Tag: obama

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo.  To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting.  Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past.  I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) –once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016.  In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions.  I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.

James Comey, in an excerpt from his opening statement for tomorrow’s Senate hearing. He spoke in private with Obama twice in nearly five years and one of those was a “thanks for all the fish” valedictory. Compared against NINE in four months. And Comey felt compelled to document all interactions with Trump immeidately after their first meeting. Nothing wrong here. This is fine.

I’m a PC

A long piece by Ta-Nehesi Coates on Obama (and, basically, race in America) that is predictably excellent, but this little scene really sticks out to me:

The [systematic and complete GOP] obstruction [throughout Obama’s presidency] grew out of narrow political incentives. “If Republicans didn’t cooperate,” Obama told me, “and there was not a portrait of bipartisan cooperation and a functional federal government, then the party in power would pay the price and they could win back the Senate and/or the House. That wasn’t an inaccurate political calculation.”

Obama is not sure of the degree to which individual racism played into this calculation. “I do remember watching Bill Clinton get impeached and Hillary Clinton being accused of killing Vince Foster,” he said. “And if you ask them, I’m sure they would say, ‘No, actually what you’re experiencing is not because you’re black, it’s because you’re a Democrat.’ ”

This is a genuinely and deeply important perception by Obama. It is undeniable that racism figures into much of the baseline Obama hatred/denial (“not my President!” “not a citizen!” and so forth), but baseline crazy is baked right into the mix for any Democrat that holds high office. Period. And an over-reliance on just characterizing this stuff over the last eight years as racism in blanket fashion is definitively of a piece with the “PC run wild” attacks that Trump used to great effect.

Even more importantly, though, is the fact that it’s all too easy to forget what the ground rules are for Democrats as candidates or office-holders. Expect this kind of shit. Run against it. Point it out in off years any time you are near a live microphone. You can never just “move forward,” unilaterally disarm, and take what you perceive to be the high road. Use your foreknowledge and expectation of these asinine talking points to preemptively mock and aggressively belittle your opponents based on the predictability of their spew as opposed to the far easier shortcut “oh, that’s just racist.” Because once you throw those qualifiers in, people on the convincible peripheries just stop listening. It is far easier to show them the crystal clear pattern of noise and falsehood, especially if you’re the one bringing it up and preemptively bludgeoning your opponent with it, than it is to get them to stare into the maw of decades and centuries of systematic privilege from which they have likely benefited…and but also magically admit to that, accept your point, change their worldview, and march right down to vote “D” for the rest of their natural lives.

But, alas, Serious Democrats are against this sort of thing; my dears that simply isn’t done. And this is why they fail.

…[T]he thing that Mitch McConnell figured out on Day One of my Presidency [is that] people aren’t paying that close attention to how Washington works. They know there are lobbyists, special interests, gridlock; that the powerful have more influence and access than they do. And if things aren’t working, if there’s gridlock, then the only guy that they actually know is supposed to be in charge and supposed to be helping them is the President. And so the very deliberate strategy that Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party generally employed during the course of my Presidency was effective. What they understood was that, if you embraced old-fashioned dealing, trading, horse-trading, bipartisan achievement, people feel better. And, if people feel better, then they feel better about the President’s party, and the President’s party continues. And, if it feels broken, stuck, and everybody is angry, then that hurts the President or the President’s party.

President Barack Obama, talking to David Remnick of the New Yorker. This is, perhaps, the most important concept for the remaining Democrats in Congress to read, read again, memorize, and carve into some very hard rock in each of their offices. It may sound nice to “work with” a President Trump, but helping him only will make things worse. Work the edges. Minimize the pain, but Trumpism and the GOP must be seen to fail, and badly. Short-term bipartisanship is the worst possible reaction to 2016. You must oppose and be clear on the meaning and import of that opposition. You’re going to lose anyway, at least lose in a fashion that is productive long-term and helps shape your desired policy outcomes if and when the Trump era can be brought to an end.

Sarcasm

Trump today: Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) “the founder” of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON’T GET SARCASM?
Trump yesterday: No, I meant [Obama is] the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.

So why support negotiations? First: They just might work. I haven’t met many experts who put the chance of success at zero. Second: If the U.S. decides one day that it must destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, it must do so with broad international support. The only way to build that support is to absolutely exhaust all other options. Which means pursuing, in a time-limited, sober-minded, but earnest and assiduous way, a peaceful settlement.

Jeffrey Goldberg, self-described “Iran Hawk” on the need for real negotiations and not more (and more, and more) sanctions.

And: I basically agree. Except for all that stuff about “Second.” There is no “Second” choice available; unless, that is, you support a nuclear Iran. Our only tenable option is “First:” negotiate in good faith and hope it works. Otherwise you get a nuclear Iran. In fact, the fastest way to a nuclear Iran is if “the U.S. decides one day that it must destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.” Doing so, even assuming we temporarily succeeded at it (a prospect that is itself is vanishingly unlikely unless we choose to do so by exterminating all human life in Iran) will only cause them to First re-double, triple, or quadruple their weaponized nuclear efforts, and furthermore do so in sufficiently distributed, fortified, and or completely secret facilities as to obviate any attempt at said facilities’ destruction without resorting to “destroy all human life in Iran” methods.

So, that’s it. Negotiate. Period. The end. Our only choice also happens to be the best choice. It is not a sign of weakness, it is not a capitulation. It is quite literally the only option remaining that does not include the words “results in a nuclear Iran.” Only the GOP seems incapable of seeing this.

History’s Greatest Monster

Reince Priebus (Chairman of the RNC): [Obama is] the king of golf and vacations!
Sad Reality: Obama would have to take off the next 2.5 years in order to catch up with President George W. Bush’s vacation record. By this time, Bush had taken 349 days off, Obama has taken 96. Even Saint Reagan took 180 days off, about twice Obama’s current tally. The GOP controlled House is out for 5 weeks. Obama is taking 8 days. Move over Jimmy Carter, we’ve truly found History’s Greatest Monster.

Breaking: GOP Won Big in 2012

At least they won it in every way possible that doesn’t involve, you know, actually winning:

[The GOP thinks] they lost because their get-out-the-vote technology failed on Election Day. They think they lag the Democrats in data mining and use of social media. They think media bias defeated them. They think they kinda-sorta won because they won the white vote and the elderly vote. They think a tiny number of anomalous, atypical Republicans spoiled everything for the rest of the party by scaring women with off-putting abortion rhetoric. They think they just haven’t found the right messenger who can explain to Hispanic voters that they’re “natural Republicans.” They think Obama and Democrats win among low-information voters who are too dumb to realize what’s really happening to them and what the two parties really stand for. Or those same voters are being bribed with “Obamaphones.” And, yes, Republicans are still claiming voter fraud.

Oh, and besides, they won the House (even if they lost the total House vote and won only because of gerrymandering, and even if Democrats retained the Senate), so 2012 was a split decision right? Heck, Paul Ryan won – he won reelection to his House seat.

So it’s all good for the GOP! Their ideas are what America wants! It’s obvious!

Exactly.

Breaking: GOP Won Big in 2012

Republicans have very decidedly not agreed to any kind of tax reform that raises federal revenues. This is the whole crux of the debate. They have never agreed to anything other than revenue-neutral tax reform.

Kevin Drum, saying what should be printed in the maximum size possible, laminated in armor-strength plastic, and posted on the wall of every news agency large and small. Every single news outlet gets this simple, straightforward fact utterly and completely wrong every single time they venture here. Wishing hard and clapping louder will not make the GOP sensible. Neither will acting as though they want a “sensible” deal when they have made no such overtures, large or small.

Reporting this as though both parties are equally at fault is doing The Republic no favors.