An interesting read today on the New York Times’ opinion blog… historian Jean Edward Smith looks back at FDR and his ultimate openness with the press.

President Obama stubbed his toe his first week in office when he paid a surprise visit to the White House press room. He wanted to introduce himself informally to the press corps, and was taken aback when reporters began to ask substantive questions. “I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here,” said the president.

The press, for its part, took offense that President Obama dodged their queries. They also bridled at being excluded from the swearing-in redo with Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as the president’s first interview (an exclusive given to ABC). …

Franklin Roosevelt, however, adopted a hands-on approach. Rather than meet the press at a formal session in the East Room (as his predecessors had occasionally done), F.D.R. invited them into the Oval Office. Twice a week the White House press corps gathered around the president’s desk and fired away. …

In his first term, Roosevelt held 337 press conferences. That is no misprint. Three hundred and thirty-seven. Normally the conferences were held at 10 o’clock on Wednesday mornings for benefit of the afternoon press, and 4 o’clock on Fridays for the morning editions. When the war came, the conferences became less frequent, but altogether F.D.R. held 998 press conferences as president. [bolds mine-R]

When candidate Obama declared that he wished to restore openness to the White House, this is what I (and many of my press colleagues) had hoped for: A president who would answer questions, answer them himself and — most importantly — just answer them. Hence my dismay in his pre-inaugural “I’m going to let the justice system run its course” cop-outs to questions on the Blago scandal, even when it was pretty apparent Obama had done nothing wrong. I hope he is a great president, and I think he will be a much better one than his predecessor (who gave far fewer press conferences than any other president in the last century… I’ve been googling for a specific number, but can’t find it). Still, the bloom may be off the rose if by “openness” Obama means that everyone who signs up for email updates will get periodic spin bulletins from the White House press office. (more…)

Raise the roof, guv'nah! (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Sure, he was taped trying to solicit tens of millions in campaign contributions in exchange for Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Sure, his wife curses like a sailor. Sure, his hair is AWFUL (Stephen Colbert last night called it “his chinchilla brain cozy”). But Illinois Gov. Rob Blagojevich is purely American! In an age when politicians usually deal with scandal by repeating “no comment” as if it’s at the center of some transcendental meditation program, then stepping down before an investigation can even take place, old Robby is standing up to the media, his constituents, and basically anyone else with an iota of reason. Consider:

“The causes of the impeachment are because I’ve done things to fight for families.” Yeah! Those evil state representatives want you out so the poor will get poorer! The rich will get richer! The last name is hard to pronounce, encouraging literacy amongst the youngsters!
“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Quoting “Ulysses” here… this may a.) have something further to do with youth literacy or b.) show that, not only is he corrupt, he’s also spent his days in the office boning up on the classics in case Chicago is ever attacked by a giant winged creature.
“I’m going to fight every step of the way.” Spoken like a true American. A real American. A Bill O’Reilly type of American. (UPDATE: If sarcasm isn’t evident here, please be advised that… well, it’s there.)

Can he be an effective governor? Of course not. But this is way better than any “reality” TV show … I’ll take “Pride Cometh” over “Survivor: Cambodia” any day.

(more…)

I posted a bit ago about our president-elect and the seeming continuity in foreign policy with “Bush-McCain” policies… and was roundly rejected by one of my closer friends for intimating that maybe, just maybe, Obama’s talk of change was ringing hollow. Perhaps I went overboard? Perhaps I was grasping for something to write about? Ah, but there’s more evidence that the “change” some of us have sought from “politics as usual” is not actually coming. But let me backtrack a bit.

One of the things (IMO) that got the press enamored with Obama — just as it had years before with McCain, prior to his campaign’s drastic leash-tightening — was his seeming penchant to speak at length about whatever was asked. Sure, he sidestepped some things, but Obama generally gave much more detailed, thoughtful answers than his competitors in a soundbite, CYA atmosphere. He also vowed greater transparency in government, and often urged the Bush White House to come clean with the American people about the topic of the day. (Note, please, that I think those sentiments a fine idea, part of the most attractive aspect of Obama ’08.)

In the face of the scandal involving his governor and his Senate seat, however, Obama is not giving me much hope for the transparency I’ve been waiting for. From Politico:

Obama refused to answer questions about his staff’s involvement with Gov. Rod Blagojevich over filling the vacated Senate seat and whether his successor should now be chosen by appointment or special election.

Obama, speaking to reporters after a news conference announcing his secretary of education, said the internal review he had ordered of his staff’s contacts with Blagojevich was complete but cited the request of the U.S. attorney’s office to hold off on disclosing the results until next week. … Obama flashed some irritation at the line of questioning, cutting off McCormick before he could finish his initial query. [bold mine-R]

This is the oldest trick in the book, and not a very convincing one. How many times in the past eight years has some White House spokesman refused to answer a legitimate question, citing the need for a “full investigation” or “findings to be disclosed” or some such thing? Journalists will write it, yes, but we don’t buy it for a second; it’s a hollow non-answer, and 99-to-1 a pretty blatant lie. Obama has been sidestepping (or refusing to answer) the Blago questions for more than a week now, despite the repeated assertion that Obama had no role in it and did nothing wrong. Truth be told, even most Republicans don’t think Obama was in the middle of Rod’s insane shenanigans, but it portends “more of the same” to hear Obama using the “we need to wait until the investigation is complete” line.

The state of education: Obama’s pick for Education Secretary needs to watch his pronouns:

“I want to thank our mutual friend John Rogers who has been a mentor and friend to me since I was ten years old. He gave my sister and I the opportunity to start a great school in the South side of Chicago…”

Do you see what I see?

Dick Cavett is still awesome: He writes an occasional blog for the Times; this installment is on the Senate Seat Salesman himself:

The question overhanging this sordid mess, you might agree, is, “How did such a specimen ever get elected?”

It’s as if a soldier, tested for his fitness as potential combat leader, passed his physical despite scurvy, pyorrhea, Jake leg, leprosy, the quinsy, contagious influenza and at least two trick knees.

(We all know from childhood that it’s not nice to make fun of people’s appearance. So I will confine myself to merely observing that whatever covers the governor’s head looks to me like a bowling-ball cozy.)

(Hat tip to my wife for the clever title of this post.)

Obama and his team of rivals, proving that blue is the new black.

Though you probably figured it out already, I cast my presidential vote for Barack Obama. I didn’t get too caught up in the hype, but was mainly voting for a.) a change in the demeanor of politics in general (a man who doesn’t answer debate questions with soundbites wins? Whoda thunk it?) and b.) a “change” in our nation’s approach to foreign policy.

Well, it looks like I can chalk that second one up to buyer’s remorse.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Obama’s temperament and (seeming) interest in reasoned discourse instead of steadfast ideology is going to serve us much better than McCain’s hard-nosed, “We must always WIN” attitude. But based on Obama’s newly named foreign policy team, I think that (where foreign policy is concerned) we were sold a decidedly false bill of goods. Consider:

Robert Gates, current secretary of defense, who will stick around, despite his earlier saying that he probably wouldn’t.

(more…)

It may be hoity-toity, and it may be one of those magazines that graces more coffee tables than actual readers. But it’s got great longform journalism (a dying breed, indeed), and two of this month’s pieces on Obama are worth noting:

1.) “The Joshua Generation”: This in-depth piece from reporter David Remnick looks at how Obama used race to his advantage — and downplayed it as well — en route to the White House, and looks at what the victory ultimately means for black Americans in the 21st century. It’s not an altogether shiny, happy tale, but it’s informative for anyone interested in the racial, social and political divides in this country.

2.) “Battle Plans”: Ryan Lizza gives us an overarching view of how Obama’s advisers used an adept understanding of the nation’s political tide, as well as a cool-headed approach to usually white-hot presidential politics, to help Obama to victory.

All this from the same magazine that gave us the unforgettable cover above, in the name of satire.

First off, apologies for the delay in writing about the election. When it was all said and done, I found myself at first paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of the moment, and since then so full of thoughts that it was impossible to make much sense of them. I still feel a bit like that, but I’m going to attempt a cohesive thread.

The Obamas: Putting the "first" into the First Family

That Barack Obama won so handily came as no surprise to me (though the electoral numbers ended up even a bit bigger than the most positive polling suggested), given his message and the real wants and needs of mainstream America — not to mention the audacious atrocity that was the McCain campaign. For months, however, the actual narrative of Obama’s journey has been lost in the details (of attack ads and policy pronouncements, gotchas and gaffes, pitbulls and plumbers). It reared its head again on Tuesday as soon as the first results starting coming in, and it is this: Americans have elected a black man as president, and (in modern terms, at least) by a landslide. But a sad truth is that the epochal nature of this moment hasn’t hit everyone — in fact, I’ve talked to a number of people here in southcentral Kentucky who either don’t recognize what a moment this is or who cynically dismiss it as being of little real importance.

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I’ll be doing that here. Check in early and often, and look for the headlines that begin with “SPIN ROOM,” because those are mine.

First, let’s note that John McCain could win. It doesn’t look likely, and if the polls are correct it’s 98 percent impossible. But he could, and if he does, I’ll be as surprised as anyone and be thrust into rethinking a lot of assumptions I’m now carrying around. And with that out of the way, my thoughts on Election Eve.

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For anyone who’s heard something about this and wonders what it’s all about, here’s a good synopsis from a self-proclaimed conservative who sees it for what it is.

If there are six days until the election, it must be time for a ginned-up phony controversy.  The phony controversy derives from the story about the L.A. Times‘ Khalidi tape combined with the confident foreign policy pronouncements of Joe the Plumber Geopolitical Strategist that voting for Obama is voting for the “death of Israel.” …

For those of you who have wisely been ignoring the final days of the campaign, here is the story about the tape: back in 2003 when Khalidi was about to leave Chicago to fill Edward Said’s post at Columbia after Said had passed on, there was a farewell party attended by Obama, and there was a video record of it that was leaked to the L.A. Times that the newspaper first reported on in April.  This party and Obama’s attendance at it have been more or less common knowledge to anyone who has spent much time following Obama’s career, and the party and the relationship between Obama and Khalidi have been made out to be meaningful evidence that Obama harbors some pro-Palestinian attitudes because of things he said at this party about Khalidi. …

Now some are claiming that the tape purportedly has a record of Obama saying things not just about Khalidi, but about Israel and Palestine as well, but as far as I can tell this is just more baseless rumormongering.  It seems that the only reason why anyone suspects that there is something “damaging” (i.e., something not reflexively “pro-Israel”) on the tape is that the Times won’t release it because of an agreement it made with its source(s), but if the Times were to break its agreement with the source(s) and release the tape it would then presumably be accused of violating ethical standards in order to vindicate its preferred candidate. This is a very odd case of a newspaper being accused of “suppressing” evidence after having published a report on the very thing it is supposedly suppressing.  Had it acquired the tape and never reported on it, that would be one thing, but it did just the opposite.  What is most bizarre about all of this is that from everything we do know about what Obama said, his remarks about Khalidi clearly implied that he didn’t agree with his colleague, which is why in classic Obama fashion he applauded Khalidi for challenging him and making him face his own biases. …

Perhaps Joe the Plumber can return to worrying about incipient socialism and leave foreign policy to others. [bold mine-R]

NOTE: All referenced ads are VodPodded at right; the list below is upside-down from the order in the VodPod. Deal with it.

1.) Obama’s wink-and-nod on Palin: Actually, it’s Palin who’s winking and nodding, after a little background on McCain saying he’s not particularly knowledgable on the economy, and that he’ll “rely” on his VP for economic advice. MY TAKE: It’s a very wry, hard-hitting ad, but the fact that people have to read it and not hear it is a big negative. It’s a talkie! Why not use it?

2.) McCain’s dig at the big ad buy: Reminds me of the “Celebrity” ad, but less weird and more potent. It’s always seemed to me that McCain shouldn’t whine about being outspent, but spin it somehow into “look how much money he has to throw around on ads, crowning himself president while you struggle to make ends meet.” He seems to be doing this here, and while I don’t think it’s a game-changer, it certainly can’t hurt. He’s also, on the stump, blaming Obama for delaying the World Series with tonight’s ad (which Fox says isn’t true, they’re just cutting the pregame show) and playing up the “he thinks he’s president already!” angle, which could have an effect on any few rare voters to whom politics is like a football game that you don’t have a vested in (i.e. you vote for the underdog).

3.) Al Franken’s funny ad: The guy is a comedian, right? But he hasn’t followed his Republican ex-govenor Jesse “The Body” Ventura in making a lot of ludicrous ads. This one, however, is kind of funny…

4.) Norm Coleman’s “even Hollywood doesn’t like him” counterpunch: Cliff from Cheers and some other washed-up celebs appear in this ad against Franken. It would be a lot more potent if we’d seen any of these people on something besides re-runs in the last 10 years… but still, in a world of boring political ads, I approve of these messages.

Now, the most absolutely ridiculous ad I’ve seen this election isn’t available anywhere online (if someone finds it, I’ll give you a $5 gift certificate to my favorite coffee shop), but let me paint the picture: Charlene Rabold, a Democrat looking to unseat Republican state Rep. Jim DeCesare here in Bowling Green, has an ad that claims DeCesare is at least OK with, if not downright in favor of, legalizing marijuana. The source: A resolution he voted for, honoring economist Milton Friedman! (Who apparently suggested it would make economic sense to legalize marijuana in order to regulate and tax it.) She was later quoted in my newspaper as “Googling” his name to find this factoid. As a letter to the editor today put it, it should be of more concern that a Democrat who wants to fix the economy would have to Google Milton Friedman! Best of all, it ends with a stoned teenager stumbling out of a smoke-filled van, saying “Thanks, DeCesare doood!!!”

Priceless.