So much for the demand of personal responsibility from Preznit elect Obama...yes just who forced him to surround himself with those ahem "Clinton People" ahem...(rolls eyes).
for the record, I don't care for Rubin or Summers, but jeebus please stop using this as a Clinton bash and then double standard by excusing "The One" here...is this going to be a daily occurence like over at tpm...because this is just ridiculous.
I'm not really getting what you're trying to say here, emal, I'm not excusing Obama of anything, I'm just saying the Clinton people are basically all we've got.
I have decidedly mixed feelings about it, I like Bill Clinton but he was a lousy liberal, that's a plain fact. Yet he helped us immeasurably, then hurt us too....
For better or worse the Clinton people will be with us. I don't have too much of a problem with it, where are we going to find anyone else? Sorry if I wasn't clear on this.
Posted by paradox at November 11, 2008 03:01 PMThis is your lamest post. There a lot of very qualified experienced Democrats out there, some worked for Clinton, some not. They have moved on with 8 years of experience post Clinton. Rubin would be a poor choice. We need a Treasury Secretary further removed from Wall Street.
Obama excels at recognizing and surrounding himself with talent. Your just not seeing the possibilities because you've been so wrapped up in the fight. Kennedy and Carter all brought in a bunch of new great people. The Dean, Daschle, Durbin, Kennedy, and Kerry teams are all part of this. That is a lot talent.
I am looking forward to Midwest/New England no-nonsense as opposed to the Texas crowd that was all message, substance be damned.
Posted by allansfca at November 11, 2008 03:18 PMYou want to mention Al Gore and competence in the same breath! SCOTUS nominee Al Gore, where's his experience? Go ahead place that name out there for SCOTUS...another Meyers as in Harriet.
Lugar for Sec. State, Gates holds over for a year or so then McCain for Sec. Def.. The O will do it.
Doxie, what's this divisive crap you putting out, Clinton folks vs Democrats? Just make sure it's Rubin and not Reich, he's awful.
Posted by peter at November 11, 2008 03:36 PMparadox, I think allansfca responded well...and explains my point better than I could.
Additionally, I think after your reference to tpm yesterday regarding the questionable Lieberman story and double standard with Obama and then this similar icky Clinton people post...well I just hope this isn't a daily thing..that's all. I enjoy this site and many of your post often paradox,... just voicing a little dissension to what I tended to think was a bit of excuse making for president elect Obama.
Posted by emal at November 11, 2008 03:43 PMHa! WTG Paradox!
I was wondering what kind of post was it was going to take to drag the former residents from their secretive hiding places.
I do disagree with Al Gore to the supreme court, he could be extremely useful other places.
You want to mention Al Gore and competence in the same breath!
Blanketing statement Petey. Mind citing some examples for us? Or is this just more derision for someone you personally loathe?
Oh good grief, paradox.
I like Barak Obama, too, but he's ALSO a lousy liberal.
With all due respect.
Posted by Mary at November 11, 2008 03:52 PMPardon me Simp, my statement was connected to(or supposed to be) the idea that Al Gore would make a competent SCOTUS nominee. And to answer further, he's not someone that I personally admire, far from it. Thought I wouldn't characterize it as a loathing.
Posted by peter at November 11, 2008 04:00 PMParadox, I love your sense of irony. Yeah, wouldn't you just love seeing Al Gore, dressed in a black robe, sitting next to the very people who stole the election from him. Talk about uncomfortable.
Posted by Judith at November 11, 2008 04:05 PMAll right, I made a mistake here. Lousy is too strong a word.
I'm tired and have to cook. I'm not going to get into how Clinton let me down right now. Sorry about this.
Posted by paradox at November 11, 2008 04:16 PMparadox, you're right about there not being many dems out there who didn't serve in the Clinton WH; that's part of the pool of talent Obama's got to choose from. There will be others we haven't heard about either, but we'll get to know as time goes on.
It never occurred to me to think of Gore for SCOTUS, though, but I understand the sentiment. I think he'd be an asset to an Obama admin - more like EPA, prolly.
Don't beat yourself up over this post, it's tough to write a bunch of posts a day, there will be clunkers from time to time no matter how good a blogger is. And with no real news from the Obama team, there's nothing for us to do but speculate. Have a good dinner and relax, big guy; you deserve it for continuing to give us a spot to jabber. Hugs!
Posted by iamcoyote at November 11, 2008 04:36 PMPardon me Simp, my statement was connected to(or supposed to be)
thanks for the clarification.
And on that point we agree. Though I'm not sure about incompetent, but merely unqualified.
Posted by Simp at November 11, 2008 04:48 PMIs it OK if I continue to refer to the cable commentators as "talking headlice"?
Posted by TIKI AL at November 11, 2008 05:01 PMto quoth the bard
peter's grown
and paul's grown
and marys grown
and the times've grown
Is it OK if I continue to refer to the cable commentators as "talking headlice"?
TIKI, yes, you may. We should always tell the truth, right? Now that the election's over, I'm having a harder and harder time not turning the channel to a Scrubs rerun rather than the news. Tweety and the rest of the vermin need to let go of Palin. She's so 5 minutes ago, it's not even funny. She has no relevance in national politics anymore. We'll see in 3 years, maybe, but now, she's just a fluff story. I feel bad for Tina Fey, it woulda been a good gig, but day-yam, I'm glad I don't have to care about the Wasila nightmare anymore. As we divorcees like to say to the new wife, "he's your asshole now!" Ditto, AK, re: Palin.
Posted by iamcoyote at November 11, 2008 05:13 PMAccording to Wikipedia, Gore does not have a law degree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_gore
A year later, he took a leave of absence from the The Tennessean and returned to graduate study, attending Vanderbilt University Law School from 1974 to 1976. His decision to attend law school was a partial result of his time as a journalist, as he realized that while he could expose corruption, he could not change it.[31] Eventually, however, Gore "took away no degrees, deciding abruptly in 1976 to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives" when he found out that his father's former seat in the House was about to be vacated.[31][34]
Now that may be alright for a Right Winger but I think we should stick to lawyers.
Posted by marc sobel at November 11, 2008 05:28 PMAL can do more using his newly found fame to bring focus on the Environment.
Getting into politics undermines his credibility to some extent. He is getting much more and positive attention b/c he's not seen as having a skin in the game.
I say he just keep up his work as an advocate and activist.
d
Posted by midwestdem at November 11, 2008 06:26 PMHillary supporters like myself are going to continue to find Barack's reliance on Clintonites to be amusing. (TPM will never run out of hilarious ass-kissing bullshit.) But I'm most concerned about Axelrod. What is he doing in the White House? What's the difference between him and Rove?
Posted by cygnus at November 11, 2008 06:40 PMI have forgotten the part of the Constitution that says a justice has to have a law degree. I do remember that we had many good justices who were not from the ranks of the judges. Maybe, we could get over that bull about "interpreting vs creating law" that so often clouds our discussions.a
Posted by jackalope at November 11, 2008 06:59 PM"What's the difference between him and Rove?"
...Axlerod is the taller one with the mustache and the morals.
Maddow just showed the Greta Van Suckass clip of Palin trashing bloggers as being in their mother's basement and blogging in their pajamas.
The camera then drew back on Rachel, and she was wearing her PJs. Cute!
TIKI, I just love Rachel. And oddly enough, Ana Marie Cox is a pretty darn good reporter, too.
*snort*
I just noticed, petey's link is about Not-Joe the Not-Plumber. I suddenly had a moment of pity for petey. Didn't last long, 'cos I was laughing so hard, but, because I'm a bleedin' heart lib, it was there!
Clinton was definitely a lousy liberal. Clinton was a supporter of "The School of the Americas," a US training camp for Latin American right wing death squads. I will never forgive him for this, it was as bad as Guantanamo, worse since it participated in the war against Mayans and Mayan culture in Guatemala and a whole bunch of other incredibly disgusting actions in Latin America. (BTW, it is now called “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation,” and I am hoping that Obama will shut it down.
Posted by Spike at November 11, 2008 07:18 PMI refuse to tie myself in knots agonizing over the minutia of who is going to work for the Obama Admin. For one thing, he just got engaged, the wedding isn't until Jan 21, then he goes on a honeymoon, right?
And tell me that anybody that's been mentioned in P's post is worse than the likes of Rum Drunk or Heckuva Job or, the ultimate, VP Search Committee Chief Big Time Dick. Or Doan or Spaskovskyspas or Heinrich Gonzales or any of the other losers, liars, and corporate tools and religious nutjobs?
Posted by Duckman GR at November 11, 2008 10:12 PMIf Clinton was a lousy liberal, what does that make Al Gore? Mr. Music Censorship for the Supreme Court ... really?! During his early years in the Senate, he opposed federal funding of abortion, voted in favor of a bill which supported a moment in silence in schools, and voted against a ban on interstate sales of guns.
I like Gore on many levels (just like the Big Dog) but to ignore his history serves no one well. It is pretty cool at the moment to criticize the DLC ... what many seem to forget is that Al was one of its original members.
Presuming you knew that and are able to believe that perhaps Gore's views have evolved ... why not extend other Clinton-connected individuals that same courtesy?
As someone else already commented, I think Gore is more effective out of government these days than he would be as part of an Obama administration.
Posted by The World's Turned Upside Down at November 12, 2008 05:28 AMBTW ... the other day you recommended one of Josh Marshall's posts regarding the Lieberman brouhaha with the comment "See why I describe Bill Clinton as a nice moderate Republican?"
So ... given Obama's own actions in this arena do you consider him to be a nice moderate Republican, too?
What really annoys me about this stuff -- the continued Clinton derangement syndrome exhibited by Josh, the all too numerous loons at dKos, and others -- is that the topic du jour always seems to get dropped when we find out that Obama is saying the same thing, backing the same ideas, etc.
Does the progressive blogoshere really want to give Obama a free pass on everything? It certainly feels like it at times on many blogs.
Posted by The World's Turned Upside Down at November 12, 2008 05:48 AMY'know... Al Gore would be useful in the Obama administration in so many ways. Of course, everyone think environment and that means head of the EPA. That's good. Perhaps he would do well as top man at the FCC too because of his REAL grasp of technology (if anyone passes that neocon joke about the invention of the internet, I'll figuratively firebomb you).
But in long black robes? I'm not sure he'd want that but moreover, I think there's someone better qualified myself: Hillary Clinton.
I think she's a natural for the top bench though conservatives would pitch a schist fit I think Obama could get her in early on if someone retires (Please let it be the Chief Justice; we so much see him GONE - or second best, Clarence Thomas - that would work well since he's a bit of well known misogynist).
What does everyone think?
Posted by gmknobl at November 12, 2008 06:17 AM.... Bill Clinton ... was a lousy liberal..... paradox at 03:01 PMAside from being a stupid remark — since when did Souther governors like Clinton or Carter sell themselves as a liberal — you are making unwarranted assumptions about Obama as well. Apparently you never noticed his attacks on Clinton from the right which would make him no liberal either. Of course, Obama's lying about FISA, NAFTA and health care as well as the misogyny of his campaign were hard for the FanBoyz to discern, but they were the center of his campaign along with playing the race card in Southern primaries. Posted by Mike at November 12, 2008 04:48 PM
good lord why are you apologizing calling Bill a lousy liberal. that's not even a gramatically nor politically correct conjuntion of words, as it can't possibly be describing clinton, who was a republican in sheep's clothing for the most part. never ever was a liberal. he wasn't even that great as a moderate. look his economic plans gave prosperity for a few years but the overall plan is huge failure and that's why we're in the mess we're in now, he basically continued on with much of reaganomics.....
(and adding a personal note, since i live in mexico, i'll never forgive clinton for ramming through NAFTA, a horrible treaty of inequality if ever there was one. poor mexico)
frankly, anyone who thinks that he's a liberal must've been born (long) after the vietnam war and watergate - we got to see then and before some Real Liberals. christ, even the republicans back then had some real Liberals in their party. hard to imagine it, isn't it kids?
Posted by michael72 at November 14, 2008 02:06 AM