Glen Greenwald linking to report that McCain is secretly advising Obama on administration hirings

[agent007]

Salon.com legend Glen Greenwald links to a new report by the left-leaning Washington Note, owned by Josh Marshall's friend Steve Clemons, in which it's stated:

A senior Obama campaign official shared with The Washington Note that in July 2008, the McCain and Obama camps began to work secretly behind the scenes to assemble large rosters of potential personnel for the administration that only one of the candidates would lead.

Lists comprised of Democrats and Republicans were assembled, sorted into areas of policy expertise, so that the roster could be called on after the election by either the Obama or McCain transition teams.


Greenwald adds: Those who believe that ideology is irrelevant and that only competence and expertise matter should find this report to be a cause for celebration. Those who believe that ideology matters would likely find it to be quite bothersome (in update #2 at the bottom): http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/24/ideology/index.html

link to Washington Note piece: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/11/scoop_mccain_an/

[ddeclue]

1. corroboration??? Sounds like a classic whisper campaign to me..

[beachmom]

2. What? Not sure I buy it.

[FrenchieCat]

3. This has been posted before......

and I didn't buy it the first time.

[agent007]

12. I don't think it has been posted before

link?

[FrenchieCat]

13. here....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7916252#7916252

[BrklynLiberal]

4. I am sure that Obama will take advice from everyone around him...but he will make his OWN decisions.

[Hanse]

5. I heard that Hitler's clone and Reagan's zombie was involved in the process.

And Hillary Clinton was being advised by Megatron.

[FrenchieCat]

7. You know 9/11 was Clinton's fault.....don't you?

[BlooInBloo]

6. Saw that on Digby earlier today....

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/crisis-management-by-digby-theres-lot.html

However, (and it's a big however) I find this very disturbing. I have been sort of jokingly calling this bipartisan fetish among the establishment a "one party state" but this isn't funny:

A senior Obama campaign official shared with The Washington Note that in July 2008, the McCain and Obama camps began to work secretly behind the scenes to assemble large rosters of potential personnel for the administration that only one of the candidates would lead.

Lists comprised of Democrats and Republicans were assembled, sorted into areas of policy expertise, so that the roster could be called on after the election by either the Obama or McCain transition teams.

This kind of out-of-sight coordination is rare between battling presidential camps and provides some indication that both Obama and McCain intended to draw expertise into their governments from both sides of the aisle -- or at least they wanted to appear interested in doing so if the information leaked out about the list development process.

Fascinating tidbit on cooperation behind battle lines.

Yeah, it's fascinating --- and horrifying. These two people allegedly ran on entirely different visions of where to take the country and were backed by millions of people who thought they were making a serious decision between the two. And yet according to this account months ago (before the current meltdown) they were secretly coordinating to assemble a common roster of people to run the government no matter who won the election. What the hell did we bother having a campaign for? If this is true it validates every political crank out there, including Ralph Nader, who says there's literally not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties.

[FrenchieCat]

10. Yeah...Obama is part of the Skull and Bones.....

and he made a secret agreement to join the World Cabal....cause that is what Community Organizers do as some point.

I'm tired of this shit......real tired of it.

FUCK IT!

Obama is in league with Osama.....they are really brothers,
and yes, Obama is a Muslim sent by Saudi Arabia to go into cahoots with Bush and McCain.

Obama and Mccain are both They were both Manchurian Candidates and puppets.

Someone ought to tell Biden about this.....but he is probably in on it.

I think only Caribou Barbie can set us free at this point.

[Starry Messenger]

8. .

...the rest of the piece at Washington note:

"This kind of out-of-sight coordination is rare between battling presidential camps and provides some indication that both Obama and McCain intended to draw expertise into their governments from both sides of the aisle -- or at least they wanted to appear interested in doing so if the information leaked out about the list development process.

Fascinating tidbit on cooperation behind battle lines."

-- Steve Clemons

emphasis mine. Not that damning really.

[Mass]

9. Steve Clemons has often been carrying rumors without basis.

Careful with that, particularly with the so called senior Obama campaign official as a source.

In July, it would not make any sense at all.

[democracy1st]

11. I call BS

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

14. I'm sure that Sarah Palin is the Czar of Thanksgiving

:rofl:

[FrenchieCat]

15. Steve Clemons' musing on noquarter.net........

He was quite partisan during the primaries.
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/01/21/steve-clemons-on-tonights-debate/

He also help spread the rumor that Al Gore was going to endorse Obama in the first week of february:
http://www.alternet.org/story/76328/will_gore_endorse_obama/

[Starry Messenger]

18. Ooh. Nice catch! Thank you FrenchieCat. n/t

[democracy1st]

16. BS BS BS post

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

17. Someone needs to put down the bong

and the Boone's Farm.

[mtnester]

19. Utter twaddle n/t

[babylonsister]

20. McSame couldn't even look at Obama, now they're collaborating?

I find this one difficult to believe. McBush had no good or new ideas about anything: there's no reason for PE Obama to depend on his expertise about anything.

[DCBob]

21. If true, it's probably just to let Obama know if there might be confirmation issues ...

coming from the Republican side.