Spencer Ackerman: “It’s not very likely that the 9-7 Arizona Cardinals would be NFC champions, but the next president of the United States is African-American.”
Heh. Indeed.
Bush Joins the Ranks of the Unemployed
In 2007, George W. Bush spoke of a desire to “replenish the ol’ coffers” with post-presidential speaking engagements. Daniel Gross has an appealing theory indicating that this won’t work:
For many of President Bush’s critics, the fact that he is now seeking work in the worst job market in a generation is poetic justice. As Bush noted in his farewell press conference, he is too much of a Type A for “the big straw hat and Hawaiian shirt, sitting on some beach.” (He might want to reconsider: Thanks to the recession, tropical resorts are running great promotions.)
Given recent history, Bush probably expects to profit from ex-presidency. Bill Clinton reported income of more than $90 million from 2000-07. But Bush is very unlikely to earn Clintonian numbers. Ex-presidents peddle image, presence, and experience. In Bush’s case, each is tarnished. To aggravate matters, many of the industries in which ex-presidents make easy money are a) doing poorly, and b) based in the Washington-Boston corridor where Bush hostility runs deep.
I think this is probably wrong and at the end of the day Bush’s unpopularity will probably have only a mild negative impact on his future earnings. For one thing, itt’s a mistake to try to generalize about which industries are the ones “in which ex-presidents make easy money.” Bush’s actions in office should have earned him the undying loyalty of the core GOP business base in the oil, coal, pharmaceutical, defense contracting, and agribusiness industries. It’s true that given the recession these firms may not be able to be as generous as they would in other times. But by the same token, their continued profitability depends heavily on their ability to convince today’s politicians that loyal friends of industry will be taken care of. If Bush really wants money, the money will be found.
What We Could Do for Palestinians
Amjad Atallah, director of the Middle East Task Force at New America and someone who deserves to be more prominent, has a very interesting BloggingHeads appearance alongside David Frum focused on the Gaza situation. In this clip, he offers a concrete suggestion of a helpful gesture the United States could make to show to the world that irrespective of our broader strategic orientation we do care about the suffering of Palestinian civilians:
Much more good stuff if you watch the whole episode.
Bush’s library legacy most likely to resemble Hoover, Nixon.
On Tuesday, President Bush will return to Texas to begin rebuilding his legacy, in the form of the George W. Bush Presidential Center and the accompanying “Freedom Institute” think tank. While Bush 41 has a library and museum at Texas A&M University, presidential historians believe Bush 43′s legacy plans actually most resemble those of Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon:
[T]he closest historical analogy to Bush’s post-presidential plans may be unfortunate, given the current economic climate: Herbert Hoover founded a war library at Stanford University before he became president that eventually became the Hoover Institution, a major center for conservative and libertarian thinking.
David Greenberg, a presidential historian at Rutgers University, says a better comparison may be Nixon, who spent many of his post-White House years attempting to rehabilitate his image and reputation as a statesman after the shame of the Watergate scandal. He also founded the Nixon Center think tank several months before his death in 1994.
(ThinkProgress has been keeping a close eye on developments with the Bush library, and we will continue to do so. Read our related posts here.)
NRDC’s David Hawkins on Climate, Congress and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership
[David Hawkins is Director of NRDC's climate center. I have the very highest regard for his judgment on matters of climate policy and politics, even when I (rarely) disagree with him. I wrote a scathing critique of the recent USCAP climate blueprint and NRDC's role in it on Thursday (see here). David asked for space to reply in detail. Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at 450 ppm (let alone below that) is simply not politically possible today, as I've written many times (see " Part 6: What the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner bill debate tells us" and "Part 7: The harsh lessons of the financial bailout") -- and that means people negotiating climate legislation must make tough choices that will not satisfy everyone. I recommend this post to anyone who wants to understand the challenge of trying to craft a climate bill that can actually pass Congress.]
Joe,
You are and will remain a respected friend. As an author and blogger, you call it as you see it on what needs to happen to emissions and our energy system if we are to avoid a climate catastrophe. And you do a great job at it.
We at NRDC have another job. We must do what has to be done to move this Congress to enact climate protection legislation that will change overnight the kinds of energy and other investments that are made, start the innovation engine spinning, bend our emissions down without further delay, and show the world that the U.S. has emerged from its cave of inaction.
We are buoyed by President-elect Obama’s commitment to act but we will need action from Congress as well. The new Congress contains a growing number of climate protection champions but it also contains a core of obstructionists bent on using every tactic to block any action, other members who think global warming is not enough of a problem to warrant any real change, and members who are inclined to be helpful but not if it involves spending much political capital as they see it. We don’t have time to change who the members of Congress are; we need to change the way current members think about this issue.
There are a number of ways to move Congress to act and NRDC is pursuing all that we believe will help. One important way is to engage deeper and broader support for action from the U.S. business community-a community that until recently was dominated by outspoken opponents of any action to cut global warming pollution. The USCAP Blueprint you attack is an effort to get major American business leaders, joined with a number of U.S. NGOs, firmly committed to working to get this Congress to pass climate protection legislation. It is part of a process designed to make good legislation possible.
Axelrod Reaffirms Obama’s Commitment To 16 Month Iraq Withdrawal Timetable
Throughout his campaign for president, Barack Obama consistently said that if elected, on day one, he would sit down with his top military commanders and give them a new mission: begin to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq in 16 months. “Let me be as clear as I can be: I intend to end this war,” Obama said last July. “I have seen no information that contradicts the notion that we can bring our troops out safely at a pace of one to two brigades per month.”
Indeed, Obama has in fact, scheduled a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top military commanders next Wednesday, his first full day in office. Today on ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos noted the meeting and asked Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod if Obama intends to keep his promise, and order the 16 month withdrawal timetable. Axerod answered, “yes”:
AXELROD: Well, that was something that he’s consistently said. He believes that that is a reasonable timetable. We’ve moved a great distance from the time he started talking about that. And now, we’re in an area where everyone agrees we should be on a path to withdrawing those troops and he is going to begin that process as promised on that day.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He’ll give the command?
AXELROD: Yes.
Watch it:
This news may come as a shock to Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently suggested that Obama “overcome” his “campaign rhetoric” when it comes to his criticism of the Bush administration’s security policies. Just last week, Cheney warned against what he called an “irresponsible withdrawal” from Iraq:
CHENEY: I think there’s still a lot of work to be done there. [...] I hear a lot of people among our critics who keep saying, Iraq’s a mess, pull out. Well, that’s not true. It’s not a mess. We have had major progress. We have come close to achieving a significant portion of our objectives. And an irresponsible withdrawal now is exactly the wrong medicine.
But, in fact, the Pentagon has already begun planning for Obama’s Iraq withdrawal timeline. “Our military planners do not live in a vacuum,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said last week. “They are well aware that the president-elect campaigned on withdrawing troops from Iraq on a 16-month timeline, so it would be only prudent of them to draw up plans that reflected that option.”
BSG Prediction Blogging
There be spoilers at this link so don’t click here if you haven’t seen Friday’s new episode of Battlestar Galactica. Suffice it to say that I endorse Julian’s predictions.
Bonus policy angle: Tricia Helfer’s off the grid sustainable house.
Obama lawyers prohibit staff from using instant messaging in the White House.
Politico’s Ben Smith reports that Obama lawyers broke some bad news to the incoming White House staff at a briefing Friday morning: they will not be allowed to communicate with each other and the outside world through the use of instant messaging. “They just told us flat out we couldn’t IM in the White House,” complained one senior staffer. The reason? The Presidential Records Act would likely require the disclosure of “instant messages discussing government business.” Matt Yglesias argues that, in light of rapid advances in technology, the right approach would be to “update the law.” He adds, “If the conclusion of your legal analysis is that the President of the United States can’t have an email account or a Blackberry, then that means you need a new law.”
The End of the Beginning
It looks like there’s a tentative cease-fire in place between Israel and Hamas “coming after 22 days of war that killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.”
Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire, but no plan to withdraw troops from Gaza. Hamas counter-announced a one-week cease-fire to give Israel time to withdraw troops from Gaza. At the time of the expiration of the previous medium-term cease-fire, the sensible proposal was for the United States along with allies in Europe and the Arab world (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) to press for a deal in which Israel was given enhanced assurances regarding rocket fire and border smuggle in exchange for Israel relaxing the blockade on Gaza. That didn’t happen, and neither Israel nor Hamas pursued that route on their own, and as a result all these people are dead. But it’s still the sensible way forward.
Modernize the PRA
As Ezra Klein says it’s stupid to have White House lawyers sitting around debating how things like email, text messages, and IM chats ought to be treated under the 1978 Presidential Records Act. In light of 30 years with of IT advancement we need to update the law rather than puzzle over its interpretation. Obama’s team should recommend some changes, and congress ought to hold hearings and write new provisions for dealing with new mechanisms.
If the conclusion of your legal analysis is that the President of the United States can’t have an email account or a Blackberry, then that means you need a new law.
