"Shallow Throat": Obama, the GOP and "Potomac Fever"

[CrisisPapers]

l Bernard Weiner l

With the Democrats running the show, the Republican mole "Shallow Throat,"** now a high-priced political consultant, is no longer positioned inside the government, but still has a wide network of administration and party contacts, especially in the GOP. So using our usual code, I asked for a meeting to get Shallow Throat's take on what is going on in Washington a little more than a year after the new president was inaugurated.

As we walked on a shade-covered path near Bethesda, I said: "You know, the same pattern tends to repeat itself when a non-insider becomes president, such as a governor or one-term senator: As new occupants of the White House, they tend to get rolled by the beltway elites until they figure out how things work and how they want to combat that system to make it work for them. It looks like Obama and his advisors have finally started to figure it out, after a pretty rocky and uncertain first year."

"If you're referring to the health-care bill," said Shallow Throat, "one can observe a lot from Obama's trajectory over the past 14 months. Unfortunately, being a frightened centrist, he felt he needed 'cover'. And so he tried for much too long -- maybe six to eight months too long -- to lure some Republicans to his side. He refused to admit, until nearly too late, that they'd already placed all their chips on taking him down, breaking him, and nothing he could do or say to them would yield him what he wanted.  

"Obama also took a page from Bill Clinton's playbook, and gave away the store before the congressional battle even began. In order to get something, anything, resembling serious reform, Obama made his secret deals with big pharma, the hospitals, the insurance companies, and so on. The whole health-care food chain was bought off to either gain their support or to mute their criticisms. They will continue to rake in humongous amounts of profit under the new system, so they're not all that unhappy."

THE POTOMAC VIRUS

"Why did Obama feel he needed to do that, especially so early?" I asked. "For example, he took the 'public option' off the table while he was still leading on his base for many months that he was all for it. That took the heart out of the competitive aspect of the bill since there would be no incentive for insurance companies to reduce their rates. And, I can tell you from me and my friends that his sell-out on the public option took our hearts out of wanting to be active in supporting this badly watered-down and compromised bill."

Shallow Throat gave me The Look I've come to know so well, the one that suggests conversation with a political numbskull. "Look, Bernie, when Obama entered the White House in January 2009, he realized he had been presented with an economy on the brink of catastrophe. (There was even some suspicion that the disaster might have been deliberate.) The whole thing could slide over the cliff. Philosophically he may not have wanted to, but he found himself with no wiggle room except to continue the Bush bailout policies and to appoint experts complicit in the economic meltdown. This was a bad sign of his willingness to go along to get along. He was getting suctioned into the Beltway Bubble, was catching the Potomac disease. Make no waves, keep the power brokers on your side, you might need them on other issues later.

"To Obama and his campaign advisors facing this formidable political power leviathon in Washington, it looked as if they could never get a health-care plan of any sweep. Obama had been hailed as a potential 'transformational president" and here he was bogged down with CheneyBush economic policies and foreign policy disasters. On top of that, the Republicans and their even-further-right allies were attacking every day on every thing he said, everything he did, and mostly attacking on things he didn't say or do -- just lies and hyperbole and destructive spin. 

SELLING OUT THE "PUBLIC OPTION"

"So, put yourself in his place, thinking you might never get a second term and a chance to climb out from the disaster pit your predecessor left you in unless you were able to accomplish at least one major item on your agenda. Health care was that do-or-die item, at least a chance to get the controversial issue of national health-care reform inside the tent of respectability, which would provide a place to build from in future years. 

"Obama and his main advisers (read: Rahm) believed the public would never accept single-payer or public option. This was a bad misreading of the public mood, as either of those, especially the latter, could have been sold had they had the courage and will to do so. Instead, Obama chose to make his shadow deals with the health-care oligarchs, keep those secret arrangements out of the conversation, and get what he could get. The result is the jerry-rigged bill that is now the law of the land, achieved (just barely) at a very high price."

I responded: "Are you saying that Obama is really far more progressive than we think but was reined in by Rahm and the others? That he otherwise would have been much more willing to take on the forces of true power in D.C. and the country? I sincerely doubt it; he's a creature of those very forces."

"No," said Shallow Throat. "What I am saying is that you and your liberal friends would have done well to remember that Obama is not an ideologue and never has been. He's a pragmatist. He'll sacrifice a lot, compromise a lot, give his base the back of his hand, to get something vaguely in the direction he'd like to go. The ultimate incrementalist. That's the irony of the GOP screaming that his health-care reform bill is 'socialist' and 'tyrannical"'and 'Nazicommie." It's the usual weak Obama middle-of-the-road mish-mash. What terrifies the GOP leaders is that, as the program unfolds, everyone will see how non-threatening it is and turn on the Republicans for lying to them and taking them down the road to defeat and irrelevance."

GOP CONTINUES THE BIG-POT GAMBLE

"One would think that maybe the GOP leaders would have learned to bend just a little bit as a result of this major defeat," I said, "but for whatever reason, they've decided to stagger on in the same self-defeating mode."

"You gotta think like they think, Bernie," said Shallow Throat, "not how you'd like them to think. So they've got no positive program, no ideas the public really wants to accept; that's all true. But they also came just inches away from breaking Obama and the Democrats with their policy of obstructionism, demagoguery, outright lies, stirring up the militias and Tea Party rabble. Why shouldn't they go all in, to use the betting terminology? 

"In addition, they're anticipating huge gains in the November election, maybe even taking over the House again. Why shouldn't they just continue doing what they're doing?: More crazy talk from their shock troops (Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, Hannity, Coulter, Savage, Malkin, Bachman, et al.)  More demogaguery from the Congressional Hard Rightists. More incitement of the militias and Tea Party types, you never know what might happen.

"Besides, you're missing the point. If you can't assume power until sometime down the line, you mess up the other guy's game so that he can't govern. Remember? The Republicans did that to Bill Clinton; if they had been lucky enough to convict him in the Senate, great. But by impeaching him they had accomplished their main goal of breaking whatever momentum Clinton had and made sure he couldn't be an effective president. Obama is the current target. Mess him up, cripple his programs, refuse his nominees, drown him in major and petty complaints and smears, take him to court, whatever. If and when he falters, push him into the mud and make sure he stays there."

RIDING THE EXTREMIST TIGER

"And is that where he was supposed to be," I asked, "as a result of his anticipated defeat on health-care reform?"

"Exactly," said Shallow Throat. "That was to be the first foundational stone to be removed; the rest would follow. Now I have no idea if his health-care reforms and savings will pan out over time -- my guess is that many of them won't. But that wasn't the point. It was the spear thrown into the Obama/Democratic gears that was at issue. Even you disgruntled, angry lefties eventually came around and supported the bill; you finally saw that health-care reform had become the central battleground and that if the Dems lost on this one issue, you all would have lost a lot more than that. Besides, the principle of a right to decent health-care is now inside the tent of normal politics, and more progressive changes can be made over the years.

"Provided, that is, you survive, and can figure out a way to properly frame the extremist Republican shitstorm that's coming your way. And whether and when the Republicans get eaten by the violent, dangerous tiger they're riding that they've called into existence." 

And with that, Shallow Throat ran out of the park, leaving me there pondering what I think was Good News mixed in with some Very Bad. #

**To read more 2002-2009 conversations with the Shallow Throat character, go to: >> www.crisispapers.org/weinerpubs.htm#shallow <<. --BW

[icee]

1. ?

[Demeter]

2. So In Order to Get Half a Loaf--Nay, a Few Crumbs--

Obama sold his birthright, for not even a mess of pottage.

"Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day: and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright."

-Bible (Old Testament)
Genesis 25:32^4.


Trouble is, he sold ours, too.

[bkozumplik]

3. your "throat" guy doesnt have any new insights

"Shallow throat" goes over the same drivel and rationalizing that all of the centerdems have been spouting the whole time. This guy has insights you said? is valuable? What has he said that isn't the center party line fed to us for public consumption?

1) Obama is much much more progressive, but just couldnt do it because he was opposed by shadowy elites(check)
2) You are naieve and dont understand washington (check)
3) "No," said Shallow Throat. "What I am saying is that you and your liberal friends would have done well to remember that Obama is not an ideologue and never has been" ie, Obama never promised X, so why should he have to deliver it (check)
4) Softly condemn the bill but push the canard of incrementalism: "Obama is the ultimate incrementalist"
"which would provide a place to build from in future years. " (check)
5) "You gotta think like they think, Bernie," said Shallow Throat, "not how you'd like them to think." --right, the sad reactionary impulse of the centerdems and the rightydems. well done. way to lead. Way to be the Party who won congress and the presidency.
6) "he continued the bush bailout and supported trickle down insiders to key policy posts because he had no choice (check) (poor victim Obama, he may be completely in charge, but he just seems to have no choice in anything eh. Some leader)

The question on shallow throat isn't "who is this insider who has all this information and is leaking it?" like deep throat was. It's more like who is this poser who comes to us saying he has actual insight and just feeds us exactly the same bullshit we've been being fed for a year, then acts like he has fed us nuggets of wisdom.

Seriously, tell shallow throat he doesn't need to hide his name, because he doesnt have a damn thing that hasn't been posted ad nauseum for a year all over the internet. His tired rationalizations are no secret.

On a side note, I think you are shallow throat. The person in your story posing as "you" asking shallow throat stupid questions--is just you throwing softball questions at yourself and answering them loyaly with your tired party line failure accepting drivel. If you are going to be asking yourself questions like that, maybe you should ask, "why is incrementalism going to work this time when we have just entrenched the insurance companies behind formidable defenses, removed their weaknesses, and colluded with them by being their bill collectors" or "why are stock prices for heath companies soaring on passage of this bill?"

[pundaint]

4. Throats points would be goofy even if he were identified.

Misusing power just to preserve power in neither honorable nor worthy of reelection. Remember when we used to call it Public service? That was before it became Self service.

[fasttense]

5. The RepubliCONS and President Obama have managed to push through

a RepubliCON health insurance entrenchment bill and made it look like progressive policy.

The threats and screaming and dieing wails of tea-baggers are necessary to give it the liberal gloss. Make it seem like we are actually getting a new progressive change when in reality all we are getting is conservative RepubliCON more of the same.

Think of it as a David Copperfield trick. The tea-baggers hold your attention over here, while with the other hand President Obama is making a RepubliCON insurance protection program look like change we can believe in.