"The Washington Note" - 5 new articles
Tidbits on a DC Snow Day: Storms, Realists, Feinstein's Chairs, Churchill, LBJ & Nigel Sheinwald
Snow Storms & Roads In snow-challenged Washington, DC, Nebraska Avenue and the roads around Vice President's Naval Observatory home are immaculate, completely cleared of snow and ice -- but the major artery of Massachusetts Avenue is a horizontal snow slush, barely plowed. DC Mayor Adrian Fenty would probably be in bigger trouble with citizens if there were not another ten or so inches of white stuff on the way giving him 'another chance' to get the city's infrastructure back in operation after a storm. The Washington Post Reaches Out to A Realist Well, jiminy cricket, I just learned that Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel has started a weekly "online" column for The Washington Post. Appearing in the actual paper still has its benefits -- particularly when so much of the in-paper editorial offerings and the opeds assembled by Fred Hiatt and Jackson Diehl are of a neoconservative or liberal interventionist (neocon of the left) tilt. But something is better than nothing -- and Vanden Heuvel, who too many confuse as a hard core lefty, is actually one of the smartest "progressive realist" commentators in the country. Katrina once told me at a swank Hamptons party that "realism had become the new ideology of the left." And she is and was right. (Here is her first installment.) Dianne Feinstein's Famous Chairs I had occasion to chat with Senator Dianne Feinstein last night -- a hero in my book in the aftermath of the Harvey Milk assassination -- and learned that her home in the Spring Valley district of Washington should probably become a historic site at some point. I don't think she would mind my sharing this -- but said that when folks come over to her place, she is nearly always asked right away to show where Barack and Hillary sat in her home to work out their post-primary postures. At the dinner we were at last evening, she pointed to two modest but still regal high-back stuffed chairs that looked like the ones in her place. Senator Feinstein said that she was thinking of putting plaques on the chairs that said who sat in what chair and where. Two thoughts: Someone should convince the President and Secretary of State to go resume their positions in those chairs and get a great Annie Leibovitz photo. Second, perhaps Senator Feinstein should donate the chairs to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History?
I was up near the British Embassy both yesterday and today -- ghost town there in an embassy sense. The stalwart bronzed Winston Churchill still has about 18 inches of white stuff on his head and arms -- sort of a warrior snow man. But just got word that UK Ambassador to the US Nigel Sheinwald is speaking in Austin tonight at the LBJ Presidential Library outlining support for General Stanley McChrystal's action plan in Afghanistan. According to Sheinwald's office: Ambassador Sheinwald will lay out the case for a successful political strategy to support the military strategy being carried out by ISAF under General McChrystal. He will say that political success in Afghanistan depends on three factors: reassuring the Afghan people about our commitment, splitting the coalition that makes up the insurgency we face, and promoting security in the wider region around Afghanistan. He will reiterate that a political solution is as important as a military one, and make the case that the Taliban need to be outgoverned as well as outgunned.Sheinwald will say: "The war in Afghanistan and the related challenges we face across the border in Pakistan constitute the top foreign policy and security priority for the British Government. The reason is simple: like the US Administration, we believe that we must prevent Afghanistan from becoming once again a safe haven for Al Qaeda and international terrorists who plan to do us harm. "And what are we doing to ensure that this risk is lowered? After several reviews, both the Obama Administration and the British Government have come to the same conclusion: to ensure that this area does not become a safe haven, we must help and support the government of Afghanistan to secure its own territory against militancy and terrorism. We have adopted, with the Afghan government, a comprehensive, politically-led counter-insurgency campaign. Simultaneously, in Pakistan, we need to support the government's efforts - certainly through security and intelligence help, but also through economic and social development, and long term nurturing of Pakistan's political and institutional structure. [...] "When the Taliban were in power, they broke Afghan society so badly that it was easy for Al Qaeda to take root. Our task, therefore, is to help the Afghan people strengthen themselves and their society to the extent that they are robust enough to repel Al Qaeda without the need for several tens of thousand international troops on their soil. [...] "We are not just focused on making Afghans feel safer in their beds at night. We need the people of Afghanistan to want to take ownership of the future of their country. The polls consistently tell us that only around 6% of the Afghan people want the Taliban back in power. But the evidence is clear that many more than that are unwilling to turn their back on the insurgency in case the Taliban do return. [...] "So we need to build up their trust in a government which is seen to be acting against corruption and aiming to govern competently. In the words of our Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, "the Taliban need to be outgoverned, not just outgunned". This part of the political strategy is designed to build up the capacity and effectiveness of Afghanistan's government, both in Kabul and out in the provinces and districts; training and equipping provincial and district governors; distributing aid money more effectively; and addressing the deficit in justice by providing both financial and practical support. Here is the rest of the speech. Ambassador Sheinwald makes much sense here -- but one wonders how the US, even with allies, can even pretend to achieve such a holistic, ambitious agenda in Afghanistan when the President of the United States can't get a health care bill through Congress. I want President Obama, General McChrystal, our British allies, and others to succeed -- but not to doubt somewhat this ambitious agenda given current performance trends would be irresponsible in my view. -- Steve Clemons Today Show Discussion of Obama Team Policy MessVisit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy I did a short interview with NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd yesterday about the essay I did based on Edward Luce's Financial Times account of things going awry at the inner core of the Obama administration. Todd also mentions both my piece and Luce's in his "First Thoughts" column this morning. Todd and his team write: *** Obama's inner circle: We should have mentioned these two pieces earlier -- in the Financial Times and the Washington Note -- that make some key observations about Obama's inner circle, and are getting a fair amount of buzz. One excerpt: "The Obama White House is geared for campaigning rather than governing, [observers] say. In dozens of interviews with his closest allies and friends in Washington - most of them given unattributably in order to protect their access to the Oval Office - each observes that the president draws on the advice of a very tight circle. The inner core consists of just four people - Rahm Emanuel, the pugnacious chief of staff; David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, his senior advisers; and Robert Gibbs, his communications chief... With the exception of Mr Emanuel, who was a senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, all were an integral part of Mr Obama's brilliantly managed campaign. Apart from Mr Gibbs, who is from Alabama, all are Chicagoans - like the president. And barring Richard Nixon's White House, few can think of an administration that has been so dominated by such a small inner circle." Other interesting reactions and thoughts can be read at Digby's Hullabaloo, pieces by John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog, at Peter Feaver's Foreign Policy blog, and this morning in The Hill. Also check out Jake Tapper's take at ABC's Political Punch. There are also a number of sites -- some very interesting ones -- that take exception to the thesis that Luce and I have both put out there and who think that Obama's team is getting most things right -- or that this kind of palace intrigue article is at most entertaining and at worst malicious. I just want to be up front that there are other views out there -- and my intent is not malicious -- but rather to put a mirror up to the White House and have the President take a good look at how his presidency is quickly sinking. In my view, he needs to do what Richard Wolffe in his book Renegade: The Making of a President said Obama likes to do when the President knows he is losing and that is, like in basketball, change things up. -- Steve Clemons Article V, Relations with Russia, and America's Insolvency
Stephen Herzog, writing at World Politics Review, argues that NATO should reconsider its intention to develop contingency plans to defend Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania against Russian attacks. According to Herzog, the operations are unnecessary because NATO is fully prepared to respond to a Russian attack. Moreover, such an attack is highly improbable and carrying out a contingency plan is only likely to generate hostility in Moscow. He says: The Atlantic Alliance and Russia need to work together to solve some of today's toughest problems. These issues include fighting terrorism, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, cracking down on transnational crime, and reducing global numbers of nuclear weapons. Real cooperation cannot occur so long as both sides treat each other like enemies. NATO should abandon the idea of developing provocative defense plans that have little basis in geopolitical reality. But cooperation is not a one-way street. Russian leaders need to tone down their rhetoric and look for avenues of collaboration, not confrontation. The dilemma Herzog identifies highlights a key problem connecting many of the United States' strategic challenges. America is - to use Walter Lippmann's term - "insolvent." That is, its overseas commitments outweigh its foreign policy resources. The fundamental issue with strategic implications is that the United States is burdened with massive security and political commitments throughout the globe that entail enormous political and economic costs. The situation in the Baltic States is analogous to the conundrum in East Asia, where the United States continues to provide huge amounts of arms to Taiwan that benefit the Taiwanese and American military contractors at the expense of U.S.-China relations. Adjusting America's "legacy commitments," must be part of the United States' long-term strategy to reorient its foreign policy for the post-American international order, in which issues like NATO defense preparations and Taiwanese military sales cannot obstruct America's higher-order strategic imperative of developing a new "social contract" of baseline global interests with Russia, China, and other major global players. -- Ben Katcher John Murtha Dies
From an official release from his office: Congressman John P. Murtha (PA-12) passed away peacefully this afternoon at 1:18 p.m. at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA. At his bedside was his family. John Murtha, rest in peace. -- Steve Clemons Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama Presidency
Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief Edward Luce has written a granularly informed insider account about those who hold the keys to the inner most sanctum of Obama Land -- Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.
Most are unnamed because the consequences of retribution from this powerful foursome can be severe in an access-dependent town. John Podesta, President of the powerful, adminstration-tilting Center for American Progress, had the temerity and self-confidence to put his thoughts publicly on the record. But most others could not. Mark Schmitt, executive editor of the liberal magazine American Prospect, wrote that "Luce has written what seems to me the best and most succinct rundown of what's gone wrong in the White House, with particular attention to the role of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel." But some of the big aggregators out there -- Mike Allen at Politico and ABC's The Note among others -- didn't give Luce's juicy and lengthy essay any love.
But this Luce piece is unavoidably, accurately hard-hitting, and while many of the nation's top news anchors and editors are sending emails back and forth (I have been sent three such emails in confidence) on what a spot-on piece Luce wrought on the administration, they fear that the "four horsepersons of the Obama White House" will shut down and cut off access to those who give the essay 'legs.' But in the too regularly vapid chatter about DC's political scene, serious critiques of the internal game around Obama not only deserve review on their own merits but have to be read -- because Obama is not winning. He is failing and people need to consider "why". Any serious survey of the Obama administration's accomplishments and setbacks over the last year has to conclude that the administration is deeply in the red. If current trends continue, this once mesmerizing Camelot-ish operation will be be seen in the history books as the presidential administration that -- to distort slightly and inversely paraphrase Churchill -- never have so many talented people managed to achieve so little with so much. The entire article needs to be read, but to set the stage here is the beginning of Ed Luce's portal into the heart of today's Obama machine: At a crucial stage in the Democratic primaries in late 2007, Barack Obama rejuvenated his campaign with a barnstorming speech, in which he ended on a promise of what his victory would produce: "A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again."
The article goes on to document how people like Health Secretary and former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius were kept off television -- along with others like Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Add to this others that Luce does not name -- including important voices like Paul Volcker and Austan Goolsbee on Obama's economic team, who saw their public voices choked off by a media-dominating Lawrence Summers with support from Robert Gibbs and Rahm Emanuel. In a particularly cutting depiction of Emanuel, Luce writes: Administration insiders say the famously irascible Mr Emanuel treats cabinet principals like minions. "I am not sure the president realises how much he is humiliating some of the big figures he spent so much trouble recruiting into his cabinet," says the head of a presidential advisory board who visits the Oval Office frequently. "If you want people to trust you, you must first place trust in them." I will never forget when Rahm Emanuel laughingly responded well within earshot of several national media (and this blogger/writer) at an Inaugural bash to an inquiry if Emanuel was enjoying putting Tom Daschle on the basement floor of the White House in a non-descript office pretty far from the President. Emanuel joked back glibly that Daschle had to be happy with any office in the White House because "any square inch of real estate inside the White House -- no matter where it is -- is more valuable than anything outside it." Compare this flippant meanness and hubris to the tone of Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's depiction of the campaign in Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory and one couldn't imagine more different worlds. Plouffe describes a campaign with a "no assholes" rule -- one where good policy would be pursued -- not just what was a winning political hand. Luce's brief paints a picture of even a well-meaning, policy-focused "Obama the man" being warped out of shape by "Obama the team." Recounting some of the antics during Obama's November China trip, Luce recounts: The same [dismissal of his key policy advisers in lieu of his political entourage] can be observed in foreign policy. On Mr Obama's November trip to China, members of the cabinet such as the Nobel prizewinning Stephen Chu, energy secretary, were left cooling their heels while Mr Gibbs, Mr Axelrod and Ms Jarrett were constantly at the president's side.
I see Valerie Jarrett a lot -- often at Georgetown's power crowd restaurant, Cafe Milano. In fact, one night when I was at the annual gala dinner of Jim Zogby's Arab American Institute -- an important evening for leading figures from the Arab-American community to connect with the Washington political establishment -- Jarrett was on the docket to be the major keynote speaker of the entire night. Jarrett, however, had to modify her schedule because of what she said were "urgent duties that were calling her back to the White House right away" and so she gave a few minutes of laudatory comments toward the Arab American community before most people were in their seats between reception and sitting down for dinner. My hosts that evening said that they were mainly interested in hearing her and asked me if I wanted to depart with them for Cafe Milano. I said sure -- and wow -- there Ms. Jarrett was. Maybe she did stop at the White House between the JW Marriott and the Georgetown hot spot. That was possible -- but it would have had to be a nano-second drop by. Compare this to President Bill Clinton giving the major keynote remarks in March 1995 at the Nixon Center's opening conference in Washington at the Mayflower Hotel when Clinton came early for a VIP reception, stayed for the entire sit down dinner, gave a 90 minute long speech, and mingled with folks after. People can tell when you are focused on them in a serious way -- and when you are giving them a cursory glance. There are things that happen in politics -- and Valerie Jarrett does have important duties and a schedule that is probably always in constant flux -- so I don't want to take my critique too far. But one thing essential to understand is that the kind of policy that smart strategists -- including by people like National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other advisers like Denis McDonough, Tom Donilon, James Steinberg, William Burns, (previously Gregory Craig) -- would be putting forward is getting twisted either in the rough-and-tumble of a a team of rivals operation that is not working, or is being distorted by the Chicago political gang's tactical advice that is seducing Obama towards a course that has not only violated deals he made with those who voted him into office but which is failing to hit any of the major strategic targets by which the administration will be historically measured. President Obama needs to take stock quickly. Read the Luce piece. Be honest about what is happening. Read Plouffe's smart book again. Send Rahm Emanuel back to the House in a senior role. Make Valerie Jarrett an important Ambassador. Keep Axelrod -- but balance him with someone like Plouffe, and get back to putting good policy before short term politics. Set up a Team B with diverse political and national security observers like Tom Daschle, John Podesta, Brent Scowcroft, Arianna Huffington, Fareed Zakaria, Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Harris, James Fallows, Chuck Hagel, Strobe Talbott, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others to give you a no-nonsense picture of what is going on. And take action to fix the dysfunction of your office. Otherwise, the Obama brand will be totally bust in the very near term. -- Steve Clemons More Recent Articles |
British Ambassador to US Nigel Sheinwald Tires of Snow Shoveling and Gives Major Speech Tonight in Austin
Representative 
It's a vital article -- a brave one -- that interviews "dozens of interviews with his closest allies and friends in Washington". 
Why not? Allen is a good friend of mine and tries to keep a good balance between tough-hitting political stuff but also goes out of his way to give strokes to those in the White House he can -- particularly "Axe" -- who is a regular in Mike's daily 
To hit some of the later highlights, Luce speaks with political giants 'inside' the Obama tent who suggest that Rahm Emanuel lost track of the importance of communicating to the public about health care, despite some success in legislative deal-making. While Luce doesn't explicate this topic, I would also suggest that Rahm pulled the plug on shuttering GITMO, which had a good plan on paper, but was unwilling to move the political wheels to get that done -- not understanding that this was a key pillar of progressive political support for Obama.
One wonders why Valerie Jarrett was on the trip in any case. As head of public engagement for the White House, it would seem she should have a rather full plate meeting the demand of the many groups around the United States that want to feel like they are connecting with and being heard by the Obama White House.