Obama Reaches Out for McCain’s Counsel
January 19th, 2009Change.
Via: New York Times:
Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama.
As contenders for the presidency, the two had hammered each other for much of 2008 over their conflicting approaches to foreign policy, especially in Iraq. (He’d lose a war! He’d stay a hundred years!) Now, however, Mr. Obama said he wanted Mr. McCain’s advice, people in each camp briefed on the conversation said. What did he see on the trip? What did he learn?
It was just one step in a post-election courtship that historians say has few modern parallels, beginning with a private meeting in Mr. Obama’s transition office in Chicago just two weeks after the vote. On Monday night, Mr. McCain will be the guest of honor at a black-tie dinner celebrating Mr. Obama’s inauguration.
Over the last three months, Mr. Obama has quietly consulted Mr. McCain about many of the new administration’s potential nominees to top national security jobs and about other issues — in one case relaying back a contender’s answers to questions Mr. McCain had suggested.
Mr. McCain, meanwhile, has told colleagues “that many of these appointments he would have made himself,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a close McCain friend.
I realize that this is HQ for snark and cynicism, but in fact Obama has brought noticeable change so far. Change in tone, in a move towards bi/post-partisanship, towards revaluing science over belief. Will it be enough? We’ll see. I worked to get him elected, now I’ll give him a chance to work.
What other choice do I have?
This isn’t a humor thread, but thanks for the laugh.
OK, again I’ll ask: for those of us for whom bugging out to the other side of the world is not an option, what are we to do? What choice do we have but to elect the best person that we can and then hold their feet to the fire?
Would you prefer to see the USA go down in flames? Would you find it disappointing if things turned around?
You obviously haven’t been paying attention.
Feel free to catch up, if you like:
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oGkiSVTnVJiz8ArXRXNyoA?p=democrats&y=Search&fr=yscpb&vs=cryptogon.com
The U.S. has already gone down in flames. Also, I don’t know what you mean by “turned around.” What does “turned around” mean?
but in fact Obama has brought noticeable change so far. Change in tone, in a move towards bi/post-partisansh…
ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz……..
@montysano:
What other choice do I have?
Take the red pill.
“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed, and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
Normally I’d eviscerate anyone who tries to relate The Matrix to modern politics, but the entire first movie is worth watching just for this set-up. Rent it or borrow it if you’re one of the few human beings in the United States who hasn’t seen it, so you can keep your cash away from the entertainment-distraction complex.
What other choice, indeed?
What got me seriously over the edge was not so much the normal political-theater of party politics, but Kevin’s posts on assassinations. If you can read through more than two dozen of these without starting to question your previous assumptions on the nature of modern power in American society, well, you’ve got a different-shaped brain than mine.
Me, I grew up hip-deep in the military-industrial complex and never seriously thought about it until I got older. I’m sure if my name ever ends up in a news story, folks like Kevin would pour over my family, friends and associations and say “No way this guy isn’t part of THEM.” I did some usual stupid teenage stuff, getting involved in stuff I shouldn’t, but was able to make a good career out of the knowledge I gained and for a while got to be The Man.
Then I figured out that I didn’t want to be The Man. And I read more and more history (hence the handle). And I started questioning more and more of the assumptions about my life, society and government that I didn’t even realize I had made.
And now I’m here. I’m not going to advocate any particular path of action for you. You have to figure that out yourself.
But ask yourself: where would you want to be, if you were a citizen of Rome circa 400AD? Where would you want to be, if you were a Mayan circa 900AD? Where would you want to be, if you were a German circa 1620AD?
You make the same assumption that Manhattan stockbrokers make when pondering which speedboat to buy to escape the island in case of collapse. You assume that the system can get better, that it will get better, that the it can somehow fix itself, and that in 6 months, 9 months, a year we’ll all be better off than now.
The faith in continual monotonic progress is the greatest set of blinders ever handed to humanity. Read some history, and open your eyes.
In the interest of diplomacy I’ll say this: it’s my feeling that Obama probably is a more authentic, conscionable human being than any President we’ve had since Carter. But the two-party system is what it is, and it’s much more sophisticated now than it was when Carter took office. You can’t change THIS system by working within the system.
That’s the chief trick of politics…enticing people to identify with the person – the figurehead – instead of questioning the situation as a whole. I’m not saying Presidents don’t have power, or that some (like Clinton) aren’t savvy enough to turn their situation to their own advantage. But I don’t see that Obama has the experience and willfulness to do so.
My prediction is he’ll take a lot of liberal “pet causes” and run with them – only so far as they gain profit for industry or simply don’t interfere. But ultimately I have to feel that Obama’s character and charisma have been used to dupe a lot of Democrats from jumping ship and voting for someone outside the system, someone who promised real, serious change.
@montysano: for those of us for whom bugging out to the other side of the world is not an option, what are we to do?
Here’s what you can do: wherever you live, face the facts regardless of whether they support the way you like to look at the world or not. Obama has been saying all the things we’ve wanted to say for a long time, but by his appointments, his repeated backpedaling, and his complicity with the bailout ripoff, it seems to me you have to be smoking something real strong to keep believing he’s going to bring any fundamental change.
@montysano – Someone should have warned you that I don’t want to speak for Kevin but I think he has a very strong adversion to “figureheads,” and authority figures. He is a law unto himself. I REALLY DO UNDERSTAND your DILEMA. And I relate to you very much.
I cannot leave my mother and country at this time. So I’m not exactly a nonbiased observer. I voted for Obama as well – sure. Great choices? No. But I refuse to be a figurative non-action play toy figure and not participate in the elections of my country. And so even thought I voted for Obama, in my heart I believe he was installed by a vote of the shadow Illumanti government. But you know what, these dildoes can go pound sand as far as I am concerned.
Maybe the election was rigged by the Illumanti, but so effing what. Like Obama, I’ve got a lot of ethnic heritage that was built on the American dream, and I’m thinking and feeling that whoever brought Obama to power and paid for it is due for a rude awakening.
Yes, In the words of Eliza Doolittle, Henry Higgins, just you wait. (My Fair Lady).
I can’t remember where I read this but it rang true: Bush cloaked himself as a centrist but was cloaked as a radical conservative. Obama has cloaked himself as a centrist but is a radical progressive. I can’t wait for our Star Trek Next Generation under Obama.
Kevin has left the U.S. and I think has become a very (sorry Kevin) biased observer.
Hey, but if I had left the country and had my own website I’d be telling you all the same things Kevin is doing here. But all of the above doesn’t apply to me.
Kevin has left the U.S. and I think has become a very (sorry Kevin) biased observer.
I’ve never lived outside the northern Midwest and only travelled to the Deep South twice when I was a small child. But I guess I share Kevin’s cynicism because both events in my personal history and events in the world (once I forced myself to poor the Kool-Aid pitcher into the nearest convenient plant-pot) have brought me to the point where I feel as though I can never really be cynical enough.