The Establishment's Thanksgiving

[Emit]

Food for thought...

The Establishment's Thanksgiving

By Robert Parry
November 29, 2008

On Friday, the Post’s lead editorial thanked President-elect Obama for settling on insider favorites for key jobs, especially officials with long records of promoting the neocon foreign policy agenda.

In Post speak, Obama “has so far placed an admirable emphasis on proven competence over personal loyalty or political purity.”

In the frame of the Washington Establishment, “proven competence” means you were a strong supporter of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and see any failure there as a matter of Donald Rumsfeld’s tactical mistakes, not fundamental misjudgments. You also must show a manly regard for the brilliant “surge” strategy.

~snip~

Many voters saw Obama as the anti-Establishment candidate, a young African-American who had the wisdom to oppose the Iraq War from the start, versus a long-time Establishment favorite, John McCain, who envisioned a near-permanent U.S. presence in Iraq.

~snip~

Given all this, you might have thought that President-elect Obama would show distrust of this discredited crowd – and seek out new faces.

Or, at least you might have thought that Obama would carefully pick through the Establishment seeking the few Wise Men (and Women) who had resisted the reckless and feckless conventional wisdom. You might have thought he meant what he said about changing “the mindset” that led to the Iraq War.

But that does not now appear to be the case. Obama seems intent on rewarding those who carefully kept their seats at the Establishment’s dinner table during the Bush years, while leaving out in the cold those who truly put country first and accepted outcast status rather than collaborate with the power structure on a misbegotten war.

~snip~

As disappointing – and even distasteful – as Obama’s personnel strategy may be, his thinking may be realistic, though cynical. He may be calculating that the success of his presidency depends on his ability to co-opt the Washington Establishment or at least lessen its hostility.

In other words, the self-absorbed Washington Establishment may be totally wrongheaded, but it is no doubt influential. When a political figure gets on its bad side – like, for instance, “know-it-all” Al Gore in Campaign 2000 – the target faces an open season of withering ridicule.

~snip~

Nevertheless, Obama may be thinking that it’s better to accommodate the Washington Establishment on a touchy point like the Iraq War than to offend the Post’s editorial writers and the many well-connected guests attending Georgetown dinner parties this holiday season.

So, instead of cocktail chatter about Obama bringing in some dreaded “outsiders” who feel they know better than “us,” there will be polite conversation about how Obama is getting off on the right foot by not challenging the ways of Washington and by keeping soft-spoken favorite Robert Gates.

The trade-off is a dicey one, but Obama may feel it is worth the risk if he buys some time for pushing through a domestic agenda, including a major economic stimulus package, infrastructure rebuilding, a new generation of “green” jobs, and national health insurance.

As undeserving as the Washington Establishment may be, Obama may want these pooh-bahs in the tent pissing out rather than the other possibility.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/112908.html

[GarbagemanLB]

1. Trust Obama and give him the benefit of the doubt? Nonsense! What has he done lately

to show he has good judgement?









:sarcasm: