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Nixon The Obama Campaign Goes to China

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One of the most telling anecdotes in this must-read Edward Luce skewer of the way a small circle of Obama advisors (Rahm, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Robert Gibbs) dominates his Administration is this story about his trip to China.

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.

The White House complained bitterly about what it saw as unfairly negative media coverage of a trip dubbed Mr Obama’s “G2” visit to China. But, as journalists were keenly aware, none of Mr Obama’s inner circle had any background in China. “We were about 40 vans down in the motorcade and got barely any time with the president,” says a senior official with extensive knowledge of the region. “It was like the Obama campaign was visiting China.”

Coming as it does in an article that compares Obama’s Administration to Nixon’s…

And barring Richard Nixon’s White House, few can think of an administration that has been so dominated by such a small inner circle.

The story really highlights the dangers of such a close-knit group dominating Administration policy: on a visit to China, our relationship with which is one of the most challenging policy issues we face, we’ve got tourists dominating the policy, not experts.

As much as I’m thrilled the story repeats calls to replace Rahm, I think the real story is the suggestion that Obama’s cabinet members are growing tired of being treated as “minions” by Rahm. The story names four by name: Kathleen Sebelius, Ken Salazar, Janet Napolitano, and (above) Steven Chu.

Perhaps the biggest losers are the cabinet members. Kathleen Sebelius, Mr Obama’s health secretary and formerly governor of Kansas, almost never appears on television and has been largely excluded both from devising and selling the healthcare bill. Others such as Ken Salazar, the interior secretary who is a former senator for Colorado, and Janet Napolitano, head of the Department for Homeland Security and former governor of Arizona, have virtually disappeared from view.

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.

With the suggestion that Sebelius, for example, has been “excluded both from devising and selling the healthcare bill,” are we to understand that all of these cabinet officials are not intimately involved in setting policy? We’ve got Steven Chu, one of the best cabinet picks in the Administration, cooling his heels rather than the climate? And what are Sebelius, Salazar, and Napolitano advising that is not being heard? Is Sebelius growing tired of Rahm fucking up what should be her portfolio (after which, as happened last week, she has to go to Congress and get grilled on it)?

And then, of course, there’s an even more notable cabinet member that goes unmentioned: Hillary Clinton. She showed up prominently in the pictures from China, but she is not mentioned in this story as either one of those (like Joe Biden) who regularly gives Obama counsel but is not part of this inner circle, or one of those prominent cabinet members that Rahm treats like a minion. But the story does note how Arab-Israeli peace took a back seat to Rahm’s failed attempt to pass health care reform. Whether or not Hillary (or, more likely, her inner circle; John Podesta is one of the few named sources for it) is a source for this article, I can imagine how seeing a failed attempt to pass healthcare stall attempts to bring peace to Palestine would rankle Secretary Clinton.

So, yes, this is another story pointing to growing dissatisfaction with Rahm from allies both inside and outside the Administration. But note clearly, it appears to be very high level dissastisfaction.

Where Will Brennan Land in Rahm v. DOJ Spat?

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As Jason notes, David Axelrod has already taped a CSPAN response to Jane Mayer’s piece on Rahm’s spat about distractions like “the law” and “human rights” with Eric Holder and Greg Craig. In it, Axe appears to try to distance the White House from the decisions that have been attacked in the last few weeks, particularly the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.

David Axelrod did not dispute that a rift had emerged between the White House and the Justice Department over the 9/11 case, which has recently become a political sore spot for the administration.Despite a rising tide of opposition to having a trial in Manhattan, which has sent the administration scrambling to find another location, Axelrod said it was not a mistake for Holder to announce the trial would be held there. But Axelrod did not defend it — or portray it in any way as a decision that came from the White House. “The attorney general was responding under the protocol that was developed between the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense for the prosecution of terrorists,” Axelrod said in an interview for C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” series set to air on Sunday.

Acknowledging White House resistance to the Justice Department decisions, Axelrod continued: “Rahm has a perspective that’s different. He’s the chief of staff. He looks at things from a legislative perspective, he looks at things from other perspectives.”

Side note: Responsible journalism would dictate that Anne Kornblut avoid the metonymy of “White House” here, as it obscures whether this is just Axe and Rahm working the press as they do, or Obama as well. After all, if Obama has decided to give Holder autonomy on this decision, he has, in fact, supported such a decision, or should have. But therein may be the real root of White House dysfunction on this issue.

So Rahm and Axe are out there declaring that the decision to try KSM in a civilian trial in NY belongs entirely to DOJ and DOD, which Axe appears to portray as somehow divorced from the authority and will of the White House (and therefore, from Obama). In the likelihood that the trial will be moved to some other venue altogether, then, Axe and Rahm can continue to make Holder the scapegoat. Heck, they may even be trying to force Holder out like they have forced Craig out.

But what’s going to happen when the White House strongly owns its decisions on the handling of the Underwear Bomber? They’ve got John Brennan on Meet the Press tomorrow to defend the Administration’s decisions on his treatment. As Mark Ambinder tweets,

Admin puts Brennan on Sunday shows to defend Abdulmuttalab’s handling. He is steaming mad about the CW.

Whatever my complaints with Brennan, he does come off as less of a backroom bumbler than Rahm and Axe of late. And he plans to go on TV and rebut the conventional wisdom about the decision to mirandize Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and try him in civilian court.

In other words, Brennan will be making the same defense of civilian law as Eric Holder has. Maybe, in the process, he’ll explain how Abdulmutallab’s testimony has already led the White House to put Anwar al-Awlaki on a kill list, just to look tough in the process!

So it seems that as Rahm and Axe try to set up and scapegoat Holder, one of the grownups is about to go on TV and own not the KSM decision, but certainly the decision to sustain our system of civilian law.

Mayer on Rahm

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I first teased out Rahm Emanuel’s role in reversing Obama’s early efforts to reclaim our country from torture last July. In August, my comments at Netroots Nation focused on Rahm’s role in preventing accountability for torture. I kept tracking Rahm’s campaign to prevent accountability here, here, and here.

Today, Jane Mayer has an extended profile of Eric Holder that fleshes out what we’ve all known: Rahm’s the guy who killed accountability for torture.

Emanuel viewed many of the legal problems that Craig and Holder were immersed in as distractions. “When Guantánamo walked in the door, Rahm walked out,” the informed source said. Holder and Emanuel had been collegial since their Clinton Administration days. Holder’s wife, Sharon Malone, an obstetrician, had delivered one of Emanuel’s children. But Emanuel adamantly opposed a number of Holder’s decisions, including one that widened the scope of a special counsel who had begun investigating the C.I.A.’s interrogation program. Bush had appointed the special counsel, John Durham, to assess whether the C.I.A. had obstructed justice when it destroyed videotapes documenting waterboarding sessions. Holder authorized Durham to determine whether the agency’s abuse of detainees had itself violated laws. Emanuel worried that such investigations would alienate the intelligence community. But Holder, who had studied law at Columbia with Telford Taylor, the chief American prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials, was profoundly upset after seeing classified documents explicitly describing C.I.A. prisoner abuse. The United Nations Convention Against Torture requires the U.S. to investigate credible torture allegations. Holder felt that, as the top law-enforcement officer in the U.S., he had to do something.

Emanuel couldn’t complain directly to Holder without violating strictures against political interference in prosecutorial decisions. But he conveyed his unhappiness to Holder indirectly, two sources said. Emanuel demanded, “Didn’t he get the memo that we’re not re-litigating the past?”

That’s what human rights are to Rahm Emanuel–mere distractions, speed bumps on his road to nine wins or–in the case of health care reform–epic failure.

Where Mayer breaks real news in her description of Rahm’s role in preventing accountability is her description of why Rahm opposed so many of Holder’s decisions: because they offended Lindsey Graham.

At the White House, Emanuel, who is not a lawyer, opposed Holder’s position on the 9/11 cases. He argued that the Administration needed the support of key Republicans to help close Guantánamo, and that a fight over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could alienate them. “There was a lot of drama,” the informed source said. Emanuel was particularly concerned with placating Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, who was a leading proponent of military commissions, and who had helped Obama on other issues, such as the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “Rahm felt very, very strongly that it was a mistake to prosecute the 9/11 people in the federal courts, and that it was picking an unnecessary fight with the military-commission people,” the informed source said. “Rahm had a good relationship with Graham, and believed Graham when he said that if you don’t prosecute these people in military commissions I won’t support the closing of Guantánamo. . . . Rahm said, ‘If we don’t have Graham, we can’t close Guantánamo, and it’s on Eric!’ ”

At Emanuel’s urging, Holder spoke with Graham several times. But they could not reach an agreement. Graham told me, “It was a nonstarter for me. There’s a place for the courts, but not for the mastermind of 9/11.” He said, “On balance, I think it would be better to close Guantánamo, but it would be better to keep it open than to give these guys civilian trials.” Graham, who served as a judge advocate general in the military reserves, vowed that he would do all he could as a legislator to stop the trials. “The President’s advisers have served him poorly here,” he said. “I like Eric, but at the end of the day Eric made the decision.” Last week, Graham introduced a bill in the Senate to cut off funding for criminal trials related to 9/11. [my emphasis]

All along Rahm’s campaign against Greg Craig and Holder he left complaint after complaint that they had ruined the relationship with Congress. This, I suppose, is what Rahm means: doing anything–even those actions dictated by international law–that offend poor Lindsey’s sensibilities is a mistake, tantamount to ruining the President’s relationship with Congress. And I guess Rahm is okay with that–ceding the President’s authority on national security and legal issues to Lindsey Graham.

And look what you get out of that: Lindsey in a snit, pouting that the Attorney General of the United States determined to try criminals in a civilian court. And in response, refusing to close Gitmo.

In other words, we can’t close Gitmo because Obama’s “crack” Chief of Staff has willingly ceded the authority of the Attorney General of the United States to one Senator from the opposing party, and that single Senator is pouting because the Attorney General might choose law over Kangaroo Courts.

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Rahm’s Authorization to Use Military Force

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This plan from Rahm has a number of people in a tizzy:

Mr. Emanuel, the chief of staff, said he hoped Congressional Democrats would take up the jobs bill next week. Then, in his view, Congress would move to the president’s plan to impose a fee on banks to help offset losses to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the fund used to bail out banks and automakers.

Lawmakers would next deal with a financial regulatory overhaul, and then pick up where they left off on health care. “All these things start and lead to one place: J-O-B-S,” Mr. Emanuel said.

Jonathan Cohn, Ezra, Gregg, Chris Bowers, and Digby all make very important points about Rahm’s comments. [Update: now The Shrill One piles on.] But I think they may be missing one potential aspect of Rahm’s thinking.

You see, I’ve been waiting for this for a few months.

There are two theories about how to pass difficult legislation. The operative theory with health insurance reform, thus far, had been to do it early in Obama’s term, when he had a lot of poltiical capital. That theory has been overtaken by events.

But think about how Karl Rove preferred to pass difficult legislation. Those bills didn’t have January or February signing dates. They had October signing dates. Take the Military Commissions Act, signed on October 17, 2006, just three weeks before the last mid-term election. Or the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq, signed on October 16, 2002, even less than three weeks before the prior mid-term election.

And with each of these, the timing worked in Rove’s favor. He could and did threaten that IF YOU DON’T PASS THIS BILL YOU WILL BE BRANDED AS A TERRORIST JUST IN TIME FOR ELECTION DAY!!!! And sure enough, people like Debbie Stabenow, who normally would think twice about supporting unconstitutional laws that give torturers a do-over, fell in line and passed the bill.

Rove used the urgency of the upcoming election to push Congress to pass legislation that they would soon regret.

Now, obviously, Rahm won’t be calling Raul Grijalva a terrorist because he doesn’t pass health insurance reform. But the Administration already has been saying that Congress should pass a bill, any bill. The Village punditry already accepts as true that a failure to pass health insurance reform will doom the Democratic party. So you can be sure that if health insurance reform hasn’t passed by September, you’re going to start hearing the Administration predicting sure doom on November 2 for Democrats if they don’t pass the bill BEFORE THE ELECTION OR YOU’LL BE BRANDED A LOSER!!

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Why Did Obama Kill The Dawn Johnsen Nomination?

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imagesYesterday, when I wrote about 34 Obama Nominees Not Named Dawn Johnsen being confirmed by the Senate on the heels of the healthcare vote, and before they left town, I was not aware, in addition (h/t earlofhuntingdon), the nomination was now completely dead. From Main Justice:

The Senate approved a unanimous consent request today to hold over several nominees for the second session of the 111th Congress, which begins in January.

But nominees to head three DOJ offices: Dawn Johnsen, for the Office of Legal Counsel, Mary L. Smith, for the Tax Division, and Christopher Schroeder, for the Office of Legal Policy, were returned to the White House before the Senate recessed for the holidays.

Johnsen, who was nominated in February, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in March on a party line vote.

Several Senate Republicans, joined by Democratic Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), have voiced concerns about Johnsen’s vocal opposition to the Bush administration’s national security policies and her past work for an abortion rights group.

The nomination of Dawn Johnsen to be the head of the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ, a critical post, is now truly dead. If Ms. Johnsen is to serve, she will have to be renominated by Barack Obama and start over. She never got the up or down vote promised as soon as the Senate had done healthcare, she never got an ounce of support from the Administration that nominated her, and a year of her life was taken in what certainly appears to be a cowardly and demeaning Read more →

Rahm’s Making the White House Look Terrible

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Picture 166This morning, the Politico made news by reporting that someone at the White House had ordered Harry Reid to cut a deal with Joe Lieberman on health care.

The White House denied the report.

“The White House is not pushing Senator Reid in any direction,” spokesman Dan Pfeiffer says. “We are working hand in hand with the Senate Leadership to work through the various issues and pass health reform as soon as possible.”

But since, then, two more reoprters have confirmed Politico’s account: TNR’s Jonathan Cohn and HuffPo’s Ryan Grim. In fact both Cohn and Grim pass on the ID of this anonymous White House figure: Rahm Emanuel. (Yeah, I know, gambling in the casino, even.) Here’s Ryan’s report.

Rahm Emanuel visited Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his Capitol office on Sunday evening and personally urged him to cut a deal with recalcitrant Sen. Joe Lieberman, two Democratic sources familiar with the situation said.

Now, aside from the fact that the White House looks stupid to us, as they try to insist Reid wasn’t visited by the Ghost of Health Care past, consider how they look to those close to the negotiations, who not only are being jerked around by Lieberman and Rahm, but who also risk losing their job as Senator and Majority Leader over this legislative failure. Here’s how that frustration sounds.

The report, however, according to the two sources, was entirely accurate. “We’re long past time for these kinds of games,” one source said.

But as bad as Rahm is making the White House look right now, consider how bad he’s going to make the White House look, if Lieberman refuses to deal. After all, Lieberman has taken just days to refuse the last compromise, based on claims of opposing a policy he supported three months ago. Lieberman doesn’t give a shit about health care, Obama, or Rahm Emanuel. (Or Harry Reid, for that matter.) So after forcing the White House to lie repeatedly about his strong-arm tactics, Rahm is going to make the White House look still worse after the Lieberman refuses the next deal he makes.

Blago Begins His Rahm Play

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I’ve been noting for months that Rod Blagojevich would make a big deal out of the conversations his people had with Rahm about gaming the election for Rahm’s former seat. If for no other reason than Blago claims Rahm gave him the idea behind one of the charges, Blago has every incentive to embarrass Rahm thoroughly over the course of his trial.

And, not surprisingly, Blago has made the first move in that play.

Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers want the FBI to give up details of interviews conducted last year of President Obama, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and others as part of the investigation into the former governor.

In a Friday filing, Blagojevich attorneys also asked for information regarding first lady Michelle Obama. However, a source said late Friday that the FBI never interviewed the first lady.

Prosecutors may well delay (that’s certainly what Fitz did in the CIA Leak case, where he turned over materials on prosecution witnesses just weeks before the trial started).

But I can imagine that Obama would prefer to put off this little side show until health care gets done–if it does get done. And I imagine Blago knows that well.

Late Night: Punkin The White House

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statedinner1125That’s punkin, not pumpkin my fellow gobblers and gobblees. Yes indeedy, the White House has been officially punked. Late breaking from the Washington Post:

A couple of aspiring reality-TV stars from Northern Virginia appear to have crashed the White House’s state dinner Tuesday night, penetrating layers of security with no invitation to mingle with the likes of Vice President Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Tareq and Michaele Salahi — polo-playing socialites known for a bitter family feud over a Fauquier County winery and their possible roles in the forthcoming “The Real Housewives of Washington” — were seen arriving at the White House and later posted on Facebook photos of themselves with VIPs at the elite gathering.
…
While the White House offered no official explanation, it appears to be the first time in modern history that anyone has crashed a White House state dinner. The uninvited guests were in the same room as President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, although it is unknown whether they met the Obamas and the guest of honor.

Here is the best part – they had their picture taken with the one and only Ron Emanuel:

But the best was yet to come: Once inside the dinner tent, they got pictures that appeared to show them with ABC’s Robin Roberts, Bollywood composer AR Rahman, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Obama Chief of Staff Emanuel (identified as “Ron” in the couple’s Facebook photo caption) and two with a grinning vice president. (Emphasis added)

So, that is a pretty good story; but here is an even better one of some punkin going on at the White House, courtesy of the inestimable Howie Klein.

Howie tells the story of how he arranged for Lou Reed to attend and perform for an official Clinton White House State Dinner for Vaclev Havel, President of the Czech Republic:

One of the “big” news stories yesterday was the State Dinner President Obama gave in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who, like CNN’s Sanji Gupta– a guest– is a doctor. 400 people were invited– probably 200 + 1 each, but I’m not certain– and it was in a heated tent on the lawn. I have a half-baked reason for telling the story of the state dinner I went to in September, 1998
….
I understood exactly what President Clinton wanted– and delivered. Havel and Lou Reed, a Reprise artist and a friend of mine, had such a powerful bond that Havel actually credited him with being part of the inspiration for the Velvet Revolution that freed Czechoslovakia from Soviet domination.
….
Everyone was grooving out (Henry Kissinger, Ted Stevens, Eric Holder, Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Harman, Chuck Hagel and 2 generals, John Shalikashvili and my new pal, Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)– not just Lugar– and I kept wondering if anyone had any clue what the lyrics were. Clinton certainly didn’t. He got up onstage and played his sax.

Now that is some punkin the White House!

How Dick Cheney Cowed Obama

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Mary has already linked to this article on how and why Greg Craig got thrown out in comments. But I wanted to make sure everyone read it. The short version of the timeline it describes is:

April 16: Obama releases the torture memos

April 17: Greg Craig moves to release Uighurs in US

April 20: Dick Cheney says mean things about Obama

Late April: A drop in Obama’s ratings on national security

April 23: Administration says it will release torture photos

April 24: Someone (!) leaks Craig’s plan on Uighurs to Congress

May 8: Obama flip-flops on torture photos

Mid-May: Obama flip-flops on military commissions and release of Uighurs

May 21: Obama’s Archive speech marks completion of national security flip-flop

In other words, after having made the right decision on the torture memos, the Obama Administration let Cheney beat them up over doing so. They did not respond publicly. Rather, they simply caved.

Precisely what Cheney wanted them to do.

I guess Dick Cheney is right–Obama can’t stand up to terrorists. Terrorists like Dick Cheney.

It’s Greg Craig’s Fault that Dawn Johnsen Hasn’t Been Confirmed

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Marc Ambinder has one of the most thorough discussions of Greg Craig’s ouster I’ve seen so far. It claims (Eric Holder’s public statements notwithstanding) that Craig wasn’t ousted for his “idealism” on national security…

The notion that the President was dissatisfied with Craig’s handling of the Guantanamo Bay closure has reached the level of an accepted urban myth, even though it is not true.  This may be Craig’s legacy — and it may serve him well with his allies on the ideological left who are eager to portray his departure as evidence that Obama rejects a new national security paradigm.

Rather, he was ousted because his focus on such issues distracted him from things like Senate confirmations.

The White House was also dissatisfied with Craig’s handling of political appointments, believing that Craig should have spent more time working with the Justice Department and with Congress to force through some of the President’s most eagerly-awaited principals, like Dawn Johnsen, whose nomination to be head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel still languishes. The issue of nominations is especially sensitive for the president, a constitutional law lecturer in his former life. [my emphasis]

As a threshold matter, let me agree that Bob Bauer will be much more successful at ramming through nominations, which if we’re going to reclaim the judicial system from the mess that the Federalist Society and Alberto Gonzales’ DOJ made of it, is critically important. Bauer’s a fierce partisan unafraid to call out Republicans on their partisan grand-standing. I look forward to his role in nominations.

That said, Ambinder does give evidence of such a split.

It is true that Mr. Craig and Mr. Emanuel did not always see eye to eye.  It was Craig’s importuning that may have convinced the president to release Bush-era Justice Department memorandum that sanctioned torture.

“This is what you were elected to do,” Craig told the president in one Oval Office meeting.

Emanuel worried about the political repercussions of a first-term young Democratic president who would appear to be thumbing the eyes of the national security establishment.  Craig won the round.

Which, at the very least, ought to make you ask: even accepting the premise that this was all about Craig’s management problems, why was it handled in this way? Why was it clear to everyone outside the White House–at the time when, Ambinder claims, “the president’s staff appeared to be ready to give Craig a second chance”–that there was this animosity between Rahm and Craig? Why was that animosity always framed in terms of Gitmo and torture? If “the president’s staff appeared ready to give Craig a second chance,” why did leaks that looked remarkably like leaks from the President’s Chief of Staff continue unabated? Why did that leaker turn this into a public issue, rather than just handling it quietly?

If the White House is ousting people for bad management, and the Chief of Staff spent the last three or four months leaking about Craig’s imminent departure rather than implementing that imminent departure, then why isn’t Obama also ousting the Chief of Staff, who turned the White House into a petty sniping war instead of managing it like an adult?

Rahm may want to blame Greg Craig that Dawn Johnsen hasn’t been confirmed (a nice sop to the liberals suspicious that Craig’s ouster was over torture). But in doing so, he is making it clear he’s to blame for turning the Craig ouster into a fiasco.