The Light: Hillary

You know, for an Administration that campaigned on “Transparency,” there sure seems to be a whole lot of opaqueness when it comes to Obama and those who pushed him to prominence.

Take, for example, Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. He has some mighty interesting Connections, as this article highlights, The Ties That Bind. Remember Rahm Emanuel’s Rent-Free D.C. Apartment? The owner: A BP Adviser. Oh, oops – this could get a bit messy:

In case you were tempted to buy the faux Washington outrage at BP and its gulf oil spill in recent days, here’s a story that reveals a little-known corporate political connection and the quiet way the inner political circles intersect, protect and care for one another in the nation’s capital. And Chicago.

We already knew that BP and its folks were significant contributors to the record $750-million war chest of Barack Obama’s 2007-08 campaign.

Now, we learn the details of a connection of Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayoral wannabe, current Obama chief of staff, ex-representative, ex-Clinton money man and ex-Windy City political machine go-fer.

Though plenty of Obama supporters want to gloss over that little connection with BP and the flow of money, it doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t still living in the Reality-based community.

(Photo from Left Coast Liberal)

Back to Rahm, seen above with buddy, Blago:

Shortly after Obama’s happy inaugural, eyebrows rose slightly upon word that, as a House member, Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and her husband, Stanley Greenberg.

For an ordinary American, that would likely raise some obvious tax liability questions. But like Emanuel, the guy overseeing the Internal Revenue Service now is another Obama insider, Tim Geithner, who had his own outstanding tax problems but skated through confirmation anyway by the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Remember this was all before the letters BP stood for Huge Mess. Even before the Obama administration gave BP a safety award.

Now follow these standard Washington links if you can:

Greenberg’s consulting firm was a prime architect of BP’s recent rebranding drive as a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan “Beyond Petroleum.”

Greenberg’s company is also closely tied to a sister Democratic outfit — GCS, named for the last initials of Greenberg, James Carville, another Clinton advisor, and Bob Shrum, John Kerry’s 2004 campaign manager.

According to published reports, GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Probably just a crazy coincidence. But you’ll never guess who was the chairman of that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dispensing those huge polling contracts to his kindly rent-free landlord.

Surely, just a CRAZY coincidence.

Hmm – you don’t suppose this is why the Obama Administration gave BP a Safety Award for the very oil rig platform that blew up, do you? Or why they failed to perform the monthly safety inspections required by the Minerals Management Service policy?

Or that the plans for the drill rig were not subjected to environmental review (thanks, Ken Salazar)? What makes that one particularly mind boggling are the claims by the Federal Government that LA cannot get emergency permits to build barriers to protect their shores because the Feds don’t know what the environmental impact of the barriers would be yet. Um, here’s a hint – when you see dolphins washing up covered in oil, or pelicans unable to take off because they are coated in oil, there is ALREADY an environmental impact. Jeezum crow. (After a month – a full month of LA’s drive for sand berms – BP is making its first payment of $60 million to put up these sandbag barriers. One can only guess what a difference it could have made had the Feds not dragged their feet on this.)

Or why BP was a finalist for the Pollution Prevention Award? Well, the latter at least sounds like Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for something he MIGHT accomplish someday.

You just can’t make this stuff up, people. Well, you could, but no one would believe it. Yes, each and every one of those is true.

Now, I’m not saying that Rahm’s being in bed with a BP oil adviser, or at least living in his apartment for free, is definitively why BP has gotten all of these breaks, exemptions, and lack of oversight. What do you say?

* Bumped Up *

When I heard about how the Democrats are treating Eric Massa for sticking to his guns rather than falling in line with Democratic Party orders, I thought about Eric’s old boss, General Wesley Clark, and and what General Barry McCaffery once wrote about him. “Wes was always looked on as too well-educated, too wired, too good-looking. He’s not a simple crunch soldier.” Eric isn’t a simple crunch Democrat—he thinks for himself. That can no longer to be tolerated.

I am watching his resignation from Congress play out with great sadness.

I knew Eric.

I was active* in both of his campaigns. He has a fresh honesty about him. I knew he had battled cancer. I knew he could swear like the sailor he used to be and that he had a low crap tolerance. I knew he was not perfect. Yet his directness and hopes for the future of our country were healthy and persuasive. He was a man of the people.

I never thought I would tell this story in public, but I know for a fact that the recent clash with Rahm Emanuel was not the first. I actually witnessed such a confrontation several years ago at a meeting in Washington DC arranged by General Clark. Emanuel was giving a talk to the 40 or so of us in the meeting room, and so inappropriately attacked Erick by denigrating the way he was running his campaign. It was shocking and embarrassing, especially because Eric was right there in the room. But it’s not Rahm’s style to pull someone aside to speak privately about any concerns. No sadistic fun in that. Well, they went at it in the hotel lobby. And let me tell you that Eric may be the only human being who can indeed hold his own with Emanuel. If it were now only a two-man fight, I’d put my money on Eric.

Finally, there is an easy and cheap way to destroy the credibility and reputation of another human being. You just have to be evil enough to be willing to do it. First you find something unflattering, make a big deal out of it, gather up your allies, and start suggesting that your prey is both ridiculous and mentally unstable. We are seeing that play out now. It’s ugly theater, yet we are all watching as those in power reveal the tactics they will use to destroy any dissidents standing in their path.

*Eric would know me only by my “day job” name.

* Bumped up from January 7, 2010. *

I love John Kass of the Chicago Tribune. He is one of the very, very few columnists who tried to warn us about Obama, Obama’s record (or lack thereof), how he came to be a Senator, and all about Chicago Politics. Simply put, he was a voice crying out in the wilderness.

And now, he has turned his pen (or keyboard, as the case may be) to the rumor that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief Thug And Chicago-Style politician, may be running for mayor of Chicago in this article,

Rahm In The Mayor’s Race Would Be Quite A Fish Tale. Indeed. Here is Kass on this possibility:

On my first day back at work after vacation, the political news from Washington hit me like a cold dead fish in the face:

Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago?

That’s enough to freeze the bowels of every voter in the land.

“Emanuel, the most political animal in this town … is said to have told people that the ( White House) chief of staff role is an 18-month job and that he is considering a run for mayor of Chicago,” wrote columnist Sally Quinn in the Washington Post on Tuesday. (Tribune photo by Jose M. Osorio / December 18, 2008)

With Hollywood continuing to suck up to the Obama administration, imagine the benefits of a Rahmsian mayoral campaign. HBO’s “Entourage” could film here. The lead character, a charismatic Hollywood agent named Ari, is based on Rahm’s brother, Ari.
(more...)

* Bumped up *

To the Health Care Industry, Big Pharma, and a few select states. Yes, in the wee hours of the morning (okay, 7:00 a.m.), the Senate voted to pass the Health-Care-less-what-the-people-and-physicians-say Bill. Oh, yes – what a banner day. The Senate rammed through a bill so fraught with problems it would be laughable if it didn’t have the potential to affect so many in this country.

But, one person who is very happy about this early morning vote was Barack Obama. Now he can do what he does best – vacation. Yep, he was waiting to make sure this backroom, strong-arm, possibly unConstitutional bill to pass the Senate before going to Hawaii for the holidays. I am sure he is all plumb tuckered from his trip to Norway and Copenhagen in such a short amount of time, and his constant tv appearances. Poor baby, I am sure he is EXHAUSTED.

Obama got what he wanted thus far – oh, no – not any of the things on which he campaigned, mind you. No, he got a Health Care Bill with his name on it to pad his record, assuming that we aren’t smart enough to actually care what the hell is IN it. All he cares about is being able to brag that it happened, not what it will do to the country. Next step, the House of Representatives to jive the two bills together just in time for the State of the Union?

Not if this Representative has anything to say about it, though. And this one is actually a Democrat. I am not referring to Stupak, but to Louise Slaughter (D/NY). I know, I was surprised, too, when I saw this article from CNN, A Democrat’s View From he House: Senate Bill Isn’t Health Reform. Dang, she better be careful of any presents left at her door by Rahm and Harry. Ahem. I have to say, it is mighty courageous of her to speak out like this, and isn’t that a sad commentary, that it would require courage? We’ve seen what happens if a Democrat doesn’t toe the line (”We’re keeping score, brother,” – Obama). No doubt. That’s the Chicago-way.

But Slaughter isn’t from Chicago. She’s from New York:

CNN Editor’s note: Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, a Democrat, represents the 28th Congressional District of New York. Slaughter is the first woman to chair the House Rules Committee and the only microbiologist in Congress.

The Senate health care bill is not worthy of the historic vote that the House took a month ago.

Even though the House version is far from perfect, it at least represents a step toward our goal of giving 36 million Americans decent health coverage.

But under the Senate plan, millions of Americans will be forced into private insurance company plans, which will be subsidized by taxpayers. That alternative will do almost nothing to reform health care but will be a windfall for insurance companies. Is it any surprise that stock prices for some of those insurers are up recently?

I do not want to subsidize the private insurance market; the whole point of creating a government option is to bring prices down. Insisting on a government mandate to have insurance without a better alternative to the status quo is not true reform.

Amen, sister. Right there with ya. Oh, and that whole taxation thing? That will happen immediately even though this program isn’t set to start until 2014. I gotta tell you, considering how much we already pay (including how much MORE we have to pay since we can’t be married, about $2,500 a year), I don’t really care to be shelling out more money to pay for OTHER people’s private health insurance. BUt that’s just me. Oh, and maybe Slaughter:

By eliminating the public option, the government program that could spark competition within the health insurance industry, the Senate has ended up with a bill that isn’t worthy of its support.

The public option is the part of our reform effort that will lower costs, improve the delivery of health care services and force insurance companies to offer rates and services that are reasonable.

Although the art of legislating involves compromise, I believe the Senate went off the rails when it agreed with the Obama Administration to water down the reform bill and no longer include the public option.

But that’s not the only thing wrong with the Senate’s version of the health care bill.

Under that plan, insurance companies can punish older people, charging them much higher rates than the House bill would allow.

In the House, we fought hard to repeal McCarran-Ferguson, the antitrust exemption that insurance companies have enjoyed for years. We did that because we believed firmly that those Fortune 500 corporations should not enjoy special treatment.

Yet the Senate bill does not include that provision — despite assurances from some members that they will seek to add it. By ending that protection, we will be able to go after insurance companies with federal penalties for misleading advertising or dishonest business practices.

The House bill would cover 96 percent of legal residents, while the Senate covers 94 percent. Compared with the House bill, the Senate’s bill makes it much easier for employers to avoid the responsibility of providing insurance for their workers.

And of course, the Senate bill did not remove the onerous choice language intended to appeal to anti-abortion forces.

Now don’t get me wrong; the current House and Senate bills are a significant improvement over the status quo. Given the hard path to reform and the political realities of next year, there is a sizable group within Congress that wants to simply cut any deal that works and call it a success. Many previous efforts have failed, and the path to reform is littered with unsuccessful efforts championed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Bill Clinton.

Supporters of the weak Senate bill say “just pass it — any bill is better than no bill.”

I strongly disagree — a conference report is unlikely to sufficiently bridge the gap between these two very different bills.

It’s time that we draw the line on this weak bill and ask the Senate to go back to the drawing board. The American people deserve at least that.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Louise Slaughter.

I disagree, too. Do it right the first time. DO it so that physicians all across the country don’t give up their practices. Do it so that the middle class won’t be carrying the burden. Do it so that Medicare isn’t cut. Do it so that it truly benefits the people of this country, not just to get it done to get it done. It’s too important to be shoved through like this.

How about taking back this present to the Health Care industry and Big Pharma, and go back to the Drawing Board in the New Year? That would work for me, and the majority of my fellow Americans.

Just before midnight Saturday, the House rammed through the 2,000 page monstrosity laughingly known as the health care bill. I’d say they did it under cover of night, reneging on a promise of a 72-hour waiting period. Again, who read this thing? How much arm twisting was involved to prevail in this close vote of 220-215? All across the net there is a rather horrifying picture of a delusional Nancy Pelosi with a victorious grin on her face, overjoyed at an accomplishment that ignores the concerns of a plurality of the American people, who are now opposed to, or at the very least, dubious about the measures she sought so feverishly to pass.

Ironic that yesterday, NY Times columnist Charles Blow, certainly an Obama cheerleader from way back, penned a column entitled Obama’s to Fix, in which he cautions the President to stop blaming George Bush for the “mess” he inherited. Clearly, our President, far from undoing such a mess, is daily making a bigger one of his own. Mr. Blow begins with this ominous phrase:

What a difference a year makes.

In October 2008, the candidate Barack Obama delivered a major economic speech in Toledo, Ohio. In it he said: “Right now, we face an immediate economic emergency, and that requires urgent action. We can’t wait to help workers and families and communities who are struggling right now — who don’t know if their job or their retirement will be there tomorrow; who don’t know if next week’s paycheck will cover this month’s bills. … We need to pass an economic rescue plan for the middle-class, and we need to do it not five years from now, not next year, we need to do it right now.

“So today I’m proposing a number of steps that we should take immediately to stabilize our financial system, provide relief to families and communities and help struggling homeowners. It’s a plan that begins with one word that’s on everybody’s mind, and it’s easy to spell: J-O-B-S.”

“Right now,” “immediate economic emergency,” “requires urgent action,” “can’t wait.” Wow! He gave the impression that job creation would be his top priority, that action would be swift and effective, that his solutions would not only stanch the hemorrhaging, but reverse the trend.

He has not made jobs his top priority. This health care debacle, bailing out Wall Street, getting into the car business and generally putting money into the pockets of everyone except those who need it have all taken priority over putting Americans back to work. And, no, putting an extra $13 a week into people’s paychecks is not going to do the trick when as Mr. Blow points out the new official labor statistics have us at 10.2 unemployment, which is an increase of “more than 50 percent from the time Obama gave that speech.”

“(By the way, the underemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who want to work full time and those who’ve given up searching, is a staggering 17.5 percent.)”

I am still at a loss to understand why there was such a great urgency to pass health care legislation that is not supposed to go into effect for more than three years. Someone on another blog made the observation that Obama and Pelosi et al are using the economic crisis and joblessness as a weapon to pass their agenda. As people are panicked at losing their jobs and their healthcare, they are more likely to look to government to bail them out – and more amenable. As Rahm Emanuel said, “never waste a good crisis.” What better time to ram this through. Mr. Blow continues:

Job creation has dropped from top priority to one of many, and President Obama has been remanded to pandering for patience and offering excuses. On the one hand, he argues the tortured rationale that there is good news in the awful numbers: Things are still getting worse but at a slower pace. On the other, he incessantly reminds us that he inherited the crisis. The implication: Don’t blame me, blame Bush.

But this president can’t keep deflecting to the last one. Pain is presently felt. The crisis that took form on Bush’s watch is being experienced on Obama’s. Fair or not, finger-pointing is not effective policy.

This is now Obama’s crisis, and it carries political consequences. During Tuesday’s gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, nearly 9 in 10 voters said that they were worried about the direction of the nation’s economy in the next year. And the majority of those who held that view voted for the Republican candidates. This could portend a flashback to 1994.

It isn’t President Obama’s fault that he inherited this mess, but it is his to fix, and he must make haste. To paraphrase his Toledo prelection: you need to do it not five years from now, not next year, you need to do it right now. J-O-B-S.

There were many options to put people back to work this year if that was really the priority. Clearly it was not. This President spent almost a billion dollars to get his job. I don’t want to hear complaints now. Obviously, he inherited a mess, which he has made worse with reckless spending. No one expects him to fix everything in the space of a year, but I thought his “good judgment” meant he knew how to prioritize. We need leadership and part of that involves sacrificing one’s ego to help those who need it most. That is far more important than pushing legislation just for the purpose of putting a check mark next to one’s name. You don’t not spend billions, even trillions, you don’t have at a time like this. Since this bunch so miscalculated on their $787 billion stimulus package, I am not inclined to trust them now by handing over 1/6 of the economy to their stewardship.

It is interesting that Mr. Blow, who played the race card on Mr. Obama’s behalf last year, is now joining the ever increasing number of his pundit supporters who are having problems with his endless campaigning, blaming and wrongheaded focus.

As to the health care debate, I called my Congressman’s office Friday morning to complain about the bill and his assistant debated the merits with me. At least she took the time to do so. It was a shame she was wrong on the facts. I told her to go back and read the thing. Now we have a 2,000 page beast that the Senate must contend with and we are told it will never pass in its current form. So why the rush? Why wouldn’t this Administration be in the same kind of rush to help get people back to work?

There are 237 millionaires in Congress. Perhaps that explains why they have difficulty relating to the urgent need to put millions of Americans back of work, instead manufacturing an urgent need to pass labrynthian legislation for the mere purpose of saying “Mission Accomplished.”

Hmm. Where have we heard that phrase before?

(Bumped up Saturday a.m. from Friday afternoon.)

With Fox News against the White House attempt to censor the cable network. Check that, to shut DOWN the network. I am assuming that, by now, you have heard of the concentrated attacks on the Fox News Network by Administration officials, and the president himself. Larry Johnson had a great piece on this earlier in the week, “Fox Is Not A News Station?,” if you need to catch up.

Well, the strangest thing has started to happen as the White House has continued its unprecedented attack on a major network, not just freezing out a reporter here or there as other administrations have done, but a flat out drive to shut down this network. I can scarcely believe it myself, but what has happened recently is that reporters from other networks, even the Washington Bureau chiefs of the main news outlets, have started to stand WITH Fox News.

It all began with one of my favorite reporters, Jake Tapper of ABC News. He is one of the very few national reporters from a major network to consistently challenge the Obama campaign, and now the Obama Administration. And he did so again just the other day as his post entry indicates:

“Today’s Qs For O’s WH - 10/20/09”
From this morning’s gaggle in White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ office:

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

Let’s just stop right there. Jake Tapper referred to Fox News as a “sister organization.” That is HUGE, people. His use of that phrase speaks volumes, as he indicates a solidarity with Fox News (good post on that very topic at Commentary Magazine here). Perhaps it is even a bit of a warning shot across the bow that the White House needs to back the hell off from this attack on a major press outlet.

The Q&A continued:

(Crosstalk) Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That’s our opinion. -jpt

You know I can’t stand Gibbs anyway, that mealy mouthed worm. But Tapper demonstrates what a stand up guy he is by pursuing this line of questioning, and not letting Gibbs, or the White House, off the hook.

I mentioned above that the White House is doing its darndest to completely shut down Fox News. The following video is a good summation of what has happened thus far, the latest attack by the White House, and what the other networks did:

I know, right? They know, I gather, that this time around, it may be Fox News, but next time, it could be CNN, or MSNBC. I would love to think that the solidarity of the major networks was the result of it simply being the right thing to do.

The All Star Panel on Fox News takes this on, too, with a bonus clip of Obama’s discussing Fox News:

Uh huh. Sure, he’s not losing sleep over it. If he isn’t, why are he and his minions going out of their way to ATTACK Fox News? It most certainly IS “breath-taking in its pettiness” as Mr. Barnes put it.

Thomas Jefferson said it best:

“I am… for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.”

And, when he said this:

“Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.”

Finally, Thomas Jefferson said this about the importance of a free press and our responsibility to it:

“To preserve the freedom of the human mind… and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will and speak as we think, the condition of man (sic) will proceed in improvement.”

Hopefully, that is exactly why the networks are standing shoulder to shoulder on this issue. They know, as we do, that our liberty is at risk when the press is under attack from its government.

Like Jefferson, like the Washington Bureau, like Jake Tapper, like many of you reading this, I stand on the side of a free press, and on the side of our liberty. It is our duty, it is our call, it is our very democracy.

One just has to wonder what prompted the child in the video below to ask Obama the question he did. Maybe people in his household were decrying the lack of it, or maybe this child was picking up on the animosity in the air, or maybe he just wanted to share the good news of God’s love for all. I don’t know, but all I can say is, out of the mouths of babes, as this article makes clear (H/T to Bronwyn’s Harbor):

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports: President Obama, like any other President, has his fair share of critics. Even fourth-graders have noticed.

“Why do people hate you?”, a fourth-grade boy asked Obama at a town hall event in New Orleans today. “They’re supposed to love you. And God is love.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” replied the President.

Here’s the video of the exchange, though the transcript is below if you’d prefer:

Um, what the hell was he talking about BEFORE the little boy asked his question? Wasn’t he saying, “It’s a man’s turn. Isn’t it? It’s a guy’s turn.” That’s what it sounded like to me, anyway…So, just what came BEFORE that?? Curious.

Obama continued his response to the child:

“First of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me,” Obama noted, before adding, “What is true is if you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody’s just getting mad all the time. And I — you know, I think that you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what’s called politics where, you know, once one party wins, then the other party kind of gets — feels like it needs to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes.”

“And so you shouldn’t take it too seriously,” Obama told the boy. “And then, sometimes, as I said before, people just — I think they’re worried about their own lives. A lot of people are losing their jobs right now. A lot of people are losing their health care or they’ve lost their homes to foreclosure, and they’re feeling frustrated. And when you’re president of the United States, you know, you’ve got to deal with all of that.”

So, um, not to quibble or anything, but just when do you think you are going to get around to dealing with job loss, home loss, and losing health care? Hey, just asking:

“You get some of the credit when things go good. And when things are going tough, then, you know, you’re going to get some of the blame, and that’s part of the job,” he continued. “But, you know, I’m a pretty tough guy.”

“You’ve just got to keep on going, even when folks are criticizing you, because — as long as you know that you’re doing it for other people, all right?” Obama concluded.

The boy’s question was the last one the President fielded at his event at the University of New Orleans, his first trip to the city since being elected to the Oval Office.

Well, there is a good reason the child asked that question. While Obama did get elected, the latest Fox Poll shows that he wouldn’t if the election was held today, as this article highlights, Fox News Poll: 43 Percent Would Vote To Re-Elect President Obama:If the election were held today, 43 percent of American voters would back Barack Obama for president, according to a new Fox News poll.

Oh dear. I guess that’s some of the “blame” Obama is getting for not fulfilling his campaign promises, for starters, not to mention his continued constant campaigning instead of working thing he’s got going on. Here are the results of this poll:

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama’s job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. (Emphasis mine.) That’s down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president — and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Moreover, the number of Americans saying they would vote to re-elect President Obama has dropped. If the election were held today the poll finds more voters say they would back someone else in the 2012 election than would back the president.

Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, the latest Fox News poll finds the president’s ratings on foreign issues are lower than his overall job ratings. All in all, 49 percent of Americans say they approve of the job President Obama is doing and 45 percent disapprove. His average approval for the term so far is 58 percent.

Yep, Obama’s approval numbers are below 50% for the first time at 49%. How about on some of the issues:

On Afghanistan, 41 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Obama is doing and 43 percent disapprove. For his handling of Iran, 44 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.

On the president’s handling of the economy, voters are almost equally split: 48 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove. On health care, some 42 percent approve of the president’s performance and half disapprove, 50 percent.

Among Democrats, 78 percent say they would vote to re-elect President Obama, down from 87 percent in April. For 2008 Obama voters, 81 percent say they would vote to re-elect him — that’s a slight up tick from the 79 percent who said so previously.

Six in 10 Americans — 60 percent — think Obama is a strong and decisive leader.
And while 38 percent think President Obama is getting good advice from his advisors, a larger number — 45 percent — think he is “listening to the wrong people.” (Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from October 13 to October 14. The poll has a 3-point error margin.)

Like Rahm Emmanuel, or David Axelrod, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid? Yeah, I’d say he’s listening to the wrong people.

And about that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing:

Did He Deserve It?

Upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama said, “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformational figures.” Most Americans agree with the president — 65 percent say he did not deserve to win, while 29 percent say he did.

Furthermore, a slim 54 percent majority of Democrats think Obama did deserve to win, while 38 percent disagree. For independents, 19 percent think he deserved it, while nearly three-quarters, 74 percent, say he did not. Among Republicans, almost all — 91 percent — say he did not deserve it.

When asked why the Nobel Committee gave the president the prize, about a third of Americans, 32 percent, say because he deserved it, while the largest number — 44 percent — think the committee hoped the prize would make Obama “think twice before using military force in the future.”

About that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing. Remember how we were all told the Committee Was unanimous in their decision to give it to Obama? Turns out that 3 out of 5 of them did NOT want to give it to him. Golly gee, I guess truth really DOES will out! Evidently, their reaction was the same as many of ours - he hasn’t DONE anything yet but speechify, for cryin’ out loud!

The poll also address how Congress was doing:

Most Americans are unhappy with Congress these days — 66 percent disapprove, including 45 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 84 percent of Republicans. Overall, less than one of four Americans, 24 percent, approve of the job Congress is doing.

Looking ahead to the 2010 Congressional election, for the first time this year the Republicans have the advantage: 42 percent of voters say they are more likely to back the Republicans to provide a check on President Obama’s power, while 38 percent say they would vote for the Democrat to help the president pass his policies.

Finally, in a rare example of bipartisan agreement, majorities of Democrats, 53 percent, Republicans, 78 percent, and Independents, 61 percent, agree the country is more divided these days. All in all, 64 percent of Americans think the country is more politically divided today — that’s more than twice the number who say it is not more divided, 31 percent.

Click here for the raw data.

What a bang-up job Obama has done in uniting us, just like he said he would. Blech. Can’t believe people fell for THAT line again, can you? Great - so glad there is one area that is truly bipartisan. Ahem.

And while President Obama is still feeling the love, the numbers of those who love him seem to be decreasing the more they open their eyes to see and their ears to hear. Such a shame they couldn’t muster that BEFORE the election, isn’t it? Now, his daily tracking poll continues to go down; Secretary Clinton’s approval numbers are higher than his (no big surprise to ME there); and his overall rating is at 49%. COngress doesn’t fare much better. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy, or more deserving Congress, could it?

Editor: This op-ed was first published at The Daily Beast and is reprinted with the express permission of John Batchelor.

Suddenly the disgraced and demoralized Republican Congress has an unearned future, thanks to the superhuman clumsiness of a man who has made himself indispensable to the Obama administration and insufferable to the Democratic Congress, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

The GOP always knew that Emanuel was a problem that could not be solved and could only be endured while he served three tempestuous terms in the House. But now the beleaguered Democratic majority is learning painfully that Emanuel’s talents for bullying, whimsical favoritism, cheerful power-grabbing, and self-congratulatory earthiness have transformed the first hundred days of the Obama administration’s seamless accomplishment into a second hundred days of blame and gloom.

First, Emanuel used frontman Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the Finance Committee chair, to ditch the health-care public option, while sending President Obama to speak softly at dinner at the home of prickly Senator Charles Grassley (R-Grant Wood). The latest Emanuel co-authored ploy—forcing health-care legislation through in the fall with Democratic-only votes—underlines that the White House has become as deaf, daring, and driven as the fabled Democratic machines of Tammany Hall or Emanuel’s own Cook County, where he was a once and future fundraiser for the Daleys.“We suck,” a blunt Republican partisan reports, “but they suck more right now.”

Polling supports this cynical summary. The still lifeless Republicans, who have avoided any credible renovation or even contrition for their decades of swinishness, now enjoy their largest generic lead over the Democrats in years. Trusted touts like Charlie Cook speak of a Democratic loss of at least 20 seats in the House. Republican Party fundraising is up, Republican recruitment is up—even in blue New Hampshire, where a potential loss of Judd Gregg’s U.S. Senate seat is now a likely win with the recruiting of the popular Attorney General Kelly Ayotte—and the GOP’s cheeks have a glow not related to shame.

“It’s Rahm,” a Republican partisan tells me. “The cowardly, brain-dead Republicans are claiming they’ve done something. But it’s Rahm. If Rahm goes, the Dems will not do worse. But it might be hard to undo the damage.”

Like the gifted and overwrought Maximilien de Robespierre once upon a time, Rahm Emanuel has taken control of a revolutionary movement he did not help create nor much contribute to while it was gathering strength under the oppression of the ancien régime of George W. Bush. And just like Robespierre, Emanuel has turned the president’s kitchen cabinet of trusted ex-campaign workers, led by David Axelrod (whose ex-PR firm has enjoyed $12 million in fees so far from fronts controlled by the administration-directed Democratic National Committee), Mark Lippert, and Denis McDonough (a dynamic duo of hatchetmen on the National Security Council), into a Committee for Public Safety that terrorizes Washington’s royals willy-nilly.

The victims are everywhere, and the Republicans know best how brilliantly brutal Emanuel’s methods can be. “Rahm puts people on a string,” a cautious Republican told me. “He did it to Dennis [Hastert, former speaker of the House]. We always knew Rahm had something on him. Maybe it was earmarks. Maybe it was something like classic car-flipping. Dennis never went after Rahm and never allowed us to go after him.”

Emanuel’s methods in the House are now writ large throughout the government. Not one of the House Democrats is suicidal enough to push back in public against what amounts to his extortion and protection racket for each successive piece of partisan legislation—witness the 219 beaten-up votes for cap and trade in the House, or the pummeled Blue Dogs during the health-care brouhaha during recess. One Democratic wag comments that Rahm Emanuel is to the Blue Dogs what Michael Vick was to pit bulls. In the beginning he feeds them steak, then they get torn apart.
However, the Republicans are not as gun-shy—though none is unwise enough to reveal his own name—since they have no financing to have ripped from them; and some Republicans point to the strange quiet of GOP House Minority Whip Eric Cantor as evidence that he may be a victim of Emanuel’s Black Hand style.

After his TARP-supporting apostasy under the Bush ancien régime, Cantor begged forgiveness of his caucus to win the Whip job and was excited to oppose the aggressive White House in its first hundred days, taking pride of place in the Party of No against the stimulus package and the budget. But then Cantor rolled over, advocating to the Republican caucus that it avoid direct attacks on the administration and embrace the fashion of bipartisanship and compromise. In May, Cantor even tried a laughable bipartisan tour with Republican has-beens like Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich (no Democrats showed up) called the National Council for a New America.

What happened? “We think it’s Rahm,” says one Republican who watched the whodunit. “Cantor backed off right after articles ran in his district about Cantor’s wife working for a TARP bank.”
Cantor went so far as to vote for the wild legislation punishing AIG and TARP-bank bonuses with confiscatory taxes that few other Republicans regarded as sane. “We couldn’t understand that vote,” was one comment, “unless it was Rahm.”

Emanuel’s ambitious Committee for Public Safety in the White House, tightly disciplined, indifferent to all Cabinet secretaries including State and Defense, is not limited to sowing fear on Capitol Hill. There are multiple, detailed reports of Rahm Emanuel-authored or -delivered threats to the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem, to the Maliki government in Baghdad, to the Brown government at 10 Downing Street, and now to the Karzai government in Kabul that is entangled in massive voting fraud. A fresh report of a “profanity-laced screaming match” at the White House involving the formerly mild-mannered CIA director Leon Panetta, an Emanuel appointee (as a reward for protecting Emanuel as Clinton chief of staff after Emanuel’s multiple screw-ups in the Clinton White House), points directly to the Emanuel style of extreme persuasion even in national security policy—though Emanuel’s bona fides in diplomacy are a 1991 vacation camp program in Israel volunteering to sing songs and stand around at Israel Defense Force bases with teenagers when he was 31 years old.

Emanuel’s other claim to critical national policy is based on how he got rich in a few dozen months’ work with Bruce Wasserstein in the Chicago office of Wasserstein Perella & Co. as it was being acquired by Deutsche Bank, putting together a merger involving the Chicago-based Exelon Corporation that was also one of Axelrod’s biggest PR accounts and financed Obama’s political career. Emanuel is said to be thrillingly defensive about this episode between his time at the Clinton White House in 1999 and his win of the Democratic primary for the Illinois House seat to replace Rod Blagojevich, a former mentor, in 2002.

Recalled an entertained Republican, “I saw one [Democratic] member walk up to him and ask, ‘So how did you make $18 million in an afternoon sitting at a table in Chicago?’ And Rahm just turned and walked away. It gets to him.”

Just now, Emanuel’s unusually good fortune in Chicago in making $18 million in a very short time may be the only thing on the planet that gets to him. A twist of fate is that as Emanuel’s authority and ambition grow, reaching for swift closure to foreign commitments, staging bipartisan fantasy cruises, then reaching to construct Democratic-only laws that turn the theory of checks and balances into an unlimited credit card on the Treasury, the polling points not only to a rising tide of facedown Republicans but also to a sinking approval rating for a president who entirely controls Emanuel’s fate. Is there a lesson in the detail that the French Revolution waited too long to turn on Robespierre’s ruthless genius, and by the time the guillotine fell, the ludicrously reactionary aristocracy had rallied throughout Europe and led a counterrevolution that swept liberty into the ditch for another lifetime?

John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast, in her article Obama’s Other Wife, postulates that Hillary is a “brilliant policy wonk,” caring more about the “substance of work than the trappings,” yet the very title of her piece is insulting, indicating Secretary Clinton has completely sublimated herself to the President. At the same time, she notes any Secretary of State appearing out of sync with the President’s policies would be outcast, as Colin Powell was in Bush’s Administration. If Hillary were a man, would Brown refer to “him” as Obama’s other wife? Disrespectful to say the least. Further, Ms. Brown shares her sense of “how brilliantly Obama checkmated both Clintons by putting Hillary in the topmost Cabinet job”:

Secretary Clinton can’t be seen to differ from the president without sabotaging her own power.
…
Left behind on major presidential trips, overruled in choosing her own staff—Hillary Clinton is the invisible woman at State. But Obama’s brilliant foreign-policy spouse may not stay silent forever.

It’s time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa.

Consider the president’s Moscow trip a week ago. In a cozy scene at Vladimir Putin’s dacha, the boys enjoyed traditional Russian tea and breakfast on a terrace. Sitting on Putin’s right was the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Where was Lavrov’s counterpart? She was back home, left there with a broken elbow to receive a visit from the ousted Honduran president, José Manuel Zelaya.

Ms. Brown paints this as a deliberate slight by Obama, or a way to put his own ever-present and over exposed visage out front while keeping Hillary’s far more knowledgeable one out of the limelight. That may be so, but Brown leaves no room for the fact that Secretary Clinton may not have been able to travel last week due to her injury. No matter. Let’s try to harp on the fact that Hillary is diminished anyway. Other articles have been cropping up intimating the same and wondering “how long Hillary is going to put up with this.”

The far more important point Brown neglects to mention is that Obama’s solo trip was not considered a success. He made his amateurish pronouncements on the Cold War and received a long lecture by Putin and did not really get what he came for. President Obama’s actions will not be considered too clever in the long run if he reaps repercussions for having left the only adult in the room at home.

Ms. Brown continues…

Same thing last month, when the president stopped off to see King Abdullah en route to his oratorical home run in Cairo: no Hillary. Nor was there any sign of Middle East envoy George Mitchell or anyone else from the State Department on the Saudi leg of the trip, even though its main mission was to recruit Abdullah into a peace-making partnership with Israel. The king told Obama no, by the way, so it’s fair to ask whether the president could have used a bit more Foggy Bottom prep work. Jim Hoagland noted in Sunday’s Washington Post that the White House’s leak of Obama’s decision to send an ambassador to Syria took Clinton’s State Department by surprise and trumped State’s efforts to squeeze another concession or two out of Damascus first.

As. Mr. Hoagland rightly points out in his piece White House Fault Lines, this may be another strike against the Obama Administration, clearly making a mistake by trying to trump their own very loyal team at State – for no apparent reason.

Ms. Brown seems to delight in pointing out President Clinton’s being “curtailed” by Obama as a concession to his wife’s position. Yet I am sure Brown has a point in noting how Obama, together with Emanuel and Axelrod, need to stick their nose in appointments that should be left up to her:

Hillary, with her usual iron discipline about the big picture of power, is behaving like a stalwart team player. Before she took the job, she was assured she could pick her own trusted team. Yet she was overruled in appointing her own choice for deputy secretary, Richard Holbrooke. Instead, she was made to take an Obama guy, James Steinberg, who had originally been slated to become national-security adviser. (Hillary took care of Holbrooke, one of diplomacy’s biggest stars, by giving him the most explosive portfolio—Pakistan and Afghanistan.) She lost the ability to dole out major ambassadorships, too. A lot of these prizes are going to reward Obama fundraisers instead of knowledgeable appointees like Harvard’s Joseph Nye, whom she wanted to send to Japan.

Ms. Brown complains that Hillary was not given credit for getting Obama to put more troops in Afghanistan, inferring VP Biden is given credit for this. Well, this runs contrary to Ben Smith’s article in Politico, Clinton Gains Respect Out Of Spotlight, as quoted by CBS News, that Hillary trumped Biden on Afghanistan so perhaps Ms. Brown is overstating. Smith’s article is quick to point out that SoS Clinton’s popularity now stands at 71%, higher than the President’s. While pundits the likes of George Stephanopoulos intimated her portfolio and role is decreased because of envoys Holbrooke and Mitchell, Hillary always campaigned on hiring just such heavy hitting personnel to concentrate more diplomatic power in the middle east. Some choice quotes in this regard from the Politico article:

The envoys will be the primary metric through which you will judge her legacy…And even skeptical observers said Clinton appears to have won sufficient control over the envoys after a precarious start.

Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican who serves on the House subcommittee that oversees the State Department and describes himself as a Clinton “fan” for her role in pushing for sending more troops to Afghanistan…

“Between her consideration and her final confirmation she had lost some authority and power as all of these envoys were appointed,” he said. “Once she did get confirmed, though, what we have seen is a steady increase in her authority and control as we have seen envoys seeming to now work with her.”

Leaders in the region, he said, view her as “pre-eminent.” …Clinton is also afforded a level of day-to-day deference that underscores her stature. …The deputy secretary of state, Jim Steinberg, described Clinton’s role with the envoys as “the closer.” ….”The envoys tee it up for her,” he said in an interview. “It’s an extremely powerful way to use someone with her stature.”

Hillary Clinton has also been credited on many fronts as having, in short order, put diplomacy back under the charge of the State Department, rather than the military. Smith states her style as SoS echoes her arrival in the Senate in 2001 — putting her head down, figuring out the job and working hard rather than looking for the spotlight. Tina Brown likewise points out how, historically, this suits Clinton’s work ethic even as she seemingly objects to it elsewhere:

The former first lady and New York senator is no stranger to the big game of politics. Obama’s presidency is tightly White House driven and she is not the only player on a tight leash. … But I doubt she cares about losing the spotlight at this time in her life when she’s not running for something. Unlike Bill, she hates glad-handing and does TV only because she has to. Policy is her meat and drink. On her State Department plane, Hillary is always eager to throw off her well-groomed public look and sit up front with no makeup, wearing sweats and her bookworm glasses, as she crunches her way through a big fat file of foreign-policy memos. She is as formidably well-informed in this job as she was at the Rose law firm in Arkansas, doing all the legal backup work for the guys on a big deal. Or when she played the canny sounding board and strategist for Gov. Bill Clinton in his run for president.

That’s the trouble. You could say that Obama is lucky to have such a great foreign-policy wife. Those who voted for Hillary wonder how long she’ll be content with an office wifehood of the Saudi variety.

To call Hillary a Saudi wife? That’s quite a leap. And if Hillary were out front and center, I’m sure Ms. Brown would complain about how “ego driven” and “power hungry” she is. Hillary certainly heard enough of that nonsense last year. Once again, I am sure the maddening tightrope a female politician or diplomat has to walk is far more precarious than that of any man in the same position.

I can’t make up my mind reading this article as to Ms. Brown’s end game. To degrade Hillary? To throw down the gauntlet and encourage her to speak out? To slap at President Obama pointing out how foolish he is not to make better use of Secretary Clinton’s considerable abilities?

It is interesting to note that a month ago, not three days before Hillary broke her arm, Ms. Brown penned another article entitled What Hillary Can Teach Sarah Palin. Brown stated that Hillary was an example of “what real female power looks like,” that she is a “dedicated policy wonk who worked on behalf of oppressed women in unpronounceable places long before it was fashionable.”

She then engages in some revisionist history of her own when she stated that Hillary was “humbled at the polls” by Barack Obama. Oh really? So the fact that she won more votes than any candidate in primary history – male or female – 300,000 more than him – that’s humbling? Being outspent three to one, stabbed in the back by your own party, trashed in the media daily, winning more votes and still not getting the nomination, well I have another word for that – and it has nothing to do with being humbled. Knee-capped, maybe.

Ms. Brown lectures Palin to

Take a leaf out of Hillary’s book. (Or from Condi Rice, for that matter. Clinton’s predecessor in the job likewise knows how to disappear herself for a bit while she recoups and rebrands.) Bide your time, don’t waste it.

Her words of wisdom here are “it’s the substance that sustains, not the exposure.” No kidding. Hillary is all substance, that’s for sure. But in her new article – Brown demands more exposure for Hillary. Tina needs to make up her mind. Is she going to believe that Hillary is “biding her time” and knows what she is doing or not?

While I do not particularly care for Ms. Brown’s tone, I’d love to see Hillary front and center myself. Selfishly I would feel safer knowing for certain she was in charge of the foreign policy portfolio at State rather than the rest of the Administration that keeps swapping seats in the clown car. But as Brown notes, when one is starting a job, it pays to build a firm foundation before making a lot of noise.

Let’s see if we start hearing more noise from Hillary.

More machine Chicago politics in Washington, DC? Check this out. Tammy Duckworth was appointed by Rod Blagojevich to serve as Director of the Illinois’ Department of Veteran Affairs after she lost to Peter Roskam when she ran for Illinois’s sixth Congressional district in 2006. She was appointed by that Blagojevich, the one now under indictment for what the feds and Patrick Fitzgerald call “The Blagojevich Enterprise.” When she ran for Congress in 2006, she was in Walter Reed. The house she owned in Illinois was not even in the district, but Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin all backed her and shoved an anti-war Democrat with real grassroots creds and an army of volunteers who lived in the district to the sides. Real machine politics that did not go down well. Then Duckworth loses, then Blagojevich appoints her to Director of Illinois’ Department of Veteran Affairs. That’s the Chicago way. Takin’ care of business.

Now they want to bring her to DC as Obama’s contact in the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.

More on Tammy:

Duckworth, a Hoffman Estates Democrat, is a disabled Iraq war veteran who campaigned for Congress against U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam in 2006. The Wheaton Republican narrowly edged Duckworth for the seat.

Two weeks later, then-Gov. Blagojevich appointed Duckworth director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.
“She has been an inspiration to people all over the country, showing extraordinary personal strength and speaking out on behalf of soldiers who are coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Blagojevich said of Duckworth at the time.

Following Barack Obama’s election to the presidency, Duckworth was rumored to be under consideration for Obama’s U.S. Senate seat or U.S. Rep. Rahm Emmanuel’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Emmanuel is now Obama’s chief of staff.

She didn’t live in the sixth, and she doesn’t live in Emanuel’s district. She lives in the eighth. They even wanted to hand her a Senate seat. She was one of the candidates Obama’s administration and Blagojevich were discussing when Blago got nailed for pay to play with the Senate seat. Why are they so bent on giving her a seat in Congress? By the way, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod ran her campaign in 2006. Nice. Keeping it in the family.

Republican Richard Burr of North Carolina is blocking a vote on her appointment in the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee until more information surfaces about an unrelated matter. But I wanna know why she is so tied up with Blagojevich, Obama and Emanuel. What’s up with the machine politics?

She took a STATE VEHICLE, a van, to a partisan political event on the public dime in 2008 when she was Director of Veterans Affairs in Illinois. Will she be taking federal vehicles and property to Democratic political events in DC? Sounds kinda sleazy. Sounds like something a Blago ally and appointee would do. Typical machine politics in Illinois.

She also took a wad of cash from the Rezko network.

Read more about Tammy Duckworth here. I just don’t think a person all tied up with Rezko, Blagojevich and scandal in Illinois should be running Veterans Affairs. It’s not right. It’s kinda corrupt. And what’s up with the party Blagojevich threw for her at the DNC convention in Denver? I also notice she endorsed Blagojevich even though she knew he’s corrupt. Not good.