SmartRemarks

Why? Why does a presidential administration that came into office on the diligent labor and fervent hopes of progressives continue to send progressives the message that it doesn’t need them, indeed that it doesn’t even care what they think, that their principles and passions are nothing more than chips to be bargained away as evidence of the White House’s “post-partisan” cred?

Today Barack Obama announced that his nominee to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court will be Elena Kagan, current Solicitor General, former Dean of Harvard Law. After much debate and speculation in the press and online, the decision isn’t really a surprise. It is, however, a major disappointment.

A Supreme Court vacancy is always a huge opportunity, and my personal hopes for Obama’s choice when this one arose could be summed up in just three words: please be bold. I had hoped that with (as it were) strategist David Axelrod whispering in one ear (recently fairly outspoken about the pointlessness of seeking cooperation from the right) and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel whispering in the other (advocating triangulation and expediency, valuing power over principle as ever), for a change Obama might recapture the spirit that animated his campaign and decide that, if the GOP is determined to give him a fight, he’ll make it one with stakes worth winning.

But once again, he didn’t.

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Tags: Elena Kagan, Glenn Greenwald, John Paul Stevens, judiciary, Obama, progressives, Rahm Emanuel, Senate, Supreme Court

As the health care reform debate enters what appears to be the home stretch (albeit not for the first time), what Washington is offering us (the citizenry) boils down to a choice between bad and worse. The legislation now under consideration, both the Senate bill and the slight variation on same presented as “Obama’s bill,” is the end result of a process that has methodically stripped away almost everything that made this reform effort worth undertaking in the first place. They’ve thrown out the baby and kept the bathwater.

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Tags: Alan Grayson, Bart Stupak, Blue Dogs, Congress, Democrats, Dick Durbin, health care, insurance, Max Baucus, Obama, Pelosi, progressives, Rahm Emanuel, Reid, Republicans, Senate

So, where did I leave off?

…That’s right, there was a speech Wednesday night. A pretty significant one, in fact, for reasons I described at some length.

What of it, then?

I can’t deny that it was a very, very good speech. Rhetorically powerful. And yet, what it says about the direction of health care policy, and thus about Obama and the Democratic Party itself… still remains substantially up in the air.

(Even as every pundit who can string three words together attempts to read the tea leaves and tell us otherwise.)

I’ll try to avoid that kind of divination. But opinions? Analysis? I have those.

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Tags: Blue Dogs, Congress, Democrats, government, health care, insurance, Obama, progressives, Rahm Emanuel, Reid, Republicans, Senate

August is a strange season in politics. In the final weeks of summer last year, we had the incredible (and incredibly short-lived) public buzz surrounding Sarah Palin, before people realized she just used those glasses for looks, not reading. This year’s dog days brought us hordes of astroturf Teabagger Republicans demonstrating that they think public discourse boils down to “whoever shouts loudest wins.”

I’ve sat back and haven’t posted a great deal in recent weeks (although it’s been impossible to avoid following the theater of it all). For one thing, there are better things to do when the weather is nice (not all that common a condition in Chicago). For another, there’s been a lot of justifiable uncertainty and skepticism developing among progressives about exactly where and how Obama and the Democratic party are willing to take a stand, and I’ve been genuinely unsure of my own assessment, wavering from cynicism to optimism sometimes on a daily basis.

But Labor Day is behind us and silly season is over, and the president gave a major speech on health care tonight, and it’s time to take a serious look at where things stand.

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Tags: Democrats, Glenn Greenwald, health care, Obama, Paul Krugman, progressives, Rahm Emanuel

One could go on at literally exhaustive length about the ins and outs of the current “health care debate” in Washington, but I’ll try to avoid that. The media and the blogosphere have provided a constant play-by-play in terms of both substantive policy and, even more, political strategy. (Jonathan Chait at TNR has been particularly diligent. Meanwhile, much of the MSM seems content merely ringing premature death-knells for reform.) Me, I’ll just try to provide a few observations from a mile-high view.

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Tags: Blue Dogs, Congress, Democrats, health care, House of Representatives, insurance, Medicare, Obama, Paul Krugman, Rahm Emanuel, Republicans, Senate

The question of who will fill Obama’s Senate seat has gotten the lion’s share of media coverage, but meanwhile things are heating up around another question, the one of who will replace Obama’s Chief of Staff—Rahm Emanuel—in the seat from Illinois’ fifth Congressional district, here in Chicago.

I went to a meeting tonight of the local chapter of Democracy For America (the organization that springboarded out of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential run), for a presentation and discussion of what’s happening in the 5th district. The room was packed, standing room only—I’d estimate at least 80 people there, on a cold wintry weeknight. Locally, at least, this contest is attracting some real attention.

I used to live in the 5th… back in the ’90s when it was represented by Dan Rostenkowski, then (for one term) Republican Michael Flanagan, then Rod Blagojevich… although I’d moved on to a new neighborhood by the time Rahm was elected in 2002. Not exactly a list covered with glory, but still, as those names might suggest (except for Flanagan, the only successful GOP challenger for the seat in 50 years), it’s a district that carries a bit more weight than the average Congressional seat, in terms of influence and career prospects.

And unlike the Senate seat, a vacancy has to be filled by special election. The primary for this one will be held on March 3, only eight weeks away. Chicago being a Democratic city, whoever wins the primary will win the general… and whoever wins the general can quite likely stay in Congress for as long as he pleases after that. And given that genuinely open Congressional seats in Chicago are not exactly everyday occurrences, it’s a free-for-all.

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Tags: Chicago, House of Representatives, Illinois, media, Rahm Emanuel, Tom Geoghegan, voting

We all knew Gov. Rod Blagojevich was under a federal investigation, but nobody expected developments as dramatic as what happened today. FBI agents arrested Democratic Gov. Blagojevich at his home this morning, at the direction of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald—the same man who brought down his predecessor, Republican Gov. George Ryan.

(Chicago is famous for its political corruption, but the state of Illinois as a whole is really no better, and it has always been bipartisan. In fact, this was our fourth governor out of five to be indicted, and if he’s convicted—not something to bet against—he’ll be the third out of five.)

Fitzgerald is emerging as the incorruptible prosecutor of the century, “a modern-day Elliot Ness“:  alongside his gubernatorial investigations he’s made time to convict Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame case, not to mention former Sun-Times owner Conrad Black, and he’s also looked into the Daley administration. In fact, Blago’s Chief of Staff John Harris (also arrested today) spent nine years working for Daley, and his nose was none too clean then either; Daley and the rest of City Hall’s fifth floor must be feeling a little nervous themselves at this point.

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Tags: Blagojevich, Chicago, Illinois, Obama, Patrick Fitzgerald, Rahm Emanuel

Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun.

Seldom in political life has two-and-a-half months seemed quite so long a wait. People voted for Obama because they want change, and the daily news just makes them want it all the sooner. (Just today:  GM stock hits its lowest value in 60 years, DHL ceases North American operations and fires nearly 10,000 people, Circuit City declares bankruptcy as it goes into the holiday season owing $650 million to its suppliers.) But the inauguration isn’t until January 20, and as Obama pointed out in his press conference Friday, the country only has one president at a time.

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Tags: Chicago, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, transition