By my inexact and rather inattentive count, Obama has been punked on the selection of his replacement in the U.S. Senate, he's been punked on Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate replacement in New York, and now Nancy Pelosi has set him up to be punked on the so-called Stimulus bill. My, my, my. Quite a start for Barry O, wouldn't you say? This doesn't even address the possible curve balls to come out of the Blagojevich situation (hello, Rahm Emmanuel). We've elected a wet-behind-the-ears smart ass who thinks he knows far more than he actually does and he's surrounded by like-minded ingrates who don't know how to respect politics or the country. Or so it seems to me.
So far, with respect to my new President, I'm alternating between reeling, marveling, laughing, getting angry and (mostly) rationalizing. This morning, Jennifer Rubin speaks for me:
It is rather amazing that less than two weeks after he was triumphantly sworn in, the President is getting bad reviews.
. . .
And its not just center-right, sympathetic pundits who are crying foul.
When the A.P. and the President’s close Senate ally Claire McCaskill pan the stimulus bill you know things aren’t going as planned.
A jewel among comments to Rubin's post also speaks for me:
With the economy in shambles, and businesses being [urged] to hire, the first thing the Dems do is make it easier for women to sue for pay discrimination. I’m not saying that the old statute of limitations was a good one, but in the scheme of things, as a first priority for people charged with encouraging companies to hire, it was a bizarre choice.
Next comes [Obama's micromanagement regarding corporate] bonuses. Another [guy] who never met a payroll telling boards of directors how much to pay the people they need the most. [Doesn’t] he know that you need your best people most in bad times, that the best people are always in demand, that the best people matter? Obama made such a fuss over the competence of his team, and yet he wants corporate managers to operate under a salary cap.
The liberal Congress wants to follow suit by actually limiting the pay of executives of outfits that take TARP money. After all, anyone making more than than the Pres’s salary (never mind the value of his perks) can get along without the excess, right? Don’t worry about losing that home - it’s too expensive, anyway, and it’s a [seller’s] market, right? Never mind that many companies in trouble are suffering from fall-out of what others did wrong; if they want our help, they have to be managed by people with no incentive to do their best. To call it stupid would be too mean to the stupid.
And then there’s EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act, as Orwellian a name as any hypocrite ever came up with. Where’s all those experts in the history of the Depression now that we need them? Hasn’t anyone told the Prez that strengthening unions contributed mightily to the collapse of the economy in the 1930s as the increased wages did not create sufficient consumer demand to fund themselves.
People need to get through their heads that there are no universals in economics. Sometimes, raising workers’ pay raises demand and makes everybody rich. Sometimes, raising workers’ pay creates more savings and puts companies out of business. With wealth destroyed and home equity in the tank, common sense suggests that the latter dynamic is at work right now. But there’s an unfair pay distribution to correct, unfair organizing rules to fix, and ending unfairness (making both hands the same in the old joke) is way more important than fixing the economy. Right?
That's a fair summation, I'd say. Quite a term as President-elect, and quite a first couple of weeks as President. No matter how much his acolytes try to cover for him, it isn't a good start. Not at all. More ominous for Obama, however, are the hyenas he's packing the White House with. And those hyenas will likely cause the most damage because they fail to respect the two-way street the new social media tools not simply offer but require. Take a look at this comment pulled from Wretchard's website:
Rove’s description of the physical disposition of the new staff and modifications of the formal reporting relationships, and his inferences about the likely effects of these changes, indicates a lack of appreciation for the potential for effective organizing in new ways through deft use of now widely available social networking tools. The Obama campaign used these means to great effect last year, much to the surprise and chagrin of both his primary opponents and his opponents in the fall campaign. Initially, his transition staffers and new appointees to Executive Office roles have been discovering numerous institutional and structural obstacles to their continuation of the social networking patterns they established in the campaign, but I suspect they will quickly develop informal workarounds along with more direct means (e.g., a few Executive Orders) to overcome many of these hindrances.
Besides the personal experience of working with our Team sites and other internal tools (Rove would no doubt be appalled by our “crowded” work environment extending across the enterprise!) the discussion in Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” provides an illuminating framework for considering the possibilities for amplifying effective communication and activity to accomplish the new regime’s policy goals.
At the same time, it points to the great solvent power these approaches have when applied in a world which is still much more familiar with “getting things done through organizations”, so the end result could well be an intentional cultivation of social networks that feed into the work of the regime in a way which is far more effective in “getting things done” than the Rovian mind can conceive, while at the same time tending to erode the institutional structures which have been the engine of excessive centralization that he warns against. The latter may well be an unintended side effect of what Team Obama does, but when did politicos (or the rest of us, for that matter) ever realize the full implications of their activity?
On the other hand, perhaps that “community organizer” experience that was so much derided during the campaign will count for more than any of Obama’s naysayers could have imagined. A study of just how he managed to get all of his opponents (including the veteran incumbent) kicked off the ballot in his first successful run for Illinois state senator back in 1996 might be illuminating in this respect.
Hubris. Look for it; they absolutely ooze it with an unknowing quality sure to bite them in the ass sooner rather than later.
Lack of appreciation?
Deft use?
Illuminating framework?
Amplifying effective communication?
Solvent power?
Far more than the Rovian mind can conceive???
Well, I'll give them the amplification point. However, there ain't a damn thing that has changed about politics. New tools? Sure. Just as sure, however, is this fact: that which amplifies effective communication also equally amplifies (or perhaps -- shudder the thought -- better amplifies) negative communication.
And when these punks think they've been slighted, look out. They get catty. They get devious. They get vicious.
Oh, yeah. Amplification. I'm counting on it. I also agree with something else emanating from the hive-mind of Team Obama and contained within the above-cited comment:
perhaps that “community organizer” experience that was so much derided during the campaign will count for more than any of Obama’s naysayers
could have imagined.
It will. It sure will. Not as they anticipate, however. Sweet Jesus, this is going to be an interesting ride. I have a feeling I know the script far better than Team Obama. And the "Rovian mind" has a far better understanding of the script than I do.
Two weeks in and they've not only shown their hand -- they've overplayed it. It says to me they know this is still a center-right country and they desperately need to try and get what they can right now and then fight rear-guard actions to try and maintain that which has been achieved. Let us now move on and see what's going to be what.
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