming soon.

I feel that yes this is historic, but also may reflect a change - a regression for many back to the time before the civil rights movement. Yes, 40 years ago a great man was killed for bringing change. I just don’t know what will be, given what i feel will be major conundrums quick fast and in a hurry for the new president jones:

• Russia: This may be the first head bump for Jones. Russia (Putin) is making a fat cat move to buy allegiance from Latin American states that are right in our own backyard. Plus they mad because of our decision to deploy elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. So as a result, they have decided to place some similar equipment in Cuba - or so they say.
• Economy: Many would like to infer that Obama’s victory brought back extreme volatility to the market, with the Dow Jones industrials falling 480 points and the major indexes tumbling more than 5 percent. After Tuesday night. True some may be pulling loot out as a form of fear, but truth as I have written before, this will continue for a couple of few administrations, irregardless of who had won. He will have to tackle this and his tax cuts, during a recession don’t make much micro or macro economic sense, but it sounds good to the voter. So he will need to foster the gumption to show how smart folk really think he is, for short term tactics as taking loot from the rich wont pay for nothing, nor do jack, when the deficit is approaching a trillion dollars; oh and did I say he wont be able to end the war as quickly as he proposed?
• Middle East: It will be difficult for Obama to end the war as he said. Especially since his chief of staff was one of the folks that assisted and motioned that we start a war with Iraq and has a desire to start one with Iran - Israeli Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives as the Democratic Caucus chairman, will be returning to the White House, where he served as a political and policy adviser to Clinton.

Which brings me back to thinking over feeling. I as many feel that America has changed. But looking the states that McCain carried, what I call the redrum states to honor one of my favorite movies of all time, the Shining, it won’t be easy. These folks will fight tooth and nail against him, even when it may benefit the commonwealth. For unfortunately, his victory has also brought back the zealots, the folks if they don’t like the color of your skin, will post up outside your crib and chase you with an ax and string you up from a tree. Yes this is historic, but the history he has fostered via victory, has only begun. Let’s just hope it does not assist in bring back the attitudes many thought were no more, and that some as myself - feel are merely dormant.

Had a ball talking politics with 12kyle at shop yesterday.

Crossposted from Torrance’s blog RawDawg Buffalo.

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Obama fills two positions..Merkley wins in Oregon

Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs have accepted positions in President Obama’s White House staff. From Politico:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a wily, aggressive West Wing strategist under President Bill Clinton, has accepted the post of White House chief of staff for President-elect Barack Obama, Democratic officials tell Politico.

The selection is the first major public decision by Obama since he was elected in a landslide on Tuesday.

The announcement will send a signal that Obama is eager to work with Congress, and plans a swift launch of an aggressive agenda that will focus on the economy, taxes, energy, education and health care.

Obama plans to move briskly with his transition announcements and has also decided on longtime aide Robert Gibbs as his White House press secretary. Democratic sources say he also could make quick decisions on his economic and national security teams.

I find it curious that Emanuel would give up on his desire to become House Speaker. He will also have to move his family out of Chicago with this new job. Emanuel is actually two years older than Obama. Emanuel was one of the architects of the 2006 Congressional races that saw the Dem’s win a majority in both the House and the Senate.

Oregon’s Jeff Merkley has been called as the winner in Oregon….oh happy days!

Tags: Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Jeff Merkley

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Circling the Wagons vs. Bootstrap Democracy

I can’t say I’m surprised by this, but I was hoping for better out of Pelosi. Actually, after reading that, and thinking about stuff like “off the table“, etc., hoping for better seems idiotically optimistic.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “is reported to be privately talking about Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the House Democratic Caucus chairman, as the next senator from Illinois if Sen. Barack Obama wins the presidential election,” according to Robert Novak.

“The same source said Pelosi indicated that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer would be her eventual successor as speaker, even though she opposed his election to the second-ranking leadership position. Emanuel has been widely mentioned as the speaker of the next decade.” - Political Wire

Remember this?

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and the leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have clashed angrily in recent days in a dispute about how the party should spend its money in advance of this fall’s midterm elections.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who is leading the party’s effort to regain majority status in the House, stormed out of Dean’s office several days ago leaving a trail of expletives, according to Democrats familiar with the session.

The blowup highlights a long-standing tension that has pitted Democratic congressional leaders, who are focused on their best opportunities for electoral gains this fall, against Dean and many state party chairmen, who believe that the party needs to be rebuilt from the ground up - even in states that have traditionally been Republican strongholds. - Wapo, May 11, 2006

Oh, yeah, Rahm was the epitome of ‘pissed off fucker’ over Dean’s 50-State Strategy. Shumer too, although he’s more for the smoky back room resolutions rather the apoplectic in-your-face rage technique. Two words, kids:

Old School.

Voters who want the real change the Obama campaign talks about best listen up. Congress is not going to deliver that if their response to retaking the Whitehouse under Obama consists of packing the power positions with people heavily invested in maintaining business as usual in DC. The crap we want to clean up is stubborn and isn’t going to come out easily.

Pay attention and vote accordingly. We have just as much responsibility to police this mess as Obama. If we truly want to eliminate the practices that kill our democracy, we must participate and cut this self preservation crap off at the knees. You think fat cats go quietly into the good night?

Oh, hell no.

We’ve got butts in the butter (to steal a phrase from Peggy Noonan, of all people). They’re sliding around in influence, oozing with power, and dripping with cash. Obama is not the magic genie cure-all for decades of insular decadence. He’s offered to lead, but we have to participate in the solution.

Democracy by the bootstraps. Are you up for it?

Crossposted at Bring It On!

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