Anne Kornblut has a piece up at the Washington Post on how the White House plans to proceed. Here’s one part of it that might be of some interest to you.
The president’s advisers hope that a series of upcoming personnel moves – coming as outside critics call for a White House shake-up – will put Obama in a stronger position to make substantive progress, especially on the economy.
Since Summers is already gone, I don’t think Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner should take that as a vote of confidence.
The administration needs to do more than rearrange the cabinet. They need to figure what they can do (that is worth doing) with a Republican House and a strengthened Republican minority in the Senate.
Over the next few days, White House officials said they will begin to gauge whether they can forge an alliance with any top Republicans, many of whom are scheduled to attend a bipartisan meeting at the White House on Thursday.
I don’t think the word “alliance” is appropriate here, but that’s Kornblut’s characterization, not a direct quote. There can be no alliance with top Republicans who have openly admitted that their top priority is to destroy your presidency and everything it has accomplished. So, no, there will be no alliances. But certain things must still get done. The Congress has to pass its appropriations bills, for example. And, even if the Republicans plan on shutting down the government 1995-style, they still have to work with the White House to produce something in the ballpark of a compromise. The administration has to work with the Republicans, but they should heed Steve Benen’s warning:
If I’m in the West Wing, I’m planning for the worst — game out the scenario in which Republicans push for a government shutdown, refuse to fund much of anything, make every effort to gut health care and education, and plan accordingly.
Because all available evidence suggests GOP leaders and their nihilistic rank and file have no interest in governing. None. If Plan A is exploring the possibility of working in good faith with Republicans towards actual policymaking, fine. Give it a try. But keeping Plan B handy at or near the top of the pile would probably the responsible, realistic thing to do.
Put it this way: the White House should imagine Republicans being as reckless, irresponsible, ignorant, ill-tempered and child-like as humanly possible — and then expect that to happen, because it probably will.
If Obama wants to join hands with McCain and the Teabaggers to
reform the earmark process, that’s probably harmless and has the great advantage of eliminating one of the dumbest talking points in our national discourse. But I’d tie earmark reform to a greater transparency bill. When Obama was in the Senate, he teamed up with Sen. Tom Coburn to pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. (Interestingly, the bill had to overcome ‘secret holds’ by Sens. Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd, both of whom are now deceased). The president could strengthen and extend the reforms in FFAT Act of 2006. He might shine a light on the contracting and subcontracting business.
There may be a few other things Obama can do, some of which defy liberal orthodoxy, to make him seem like a “different kind of Democrat,” without doing any harm. But, he should expect to deal not with statesmen looking for principled compromise, but the strongest Idiot Wind of mindless opposition seen since the South seceded from the Union before Honest Abe could even be sworn in. For real.
