What If: Obama logic applied to presidencies past

Now don't get me wrong, I like Obama and think his best days are still to come. But his administration has so far been a strange collection of backtracks, waverings, retreats, retreads, flip-flops, cricket chirps and sellouts, with a few successes here and there.

Friend of mine saw a link somewhere that wondered what it would be like if Team Obama applied its logic on health care to other progressive battles in history. He lost the exact link, which I don't have either, so I hope my list below isn't copycatting someone else too closely (email or comment if so, esp. if you have the link in question).

Anyway, here are a few headlines from history, if Obama logic was at work...

Stuck with Reid forever

I don't much like Sen. Harry Reid. So he's a pragmatist who's willing to cross the aisle to get things done, yeah great. What that's actually meant during his tenure is that he's willing to kowtow to corrupt Republicans to stay on everyone's Christmas card list. Reid is more interested in sealing deals than in right or wrong.

How to boot the moral milquetoast? Granted, his job isn't an easy or glamorous one, and there hasn't exactly been an avalanche of challengers. I had hopes that Sen. Hillary Clinton might push for it, but check this telling info from a piece on President-elect Obama's discussion of Sec-of-State with Clinton in today's NY Times, emphasis mine:

For Mrs. Clinton, there are pros and cons to taking the job as well. Senior Senate Democratic officials say it has become increasingly clear to Mrs. Clinton and her advisers that there was no quick route to a position of influence in the Senate, potentially increasing her interest in a prominent role in the Obama administration.

She had approached the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, about becoming chairwoman of a special subcommittee to handle health care issues, but he squelched the idea, Senate officials said. Aides to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, made it clear that despite his illness, he intended to consider health overhaul before the full committeethat he leads.

Mrs. Clinton was also discouraged from trying to mount a challenge to any junior members of the party's Senate leadership, one official said. In a seniority-driven institution like the Senate, it could take years for Mrs. Clinton to accumulate real power despite her status as a national political celebrity and the appeal she demonstrated in the primary season.

Egad. Well, here's hoping Russ Feingold mounts a challenge, or is he too principled?

Obama VP will be Biden

Sen. Barack Obama hasn't made it official yet in the much-awaited email to his special mailing list, but it appears if this ABC News blog post is to believed that Sen. Joe Biden is to be his running mate:

The United States Secret Service has dispatched a protective detail to assume the immediate protection of Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a source tells ABC News, indicating in all likelihood that Biden has been officially notified that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, has selected him to be his running mate

CNN later confirmed through multiple sources that Biden will indeed be named Obama's running mate on Saturday.

Obama's choice of veteran senator Biden (D-DE) comes as little surprise for many in the media and blogosphere who had expected Obama to pick seniority over obscurity.

His pool of potential candidates had dwindled over recent weeks. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas were other names often bandied about as possible contenders, but Biden seemed to have the lion's share of the attention.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's bitter rival in the Democratic primaries, was out of the running early, signified by her and former president Bill Clinton's tepid support for the Illinois senator in the days following her concession. Just recently her brother also had paid a visit to the McCain camp.

Sen. John McCain will announce his VP pick on his 72nd birthday on Aug. 29.

Obama makes a molehill out of a mountain

Huffington Post and others tried to capitalize on this earlier, an out-of-context quote from Obama supposedly characterizing rural Pennsylvanians as bitter, gun-totin' nutballs. If you read the original quote in context, you'll see how Jake Tapper et al. could carve it up for cheap hits on a slow Friday.

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Having been set up for easy lay-ups, both Team Magoo and No. 2 went in for some gimme points by issuing snarkments on this non-story.

Well, Sen. Obama slaps them both down with his just-issued response to it all:

...I made this statement -- so, here's what rich. Senator Clinton says 'No, I don't think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack's being condescending.' John McCain says, 'Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he's obviously out of touch with people.'

Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain -- it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he's saying I'm out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I'm out of touch? No, I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania. I know what's going on in Indiana. I know what's going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They're angry and they're frustrated and they're bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that's why I'm running for President of the United States of America.

Richardson says Viva Obama

This may be the final blow to Sen. Clinton's bleak hopes for the White House. At least Gov. Richardson, who worked for Pres. Bill Clinton, waited till after Texas to endorse Obama likely out of respect and loyalty to his old friends. This must have been tough for him, but apparently it was tougher for Hillary.

The endorsement from Richardson:



The acceptance from Obama: