The growing intensity of the rhetoric surrounding Roland Burris, Rod Blagojevich, and Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat reached new heights (or depths, depending on your point of view) this weekend, by both Burris and his supporters. This is getting so completely out of hand that some perspective is sorely needed here.
Three names suggest themselves in this category. The first, sad to say, is Sarah Palin. While some dismiss her with the term (which she herself uttered on Saturday Night Live) "Caribou Barbie," my educated guess is that we have not seen the last of Alaska's governor on the national stage. Because while the list of things Palin lacks is long and daunting, she has one star quality which may prove to be strong enough to cancel all the rest out — charisma. A politician can learn about such mundane things as world events and how to speak with political finesse, but charisma can't really be learned — it's more of an innate quality. And Palin's got it. For those laughing at the prospect of Sarah Palin ever reappearing, I caution that when Ronald Reagan first ran for president, we all laughed at him, too. An actor becoming president? Pre-pos-terous! So don't underestimate charisma, or Palin's ambition.
Welcome to our annual awards! For the past three years, this column has paid homage (translation: "ripped off their gimmick") to the McLaughlin Group television show by handing out our own year-end awards (while using the same categories). This will be a two-part column, with the second installment appearing one week from today. And feel free to watch the McLaughlin Group on your local PBS station this weekend, to compare my picks with theirs.
The Illinois Supreme Court has just, without comment, rejected what was in essence a coup attempt by the state Attorney General, which would have installed the Lieutenant Governor in Governor Blagojevich's place. Attorney General Lisa Madigan's legal reasoning was, to put it mildly, unique. She tried to make the case that the Governor was "unfit for duty" and therefore had to be replaced so the state could continue to function. The entire episode raises a bigger question: could this ever happen to the President of the United States? The answer turns out to be: "Yes, but… it'll probably never happen."
This is not a follow up to what I wrote last Friday, because this isn't about Illinois Governor Blagojevich's "crude" language. Instead, I write today about Blaggy's crude tactics. Because I'm kind of having a hard time condemning him for doing almost the same thing as what other politicians do more successfully (and completely "legally") with a wink and a nod. There's a game, and there are certain rules to the game. Blaggy went a bit too far, and was caught. He is now paying the price. But what he "got caught" at isn't that all that different from what many (if not most) politicians — of both parties — do.
With slightly less than a month and a half to go before Barack Obama's inauguration, Washington, D.C. has officially reached the "freakout" point on the Richter scale of event planning. This may indeed turn out to be justified, if the predicted crowd shows up. Even so, some of what is quietly happening in background of the planning process is worth drawing attention to.
Brian Williams, NBC's talking head extraordinaire, is probably a decent guy, a guy with whom you could sit down and have a beer. [More on the alcohol subject at the end, I promise.] But that doesn't excuse something he said last night on Jay Leno's show.
Personally, I could care less whether he says "I, Barack Hussein Obama…" or "I, Barack Obama…" or "I, Barry Obama…" or whatever else he chooses to say. The man behind the name is who people voted for, not the name itself. The man will be president, and I don't care whether he calls himself by a nickname ("Jimmy Carter") by initials ("F.D.R" or "L.B.J.") or by his full name. Whatever he's comfortable with, as far as I'm concerned.
There's an old inside-the-Beltway joke where a new House member is being shown around by a veteran of his own party. He is awed by entering the House floor for the first time, and is shown his new seat. He asks, pointing across the aisle to where the other party sits, "Is that where the enemy sits?" The older and wiser Congressman replies, "No, no, here in the House of Representatives we call our opponents 'the loyal opposition.' You're new, so you need to understand this. 'The enemy' is the Senate."
Obama has said that he will be the President of ALL Americans. As such, he will certainly disappoint. But that's all right. I didn't just award him my vote, I awarded him my trust. My hope is that he is wiser than I, more knowledgeable than I. And I trust him to make the decisions I hope that I would make, if I were wiser and more knowledgeable. I hope Obama's presidency will be as all presidencies should be: constitutional, ethical, transparent, broadly representative and reality-based. Even though each of us are "special interests," he doesn't have to pander to me, he doesn't have to be "black," he just has to represent me. I don't demand a bigger piece of the pie. I may not even GET a piece of the pie. All I ask is that I have a seat at the table.