Despite Obama's promises, rival views are scrubbed from White House

[balantz]

Despite Obama's promises, rival views are scrubbed from White House
DAVID SIROTA, Creators Syndicate

Friday, February 6, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/sirota/


Only weeks ago, the political world was buzzing about a "team of rivals." America was told that finally, after years of yes-men running the government, we were getting a president who would follow President Abraham Lincoln's lead, fill his administration with varying viewpoints, and glean empirically sound policy from the clash of ideas. Little did we know that "team of rivals" was what George Orwell calls "newspeak": an empty slogan "claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts."

Obama's national security team, for instance, includes not a single Iraq war opponent. The president has not only retained President George W. Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, but also 150 other Bush Pentagon appointees. The only "rivalry" is between those who back increasing the already bloated defense budget by an absurd amount and those who aim to boost it by a ludicrous amount.

Of course, that lockstep uniformity pales in comparison to the White House's economic team - a squad of corporate lackeys disguised as public servants.

At the top is Lawrence Summers, the director of Obama's National Economic Council. As President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary in the late 1990s, Summers worked with his deputy, Timothy Geithner (now Obama's Treasury secretary), and Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel (now Obama's chief of staff) to champion job-killing trade deals and deregulation that Obama Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg helped shepherd through Congress as a Republican senator. Now, this pinstriped band of brothers is proposing a "cash for trash" scheme that would force the public to guarantee the financial industry's bad loans. It's another ploy "to hand taxpayer dollars to the banks through a variety of complex mechanisms," says economist Dean Baker - and noticeably absent is anything even resembling a "rival" voice inside the White House.

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The anecdote highlights how, regardless of election hoopla, Washington is the same one-party town it always has been - controlled not by Democrats or Republicans, but by Kleptocrats (i.e., thieves). Their ties to money make them the undead zombies in the slash-and-burn horror flick that is American politics: No matter how many times their discredited theologies are stabbed, torched and shot down by verifiable failure, their careers cannot be killed. Somehow, these political immortals are allowed to mindlessly lunge forward, never answering to rivals - even if that rival is the president himself.

Remember, while Obama said he wants to slash "billions of dollars in wasteful spending" at the Pentagon, his national security team is demanding a $40 billion increase in defense spending (evidently, the "ludicrous" faction got its way). Obama also said he wants to crack down on the financial industry, strengthen laws encouraging the government to purchase American goods, and transform trade policy. Yet, his economic team is not just promising to support more bank bailouts, but also to weaken "Buy America" statutes and make sure new legislation "doesn't signal a change in our overall stance on trade," according to the president's spokesman.

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[ananda]

1. I remember reading a cautionary warning that..

.. the imperial presidency will wish to
remain imperial.

[stray cat]

2. Listening doesn't mean accepting all views as policy

[waiting for hope]

3. No - but there is something else to consider ..

You can have a crappy boss as long as the support staff is strong and knows what its doing, but it doesn't work the other way around - having a great boss and a staff full of inadequacies does not work - that leads to micromanagement.

[chill_wind]

10. Not listening, period. And "That's not an oversight."

That's not an oversight. From former federal officials like Robert Reich and Brooksley Born, to Nobel prize-winning economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, to business leaders like Leo Hindery Jr., there's no shortage of qualified experts who have challenged market fundamentalism. But they have been barred from an administration focused on ideological purity.

[balantz]

4. Kick

[bertman]

5. I just fucking hate reading shit like this. Because it's true. Recommend.

[debbierlus]

6. Obama isn't the guy. He is the one that will show the country what a one party system the US is...

Barack is trying to fix the broken system, he is trying to keep alive a broken system that has broken the people.

[tonycinla]

7. The solution?

It is actually very simple ,drain the swamp.Do not give the government so much money and power,human nature simply cannot resist the temptation to take advantage of these situations.Starve the beast,cut federal,state and local taxes to the bone.As for as big business goes stop people who have ever worked for the government from being a lobbyist.Start throwing "white collar criminals'',tax cheats etc. in jail with the common thief.The white collar crooks are actually far worse.Institute term limits at all levels of government.Other than for safety reasons break the connections between business and government.Etc.etc,etc. we need a thousand Ralph Naders(I know he is not perfect),we need a philosopher/king type leader ,some hoped Obama would be that but he is simply not seasoned enough to be that now.They,Washington D.C. types,may not be ALL crooks but you would spend a month trying to find a handful who were both honest and competent.

[SharonAnn]

8. Aaaah, for Pete's sake! Peddle it elsewhere.

[natrat]

13. um...it's a little late.horse is out of the barn. game over

[chill_wind]

9. Painful truths. To the GP.

[earth mom]

11. "Corporate lackeys disguised as public servants"-Truth that will fall on deaf ears around here. nt

[glitch]

12. Sirota speaks truth to power, he still believes in America.

He can't stomach authoritarians and their toadies. And he writes well. Thanks for posting, K & R