Rahm's Take: Bubba v. Obama

Obama is Bill Clinton on steroids? Yah, that didn't come out quite right...

Some how I just know that this will spark a Clinton vs Obama flame war, if at least in the blogosphere.

I think MS by his juvenile heading hopes that people will read that as Rahm saying BHO is 10 times Clinton when what Rahm is saying is that the problems are 10 times worse.

Michael Scherer:
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Was this really the most interesting or important or relevant segment of the interview?

What a completely useless post. We get wall to wall Mark Sanford posts, a Michael Jackson post and now this. One guys opinion of his current boss and former boss.

queencersei-actually the transcript is interesting, I thought. MS just went the lazy route with his post.

Some how I just know that this will spark a Clinton vs Obama flame war, if at least in the blogosphere.
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If there is, look for a commenter named "sprezzachaqua" to have a major axe to grind on Rahm.

I found the description of Obama's meeting prep interesting. Although I don't always agree with him and am not at all happy with some of the positions his administration has taken, that kind of intellectual discipline is one of the big reasons I voted for him. Particularly after the previous administration when preparation seemed to take a back seat to pushing positions.

Actually, I found the discussion to be a classic example of how Democrats interact with the media in a fundamentally different way than Republicans. Republicans have traditionally had exceptionally strong message discipline. When they go on TV or talk to the press, they understand that they have an agenda and try to make every sentence that comes out of their mouth further the agenda.
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OTOH, you have Democrats like Rahm who have diarrhea of the mouth. It's not that Rahm has no interest in furthering Obama's agenda. It's that only 40-50% of his mind is focused on the task and the other 50-60% is caught up in his own joy at having a room full of people hanging on his every word.
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The key is in the details, like where Rahm talks about public option: "So it's not just a public plan. It's a public plan in conjunction with regulated, structured – we call it an exchange, in other words, it's just a fancy word for a marketplace."
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If this was Karl Rove, he would have focus grouped all the terminology regarding health care six ways to Sunday and he would use -- and only use -- the terms that tested the best and he would NEVER call the terms that he used "fancy". Does Rahm want the media to be calling the market for health insurance a "marketplace"? An "exchange"? Who knows? Probably not even Rahm. He's too busy comparing his boss to Clinton on steroids. Nice imagery, moron.

Somewhat OT, Dan Froomkin's last column. Definitely worth a read.
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/white-house-watched.html

square1 said: "nice imagery, moron".
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Chill out dude. ever wonder why the media hates repub strategists?
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Besides, u gotta differentiate between what rahm was trying to do. he's not the person who goes out trying to persuade the media and the people that this is a good plan. That job falls to Obama himself. Rahm was there to provide the explanatory side of things. u know, the isider stuff. U can't just go out there trying to bully people into believing arguments they've never heard before. You gotta set the field first, develop the main arguments to give people a context to mull over. Then Obama comes out with a well thought out speech to do the convincing.

Thanks Ivy_B
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Press operating as "stenographers to liars". Very often the case.

This is the problem with journalism as it currently exists:
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Q: Rahm, there are many people out there who suspect or say that what you all are trying to do with the public insurance plan is to eventually drive out the private insurance business, so they will no longer be able to compete, thereby achieving the goal of a government-run healthcare plan. Two questions. One, what do you say to the accusation about motive. And two, what do you say to the substantive question about, how do you design a public plan that isn't laden with government subsidies in such a way that it does, in fact, cause the private insurance companies to fundamentally exit the system or cause their costs to be so high that the employers reject those plans. [rest of question inaudible]

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How much worse can this get?
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First there is this gem:
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there are many people out there who suspect or say
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That it's common practice for political reporters to speak of "many people" without referring to individual opponents or their arguments is the immediate red flag of ineptitude.
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Who are "many people"? Are they reasonable people with honest motives, or are they crazy people speaking on behalf of an agenda that conflicts with everybody else's?
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What if "many people" is true in the physical sense, i.e. there are ten thousand of them, but when considered relative to the population as a whole become a tiny minority, i.e. ten thousand people out of three hundred million?
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The term "many people" seems to be shorthand for something else, probably similar to what is meant by the term "everybody" in the phrase "everybody knows". That something else sure sounds like "many people who oppose you politically with whom I've been in contact", doesn't it? Why is that not explicitly stated?
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Also, it seems that there is a justification of the argument inherent in the question. If "many people" say something, is it not more likely to be true, seems to imply the questioner. Of course that's idiotic.
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Whether "many people" make an argument or not doesn't necessarily justify its inclusion in a serious discussion, a fact that should be evident to educated people (presumably those who are tasked professionally with questioning the President's ministers about policy). "Many people" apparently "suspect or say" that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States, and therefore is illegitimately serving as President. According to the questioner, that makes these concerns legitimate and reasonable, at least in terms of justifying the restatement of "many people"'s talking points nearly verbatim on their behalf.
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This "many people suspect or say" technique is at best fallacious, and at worst dishonest. It should not be accepted as good professional conduct.
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suspect or say that what you all are trying to do with the public insurance plan is to eventually drive out the private insurance business, so they will no longer be able to compete, thereby achieving the goal of a government-run healthcare plan
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My guess would be that those people who suspect that the Obama Administration's goal is to crush private enterprise leaving the state's health care bureaucracy to reign supreme also suspect that Democrats are closet Trotskyists ideologically opposed to the existence of private industry.
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Another guess would be that those suspicious people haven't been paying attention to how desperate the Obama Administration have been (as evidenced by their policies) to keep the control of the structure of the financial sector in (incompetent) private hands.
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All of this conjecture speaks to the necessity of knowing to which suspicious people the questioner is referring, so as to ascertain what prompts them to speculate that the goal of Obama's health care reform is not to help ordinary people out, but instead to "drive out the private insurance business" --as if the Administration held some sort of personal vendetta against health insurers. It also speaks to the dis-ingenuity of the reporter.
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what do you say to the accusation about motive
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Gee, Einstein, what does any reasonable person say to unsubstantiated, anonymous accusations about anything?
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I believe that the short answer would be "Prove it." or "Provide some evidence, and then we'll have that discussion."
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The questioner's implication is that these accusations are warranted and reasonable, supported by significant evidence, and should be taken seriously in a policy discussion. I guess that, since the reporter apparently knows these accusers well, he may find every morsel of wisdom from their mouths to be beyond question, but to people who exist outside of that relationship framework, it looks as if the reporter is bending over backwards to confer credibility on a political attack.
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what do you say to the substantive question about, how do you design a public plan that isn't laden with government subsidies in such a way that it does, in fact, cause the private insurance companies to fundamentally exit the system or cause their costs to be so high that the employers reject those plans.
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So, in other words, how do you make a public plan that isn't better in terms of cost or availability than those offered by the extremely profitable health insurance giants...so that they can continue to do business as if people didn't really have any other, better option to choose?
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The premise here seems to be that, unless enormously profitable insurers are left without this sort of competition to do exactly what they've been doing so far, these corporations will "fundamentally exit the system", i.e. shut their doors tomorrow.
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Doesn't this sound sort of like the banksters' threats, i.e. "We need TALF and TARP on our terms, otherwise we just won't lend money, and the engine of the economy will collapse"?
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Why would a reporter essentially threaten a government official with deliberate catastrophe on behalf of an industry?
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Even more bizarre, why would a reporter take at face value the private insurers' claim that the offering of a cheaper, better plan could "cause their costs to be so high that the employers reject those plans"? Why wouldn't the reporter simply phrase that question "or health insurers aren't willing to provide cheaper rates and better service, so that employers tend to reject those more expensive, less useful private plans?"
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But even more incredibly, how could the health care access system change if its current owners change nothing about the way they operate? What would be better for the majority of Americans with health insurance whose premiums go up exponentially, and whose coverage declines, and whose experiences are more and more that of rescission and retroactive denial, if private insurers did exactly what they're doing now forever?
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How is this reporter serving the interests of public information essential to proper democratic functioning?
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How does repeating an unsubstantiated charge such as "some people say that you just want control of the health care system for its own sake" and then opposing the change people want and need from how insurers operate with an imaginary sudden doomsday scenario in which these colossal private enterprises disappear overnight aid in Americans' understanding of the issue?
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How does this person call themselves a "journalist" with a straight face?
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Perhaps more importantly, how do journalists call this person a journalist, and accept these practices as the work of a peer of integrity?

Rahm: another Washington insider in love with his own voice and his ability to "get things done" behind the scenes.
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People like him are the part of this administration that worry me the most - the re-treads with their questionable agendas and loyalties.

Is "quotient" even the right word?
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I don't think there's a ton of evidence that Obama has a "disciplined" mind. Putting aside the idiocy of "57 states" or not knowing that Kentucky and Illinois share a border, Obama seems to have a habit of letting his mouth get ahead of his brain. A classic example is his yapping about the Senate having the ability to block Burris, when Supreme Court precedent pretty much said otherwise (certainly, a Constitutional law prof, lecturer, whatever, should have known better). Other examples: his statement that cap and trade will make "polluters" pay, not everyone. Surely Obama's heard of costs being passed along, and, of course, he had stated that the "energy costs would skyrocket" on the campaign trail. Or what about his "Iran is a great threat/Iran is not a threat" statements? And was parrotting Andrew Sullivan re: Winston Churchill really the product of a disciplined mind?
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Obama seems to be one of those guys who (a) thinks he's a lot more knowledgeable than he really is, (b) likes to debate for debate's sake, vice actually coming to some sort of deeper knowledge or understanding of an issue and (c) thinks his trite observations are somehow the product of deep erudition.

lupercal:
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Actually, I never noticed that the media hates GOP strategists. Instead I've noticed that the media praises them as geniuses and, if anything, inexplicably takes the strategists' spin at face value.
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Even Joe Klein treats Luntz as if he is an straight (if right-leaning) political analyst rather than a partisan with an agenda.
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Besides, u gotta differentiate between what rahm was trying to do. he's not the person who goes out trying to persuade the media and the people that this is a good plan.
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Why not? This was exactly my initial point. For the GOP, politics is 24/7/365. The GOP treats every interaction with the media and the public as an opportunity to communicate and sell its message. For Democrats, selling ideas and policies to the public is something to be scheduled. A press conference here. A press release there. Maybe even a speech by the President.
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But a breakfast meeting with the press by the Chief of Staff? Why on Earth would that be an opportunity to push the administration's messages? That's just Rahm's opportunity to pontificate and get a for a free meal to boot.

But a breakfast meeting with the press by the Chief of Staff? Why on Earth would that be an opportunity to push the administration's messages? That's just Rahm's opportunity to pontificate and get a for a free meal to boot.
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square1,
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It's not what Rahm says in public that bothers me, but what he DOES when he's behind those doors as the intermediary between the WH and Congress. He's in a position to "shade" the message and push for positions that might not be in the public interest. He's an insider, proud of it and, ultimately, loyal to Rahm above all. He's just one of those types of politician that I take one look at and put my hand on my wallet in reflex.
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I will concede the fact that he is undoubtedly effective as a "go-between" and operative but, given his history, I don't think he has ANY concrete principles. He's the type I wish Obama had kept out of his administration but I do understand why he was kept (a tip of the hat to Hillary as a peace offering).
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I just hope Obama knows enough NOT to trust him with the keys to the store.

afguy: You are entirely correct. I was just reminding everyone that D.C. Dems still don't have the slightest clue about messaging. Rahm and his merry band of political losers couldn't out strategize Karl Rove in a million years.
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These D.C. Dems think they won in 2006 and 2008. In fact, the GOP so thoroughly thrashed the Dems in 2000-2004, that the GOP obtained total control over the government. When the GOP ran the country into the gutter, the Dems were the only alternative and won back power by default.

I was just reminding everyone that D.C. Dems still don't have the slightest clue about messaging. Rahm and his merry band of political losers couldn't out strategize Karl Rove in a million years.
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square1,
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They could but need to remember that politics is a marathon, not a message-to-message sprint. They need to stop waiting around for the GOP to pull themselves out of the ditch they ran into and start to govern as they were elected to do.
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Messaging isn't going to solve the problems we have and both parties need to actually realize that this isn't just some game anymore. Otherwise, we're going to wake up and wonder where the country the Founders put together went.

The GOP gets the rules but has sh*t for a product right now. The Dems have a good product but seem to be torpedoing their own cause in their quest to "look" like they are Congressional team players.
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My son came home from a baseball game the other day and said that "there was an 'i' in team, there were a dozen of them". I think he could have been talking about the Dems right now.

spob...technically you're right. Emmanuel must have meant "factor" of 10 which would imply (which I think Emmanuel IS saying) TEN TIMES the intellectual discipline of Clinton. Clinton from what I could tell (just being a guy who reads what he does in the media) was something more of an intellectual dilettante i.e mostly trying to show off intellectually how smart he was, thinking that somehow that was a sign of intellectualism.

By "quotient" actually implies DIVIDED by 10...or 1/10th as intellectually disciplined. Clearly from what you wrote you really would agree with this assessment, I beleive. But I see discipline not as a rating of intellectual strength but more of willfulness, which I do believe Obama is definitely the more disciplined of the two...I don't know if he is such by a FACTOR of ten, but certainly more so compared to Clinton. Both Clinton and Gore were dilettantes and deeply narcissistic in each their own way to my way of thinking (Gore so on his fetish with technology & the climate). And Bush 43 had neither intellect nor will (and certainly was no narcissist, which is what I think was his real appeal...an "average" guy). I see Obama as at a minimum a more focused individual (since at least Bush 41) who truly understands the role of the presidency better than anyone since Bush 41. Whether he is successful still remains to be seen; all the pre-judgmental (and prejudicial I might add) assessment of him is just all game-playing by all the parties' involved in the Beltway/national drama. History and events plus the success or failure of his legislative efforts will ultimately tell the story.