A Giddy Sense of Boosterism

[AnthemZ]

A Giddy Sense of Boosterism

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 17, 2008



Perhaps it was the announcement that NBC News is coming out with a DVD titled "Yes We Can: The Barack Obama Story." Or that ABC and USA Today are rushing out a book on the election. Or that HBO has snapped up a documentary on Obama's campaign.

Perhaps it was the Newsweek commemorative issue -- "Obama's American Dream" -- filled with so many iconic images and such stirring prose that it could have been campaign literature. Or the Time cover depicting Obama as FDR, complete with jaunty cigarette holder.

Are the media capable of merchandizing the moment, packaging a president-elect for profit? Yes, they are.

What's troubling here goes beyond the clanging of cash registers. Media outlets have always tried to make a few bucks off the next big thing. The endless campaign is over, and there's nothing wrong with the country pulling together, however briefly, behind its new leader. But we seem to have crossed a cultural line into mythmaking.

"The Obamas' New Life!" blares People's cover, with a shot of the family. "New home, new friends, new puppy!" Us Weekly goes with a Barack quote: "I Think I'm a Pretty Cool Dad." The Chicago Tribune trumpets that Michelle "is poised to be the new Oprah and the next Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis -- combined!" for the fashion world.

Whew! Are journalists fostering the notion that Obama is invincible, the leader of what the New York Times dubbed "Generation O"?

Each writer, each publication, seems to reach for more eye-popping superlatives. "OBAMAISM -- It's a Kind of Religion," says New York magazine. "Those of us too young to have known JFK's Camelot are going to have our own giddy Camelot II to enrapture and entertain us," Kurt Andersen writes. The New York Post has already christened it "BAM-A-LOT."

"Here we are," writes Salon's Rebecca Traister, "oohing and aahing over what they'll be wearing, and what they'll be eating, what kind of dog they'll be getting, what bedrooms they'll be living in, and what schools they'll be attending. It feels better than good to sniff and snurfle through the Obamas' tastes and habits. . . . Who knew we had in us the capacity to fall for this kind of idealized Americana again?"

But aren't media people supposed to resist this kind of hyperventilating?

"Obama is a figure, especially in pop culture, in a way that most new presidents are not," historian Michael Beschloss says. "Young people who may not be interested in the details of NAFTA or foreign policy just think Obama is cool, and they're interested in him. Being cool can really help a new president."

So can a sense of optimism, reflected on USA Today's front page. "Poll: Hopes soaring for Obama, administration," the headline said, with 65 percent saying "the USA will be better off 4 years from now."

But what happens when adulation gives way to the messy, incremental process of governing? When Obama has to confront a deep-rooted financial crisis, two wars and a political system whose default setting is gridlock? When he makes decisions that inevitably disappoint some of his boosters?

"We're celebrating a moment as much as a man, I think," says Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham, whose new issue, out today, compares Obama to Lincoln. "Given our racial history, an hour or two of commemoration seems appropriate. But there is no doubt that the glow of the moment will fade, and I am sure the coverage will reflect that in due course."

One of the few magazines to strike a skeptical tone is the London-based Economist, which endorsed Obama. "With such a victory come unreasonably great expectations," its lead editorial says.

Web worship of Obama is nearly limitless. On YouTube alone, the Obama Girl song, "I've Got a Crush on Obama," has been viewed 11.7 million times. Even an unadorned video of the candidate's election night speech in Chicago has drawn 3.5 million views.

I am not trying to diminish the sheer improbability of what this African American politician, a virtual unknown four years ago, has accomplished. Every one of us views his victory through a personal lens. I thought of growing up in a "Leave It to Beaver" era, when there were no blacks in leading television roles until Bill Cosby was tapped as the co-star of "I Spy" in 1965. When the Watts riots broke out that year, the Los Angeles Times sent an advertising salesman to cover it because the paper had no black reporters. The country has traveled light-years since then.

It is hard to find a precedent in American history. Ronald Reagan was a marquee star because of his Hollywood career, but mainly among older voters, since he made his last movie 16 years before winning the White House in 1980. Jack Kennedy was a more formal figure after winning the 1960 election -- "trying to look older than he was, because he thought youth was a handicap in running for president," Beschloss says -- but quickly took on larger-than-life dimensions.

"The Kennedy buildup goes on," James MacGregor Burns wrote in the New Republic in the spring of 1961. "The adjectives tumble over one another. He is not only the handsomest, the best-dressed, the most articulate, and graceful as a gazelle. He is omniscient; he swallows and digests whole books in minutes; he confounds experts with his superior knowledge of their field. He is omnipotent."

Soon afterward, Kennedy blundered into the Bay of Pigs debacle.

The media would be remiss if they didn't reflect the sense of unadulterated joy that greeted Obama's election, both here and around the world, and the pride even among those who opposed him. Newspapers were stunned and delighted at the voracious demand for post-election editions, prompting The Washington Post and other papers to print hundreds of thousands of extra copies and pocket the change. (When else have we felt so loved lately?) Demand for inaugural tickets has been unprecedented. Barack is suddenly a hot baby name. Record companies are releasing hip-hop songs, by the likes of Jay-Z and Will.I.Am, with such titles as "Pop Champagne for Barack." Consumers, the Los Angeles Times reports, are buying up "Obama-themed T-shirts, buttons, bobblehead dolls, coffee mugs, wine bottles, magnets, greeting cards, neon signs, mobile phones and framed art prints."

A barrage of Obama-related books are in the works. Newsweek's quadrennial election volume is titled "A Long Time Coming: The Historic, Combative, Expensive and Inspiring 2008 Election and the Victory of Barack Obama." Publishers obviously see a bull market.

MSNBC, which was accused of cheerleading for the Democratic nominee during the campaign, is running promos that say: "Barack Obama, America's 44th president. Watch as a leader renews America's promise." What are viewers to make of that?

There is always a level of excitement when a new president is coming to town -- new aides to profile, new policies to dissect, new family members to follow. But can anyone imagine this kind of media frenzy if John McCain had managed to win?

Obama's days of walking on water won't last indefinitely. His chroniclers will need a new story line. And sometime after Jan. 20, they will wade back into reality.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...602374_pf.html



____________________________


From the looks of what people say about him, the plan worked!

There will be allot of disappointed people out there when they finally realize what they have!

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by AnthemZ

There will be allot of disappointed people out there when they finally realize what they have!

A very odd sentiment. Its as though you hope Obama will fail . . . it seems as though you're fearful that he might do a good job.

Why?

Haven't you noticed? We're in kind of a jam . . . another failed Administration is not something we can afford.

Patriotic Americans should want to see their Government succeed, no?

If patriotism doesn't move you-- how about self-interest? Its in our interests to see Obama succeed. Nothing very good will happen for America or Americans if he can't get the job done.

[JoeyB]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Patriotic Americans should want to see their Government succeed, no?

If patriotism doesn't move you-- how about self-interest? Its in our interests to see Obama succeed. Nothing very good will happen for America or Americans if he can't get the job done.

Actually, due to the fact that I love my country I was deeply interested in seeing Bush fail, and hopefully lose his political clout. Sadly it happened only about 6 years in, after much damage was done.

As for the second point, I hope Obama does well, but I feel that anyone following Bush will look good, and in looking good, will not be called out for any failures. This is not a good thing, as Martha Stewart might say.

I think I need help with my Martha Stewart obsession.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by JoeyB

Actually, due to the fact that I love my country I was deeply interested in seeing Bush fail, and hopefully lose his political clout. Sadly it happened only about 6 years in, after much damage was done.

As for the second point, I hope Obama does well, but I feel that anyone following Bush will look good, and in looking good, will not be called out for any failures. This is not a good thing, as Martha Stewart might say.

I think I need help with my Martha Stewart obsession.

With Bush, I hoped for the best. It was certainly possible that he'd have been like his Dad . . . that's what I thought we were getting. Colin Powell, Cheney . . . both of these guys had served his Dad and the nation very well.

In 2000 my fear was that Dub would be a "do-nothing" President, hardly the worst thing in the world. As it turned out, he had a host of kooky ambitions which were never hinted at in the campaign . . . if you'll remember, he talked about "humility" and was quite clear that it would be a mistake to use the armed forces for "nation building" -- that sounded fine to me.

But one should always want and expect the nation's government to succeed.

[Tinysmasher]

Obama is out of the gate like a fart in church for me.

So far, his top two stated priorities when he takes office
1) New stimulus package
2) Detroit bailout

bag of double fail imo.

[JoeyB]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

But one should always want and expect the nation's government to succeed.

No see that is the point I am arguing. I believe there comes a time when a government has become so corrupt or so inept as to be curable only by faliure. At which point it is vital to hope they fail ASAP and bring about the personnel changes necessary to future success.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by JoeyB

No see that is the point I am arguing. I believe there comes a time when a government has become so corrupt or so inept as to be curable only by faliure. At which point it is vital to hope they fail ASAP and bring about the personnel changes necessary to future success.

I think we agree-- I view a government that is terribly corrupt and inept as a failure, by definition. I get what you're saying though . . . it seems to me that what you want is for the public to understand what a failed government is truly about, instead of buying the spin. Sometimes it takes a whipping from reality to wake people up . . . a "Katrina moment" . . .

But so back to Bush . . . when he took office, I hoped he'd do well.

[AnthemZ]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

But so back to Bush . . .

Yup! A article about Obama, and the selling out of the media, but it turns into another Bush bash!

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by AnthemZ

Yup! A article about Obama, and the selling out of the media, but it turns into another Bush bash!

I commented directly on your post -- see post 2 of this thread, with no reference to Bush.

Let's talk about your quite odd and passionate belief that Obama will do terrible things-- in fact, your apparent hope that he'll do terrible things.

Me, I get upset when leaders screw up-- but like anyone else who lives in this country, I hope they don't. I hope they do well, because that's good for the country, and good for me.

You, apparently, treat your fears of the future acts of a not-yet-sworn-in President elect Obama as if they've already happened. In your days of future past universe, the future acts, and future failure of President Obama are already real-- and you're upset by the excuses that you believe he will make.

I asked the question before, and I'll ask it again: it seems like you're afraid that he might succeed. Why?

[treesmoke]

Originally Posted by JoeyB

Actually, due to the fact that I love my country I was deeply interested in seeing Bush fail, and hopefully lose his political clout. Sadly it happened only about 6 years in, after much damage was done.

As for the second point, I hope Obama does well, but I feel that anyone following Bush will look good, and in looking good, will not be called out for any failures. This is not a good thing, as Martha Stewart might say.

I think I need help with my Martha Stewart obsession.

I never wanted Bush Jr's presidency to fail just be hurt by the political stunts the GOP and he pulled. But i always thought that he was going to always look like a successful president in the end. Mostly when he first got elected.

But still the things that he did that I think hurt the country the most might is not well known. Like accusations of only allowing people loyal to Bush to take federal jobs and work in the rebuilding of Iraq. Or the firing of the 7 US attorneys, or how the Vice President can't be called before congress. Or his treatment of the other government branches, and the with us or against us idealism the Bush Administration brought to every topic, to get 51%. Or how he always felt victomized by the press even when they were on his side or not asking him the right or tough questions.

I don't know about Obama he is going to have to bring some of Bush tactics with him, just like the Bush people brought Clinton tacts (on how to use the press) with them and added on to them. But i am happy that their is a price to pay. And it proves that it is more important it will be for the Democrats to go after each other when they step out of line.

[Harpoon]

Man Anthem... It's finally happened.. You've become worse than Sertes..

[AnthemZ]

Originally Posted by AnthemZ

From the looks of what people say about him, the plan worked!

There will be allot of disappointed people out there when they finally realize what they have!

This is the statement I made!

The first line was about the media selling this fantasy that seemed to work!

The second line was about how people who think they are getting "change" will get a Clinton third term/ Carter second term! The good and bad!

Originally Posted by deepsepia

A very odd sentiment. Its as though you hope Obama will fail . . . it seems as though you're fearful that he might do a good job.

Why?

What's very odd is your conclusion from two sentences??

Originally Posted by deepsepia

I commented directly on your post -- see post 2 of this thread, with no reference to Bush.

Let's talk about your quite odd and passionate belief that Obama will do terrible things-- in fact, your apparent hope that he'll do terrible things.

Wow! over the span of one post, I went from "Its as though you hope Obama will fail" to "Let's talk about your quite odd and passionate belief that Obama will do terrible things-- in fact, your apparent hope that he'll do terrible things."

So I guess you know more about what I'm thinking then I do! At the rate your going, I guess I'll be planning an assignation too! I'll be interested in what the plans are after you write them!


You asked once, what a Hack was?? A hack is someone who whines about something, like what your doing now about my apparent wish for Obama to fail! But then ignore a absolutely stupid statement by you buddy about Bush! Everything your trying to accuse me of was just spelled out in the other direction!

Originally Posted by JoeyB

Actually, due to the fact that I love my country I was deeply interested in seeing Bush fail, and hopefully lose his political clout.

Where have I ever said that I wanted Obama to fail?

I see the return of the Clinton lies! It's already started! All this so called change and working together, then he goes out and appoints a vicious partisan to run his administration! Politico reported more then 3/4's of staff, from last weeks count, are from the Clinton Administration! So when I say "There will be allot of disappointed people out there when they finally realize what they have!" How is that inaccurate??

Here's just one of many talking about it!
___________________________


The Clinton band is back together
By: Ben Smith and Carrie Budoff Brown
November 14, 2008 05:59 PM EST



Here's how you can tell the campaign is over and the transition has begun: Barack Obama's aides now wear suits and ties, their desks are in the Federal Building on 6th Street in Washington — and Clintonites are everywhere.

Obama's victory in the general election produced what his primary campaign couldn't: A swift merger of the Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party with the Illinois Senator's self-styled insurgency. The merger began, during the campaign, in the policy apparatus — which is now rapidly becoming the governing apparatus.

The absorption of the Clinton government in waiting represents Obama's choice not to repeat what he and his advisors see as an early mistake made by the last two presidents: Attempting to wield power in Washington through an insular campaign apparatus new to town.

Obama's first major appointments have been Democrats who worked for President Clinton and did not endorse him in the primary: Transition chief John Podesta and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who will be White House chief of staff, stayed neutral, and Ron Klain, who will be Joe Biden's chief of staff, backed Biden. Obama, advisers told Politico, may even be weighing offering Hillary Rodham Clinton herself the Cabinet plum of Secretary of State.

"Obama is showing great good sense in making use of their experience," said William Galston, a former Clinton domestic policy adviser who’s now at the Brookings Institution. "You have an entire cadre of people in their 30s and 40s and early 50s who were either in senior jobs or second- and third-tier jobs in the Clinton administration, who really earned their spurs and know their way around — and know something about how the institutions in which they served actually function."

Galston noted that while Clinton shunned the remnants of the Carter Administration in 1992, Obama's Democratic predecessor led a popular eight-year administration, and the party is no longer riven by deep ideological splits.

"The president-elect has the great good fortune of having a Democratic Party with a usable past," said Galston, who downplayed the differences between the Clinton and Obama camps during the primary. "It was never a substantive or an ideological split — it was more like Team A and Team B."

While only one pure Clintonite, former White House chief of staff Podesta, has been added to the Obama inner circle, the shift in Obama's universe is not to be understated. From the top down, his early choices reflect an openness, and even a warmth, to the veterans of 1990s governance. It’s a shift from a campaign that in the primary explicitly attacked President Clinton's tenure as a time of partisan strife and missed opportunities.

The single most important change in that respect is at the top, and the replacement of the slim, tightly-wound campaign chief of staff, David Plouffe, 41, with the slim, tightly wound Podesta, 59.

Plouffe was the guiding hand, operationally and often strategically, of Obama's campaign. He was also, insiders say, a sharply anti-Washington voice, key to the candidate's outsider message.

Plouffe came of political age inside the House Democratic leadership in the 1990s, and he was part of a core Obama group who had never worked for Clinton, and who harbored the sense of frustration and missed opportunity that prevailed on the Hill during Clinton's second term.

Plouffe remains a key adviser and was spotted in the transition office Thursday, but with a new baby, credit for a historic victory, and plans to return to the private sector, he's no longer running the show.

Podesta, who heads the Center for American Progress, was Clinton's chief of staff from 1998 to 2001 and a key figure in his second term. As one Clinton loyalist noted with some satisfaction (if anonymously) on Thursday, Podesta’s role in the transition, and the new prominence of Clinton administration officials, suggests that Obama has absorbed one of Hillary Clinton's talking points: That it takes experience to make change happen.

Thirty-one of the 47 people so far named to transition or staff posts have ties to the Clinton administration, including all but one of the members of his 12-person Transition Advisory Board and both of his White House staff choices.

Most of those appointees weren't West Wing heavy-hitters, but lower-profile policy hands such as former Deputy Secretary of Defense John White and former State Department official Wendy Sherman. They include former deputies to National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Defense Secretary William Perry, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and some currently work at consultancies run by those Clinton administration principals.

Others are old Obama allies who also have Clinton ties, like Michael Froman, a transition adviser who was Obama's classmate at Harvard Law School and served as Robert Rubin's chief of staff at the Clinton Treasury Department, and Christopher Edley, who taught Obama at Harvard and also served Clinton, and who is married to a former Clinton deputy chief of staff.

"This is a good way to try to be helpful without giving up my new life at Berkeley," said Edley, who is now dean of the law school at the University of California at Berkeley, in an email.

The highest-ranking member of the group with deep ties to both Clinton and Obama is Emanuel, a Chicagoan who is very close to Obama and his chief strategist, David Axelrod.

Though the transition is still young, former Clintonites say they feel a change in the atmosphere.

"It's heartening to see that that was just primary rhetoric," said a former Clinton aide of Obama's criticism of Clinton's administration.

Obama has continued to keep his distance from aspects of Clinton's legacy, however, and even his decision to bring Clintonites into the transition and administration is in part a judgment of his Democratic predecessor’s chaotic, insular transition 16 years ago.

And there remains a distinction between the policy and political sides of Hillary Clinton’s operation. Soon after the primary, top Clinton policy aides, such as economic adviser Gene Sperling, were quietly integrated into Obama's campaign. The only member of Clinton's inner circle to join Obama's campaign staff was her policy director, Neera Tanden.

A campaign's policy shop feeds the bulk of a new administration's appointments: Most of the key positions on White House staff and in executive agencies are policy posts.

But while the Clinton policy shop may feel like the gang is getting back together, the political team has yet to be invited in.

Said one former Clinton campaign aide, "Obama has clearly made a distinction between the small group of Clinton campaign staff, who clearly aren't much welcome, and the large number of Clinton White House personnel who are."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15617.html


__________________________________

Originally Posted by Harpoon

Man Anthem... It's finally happened.. You've become worse than Sertes..

What are you talking about?

[Harpoon]

You're obsessing dude.. Every friggin' post is about Obama..

[AnthemZ]

Originally Posted by Harpoon

You're obsessing dude.. Every friggin' post is about Obama..

I have another one for you!

More change!


Clinton scandal figure on Justice team
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 11/14/08 8:55 PM EST




CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama tapped a major campaign bundler and a former U.S. attorney who got caught up in Bill Clinton's 2001 pardons scandal to serve on the 14-member Justice Department review team announced Friday.

Alejandro Mayorkas, a former U.S. attorney in California, drew controversy in 2001 for calling the White House on behalf of Carlos Vignali, a convicted drug dealer who was seeking a presidential commutation. Mayorkas and a host of other California elected officials responded to pleas from Vignali's father, Horacio, a wealthy Los Angeles businessman whom federal agents had suspected of drug trafficking. Horacio Vignali also paid $200,000 in fees to Hugh Rodham, a brother of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a successful effort an have his son's prison sentence commuted by the outgoing president.

The House Committee of Government Reform cited Mayorkas in a report critical of Southern California politicians who pushed Clinton to release Carlos Vignali, saying Mayorkas should have been aware of Horacio Vignali's questionable background, according to a Los Angeles Times story published in March 2002.

Mayorkas told the newspaper that the criticism was fair, and he did not know the elder Vignali very well.

"It is reasonable to expect that someone in my position would do his or her due diligence to learn that information," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I made a mistake."

The Obama transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Mayorkas, who will serve on the Justice Department review team.

The team also includes Spencer Overton, a law professor at George Washington University and expert on campaign finance, who raised more than $500,000 for Obama's presidential campaign, according to a database maintained by the government watchdog group Public Citizen. Overton also sat on Obama's national finance committee. Overton will focus on Election Assistance Commission.

They join a team of 14 law scholars, corporate attorneys and former Clinton appointees who will look at civil rights, legal services and election law.

The group includes one former lobbyist, Theodore M. Shaw, a professor at Columbia University School of Law who was registered on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund through 2007.

Five of the review team members, including Mayorkas, have ties to the Clinton administration.

Dawn Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University-Bloomington, worked in the Justice Department from 1993 to 1998, including a stint in the Office of Legal Counsel, a controversial office in the Bush administration that could become the focus of review efforts.

David William Ogden, co-chair of WilmerHale's government and regulatory litigation group, served as chief of staff to Attorney General Janet Reno, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's civil division and deputy general counsel in the Defense Department.

Tom Perelli, managing partner of Jenner and Block in Washington D.C., served as deputy assistant attorney general and counsel to the attorney general from 1997 to 2001.

LaVeeda Battle, an Alabama lawyer, served in the Clinton administration on the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation‚ her area of review on Obama's transition team.


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15651.html

[Harpoon]

Gee thanks for that.. *doesn't read either*