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Author: Gerardo Orlando (Page 60 of 169)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?

November 13, 2008 /

Huh?

News outlets are reporting that Hillary Clinton is under consideration for Secretary of State. I guess Obama wasn’t kidding when he said he was considering the Lincoln model of a team of rivals.

There’s increasing chatter in political circles that the Obama camp is not overly happy with the usual suspects for secretary of state these days and that the field might be expanding somewhat beyond Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and maybe former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

There’s talk, indeed, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) may now be under consideration for the post. Her office referred any questions to the Obama transition; Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment.

I’m a little puzzled by this one. I think she would be much better suited for a career in the Senate where she could work on issues like health care. She’s certainly up to the job, and she would have Bill Clinton as a resource, but it seems like there are many other options. On the other hand, it shows that he’s willing to bring in some of the best people in the party, and that he’s not afraid to have big personalities in his administration.

Democrats, Foreign Policy, Politics, Polls

The Iranians are worried

November 13, 2008 /

Faced with the prospect of an American adinistration that is willing to negotiate without preconditions, the Iranian leadership is starting to get worried.

Since 2006, Iran’s leaders have called for direct, unconditional talks with the United States to resolve international concerns over their nuclear program. But as an American administration open to such negotiations prepares to take power, Iran’s political and military leaders are sounding suddenly wary of President-elect Barack Obama.

“People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous,” Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

“The power holders in the new American government are trying to regain their lost influence with a tactical change in their foreign diplomacy. They are shifting from a hard conflict to a soft attack,” Taeb said.

For Iran’s leaders, the only state of affairs worse than poor relations with the United States may be improved relations. The Shiite Muslim clerics who rule the country came to power after ousting Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a U.S.-backed autocrat, in their 1979 Islamic revolution. Opposition to the United States, long vilified as the “great Satan” here in Friday sermons, remains one of the main pillars of Iranian politics.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent Obama a congratulatory letter last week, but by Wednesday his welcoming tone had dissipated. “It doesn’t make any difference for us who comes and who goes,” he said in a speech in the northern town of Sari. “It’s their actions which are studied by the Iranian and world nations.”

Dictators and corrupt regimes need an external enemy in order to help them control their citizens. The demonization of the United States has been a useful tool in Iran, as it distracts the population from the economic misery caused by the government’s disastrous policies.

Now, the incoming Obama administration is ready to call their bluff, and the Iranian leadership realizes that they’ve put themselves in a box. If they refuse to negotiate, we gain a tremendous amount of leverage with the Europeans and Russians as we turn the screws with even tougher sanctions.

Foreign Policy, Policy

Bailing out the auto companies

November 12, 2008 /

What should we do about the auto companies? It’s infuriating to think that we would have to bail them out, given the mismanagement over the years. On the other hand, the economy is on the brink, and letting GM go under in this environment could take down the entire economy. Also, given the financial bailout, throwing another $25 – $50 billion to save Detroit doesn’t seem like an outrageous idea.

Of course, the devil is in the details. Many, like Tom Friedman, want to throw out management as part of the deal. This doesn’t make sense. Certainly, Rick Wagoner and the rest of the braintrust at GM made tons of mistakes, but in the past year they have made substantial progress on innovative cars like the Chevy Volt and big changes to their cost structure with the UAW. Without the financial crisis they had a credible path to recovery. Ford is in less trouble, and their new CEO should not be blamed for past mistakes.

The real issue is how many strings should be tied to the bailout. Obama wants to see real progress towards building green cars here in the United States. Investing in this area would have significant short-term and long-term benefits. The cars companies are already moving in this direction, so getting agreement on these points may be possible.

The bigger issue raised by Friedman relates to those in Congress who supported the auto industry and their disastrous policies.

The blame for this travesty not only belongs to the auto executives, but must be shared equally with the entire Michigan delegation in the House and Senate, virtually all of whom, year after year, voted however the Detroit automakers and unions instructed them to vote. That shielded General Motors, Ford and Chrysler from environmental concerns, mileage concerns and the full impact of global competition that could have forced Detroit to adapt long ago.

Indeed, if and when they do have to bury Detroit, I hope that all the current and past representatives and senators from Michigan have to serve as pallbearers. And no one has earned the “honor” of chief pallbearer more than the Michigan Representative John Dingell, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who is more responsible for protecting Detroit to death than any single legislator.

This has led to a huge battle currently brewing in the Democratic caucus in the House.

In the first big post-election clash on Capitol Hill, two House heavyweights are battling to lead an influential committee that will have jurisdiction over global warming in the new Congress.

The fight pits California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, a key ally of environmentalists, against Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, who has ties to the auto industry. Waxman is trying to oust Dingell as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

While Waxman supporters say they think they’ve got enough votes to prevail, Dingell is fighting hard to keep the position.

In an interview with WJR radio, he called Waxman an “anti-manufacturing left-wing Democrat” and said it would be a mistake to have him in charge, particularly with the auto industry struggling.

If Waxman is successful in his attempted coup, it means that two Californians would take leading roles in the contentious debate over global warming. Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is the head of the Senate’s environmental committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue.

The 82-year-old Dingell, the most senior member of the House, has long resisted higher fuel standards and tighter limits on greenhouse gases.

Dingell needs to go. He’s a slave to the auto lobbyists, and nothing will get done if he’s blocking the move towards alternative fuels in the House. Hopefully, Waxman will prevail.

Economy, Policy, Politics

Obama’s stamp on the courts

November 9, 2008 /

I had no idea so many openings existed in the federal courts.

14 seats are open on appeals courts or will be by the end of January. Democratic appointees are a majority on one of the 13 federal appeals courts, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.

These are the courts that as a practical matter have the final say on everyday issues that affect millions of people because the Supreme Court accepts fewer than 2 percent of the cases appealed to the justices.

“Most of the action is in the lower courts, from labor and employment law to civil rights to punitive damages to affirmative action and how the death penalty is administered,” said Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington.

The traditionally conservative 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, is the first court on which Obama can change the balance of power quickly. It has four openings and has five judges appointed by Republican presidents and five named by Democrat Bill Clinton.

Covering Maryland, the Carolinas and Virginia, the 4th Circuit hears a large share of national security and intelligence cases because Virginia is the home of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Shapiro estimates that within four years, Obama can name enough judges to give Democrats majorities on nine of the 13 appeals courts.

Both Clinton and Bush had trouble getting some nominees through the Senate. Bill Clinton wasted precious time in his first two years in office as he was slow to nominate judges. Then, he was stuck with a Republican Senate that made it much more dificult to get his nominees through the confirmation process. George W. Bush had epic battles with the Senate over judges.

Obama has the advantage of a healthy majority in the Senate. As we’ve seen from his transition team, Obama isn’t wastin any time. Expect the nominations to come fast in the first year.

Civil Liberties, Democrats, Policy, Politics

Hitting the ground running

November 9, 2008 /

The Washington Post highlights some of the immediate actions we can expect from Barack Obama’s administration. Items like stem-cell research and environmental regulations top the list.

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.

In some instances, Obama would be quickly delivering on promises he made during his two-year campaign, while in others he would be embracing Clinton-era policies upended by President Bush during his eight years in office.

“The kind of regulations they are looking at” are those imposed by Bush for “overtly political” reasons, in pursuit of what Democrats say was a partisan Republican agenda, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate administrator for health in the Clinton administration’s Office of Management and Budget. The list of executive orders targeted by Obama’s team could well get longer in the coming days, as Bush’s appointees rush to enact a number of last-minute policies in an effort to extend his legacy.

Democrats, Environment, Policy, Stem Cell Research

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