Friday, December 26, 2008
When Obama makes a mistake, let's NOT roll over!
David Weinberger has an NPR piece about how, even though he's a liberal, he is all in favor of President-elect Obama's choice of Rick Warren to preach and pray at his Inauguration.Weinberger's main argument is that it is time for America to move beyond Us v Them, Red v Blue, etc., and by choosing Warren, Obama's showing us how to do it. He says:
" Obama's getting us to do what seems impossible: to listen to what's best in what the other side is saying, because then you hear the shared values, and the other side isn't another side at all."I have No Problem Whatsoever with healing and unifying. But I do have a problem with choosing a sexist, homophobic, anti-science, anti-choice, egotist as the instrument to do it.
My question for Obama and Weinberger is whether Rick Warren is the best person for the job. Is there another American who could symbolize our shared values without symbolizing the denigration of women, gay people, good science and arguably moral choices?
The President's most important job is to hire well. I don't want any more Heckuva Job Brownies. I want Obama to choose the best. And the smartest. (I am avoiding that worn cliche that means, "And they still got us into a stupid war.")
Fortunately, the three people on the Obama team I know the best ARE the best people for the jobs Obama picked them for. There is no better person in America for Presidential Science Advisor than John Holdren. There are no better people in America to co-lead the FCC transition team than Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach. This gives me hope.
It looks like the Obama economics team is an even bigger problem than Rick Warren. I'm hoping I am wrong. But Tim Geithner, nominee for SecTreasury, has already played a part in shaping the current $700 Billion dollar no-strings-attached cash giveaway, and Henry Heckuva Job Paulson, who was on the bridge when the ship hit the iceberg, thinks Geithner's great. Perhaps Weinberger thinks Geithner and Warren are, "hearing [each other's] shared values," but I think neither one of them have been minding the flippin store.
Then there's Larry Summers, whose has "shared values" with Rick Warren about the role of women. And who was SecTreasury when Bill Clinton weakened the regulation of financial derivatives.
Then there's Laura D'Andrea Tyson, an economic advisor on the Obama transition team, who picks up a cool $350,000 a year as a Morgan Stanley board member. The same Morgan Stanley that got $10 Billion in no-strings bailout bucks. The same Laura D'Andrea Tyson who defends the current no-strings bailout on TV without disclosing her conflict. [Watch this!]
Why does Obama pick an economics team that is complicit in the current mess? Where's Peter Schiff and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, both of whom warned us about the coming crisis for years? Are Geithner, Summers and Tyson REALLY the best people for the job?
Don't get me wrong. I am delighted that Obama will be President. DeLIGHTed!!! One of the things this means -- a cause of my delight -- is that the last eight years of Imperial Presidency are over. Obama's going to act like a mortal human, fallibility and all. Another thing this means -- and another reason I am delighted -- is that we're in a new era of interactive politics. So I, for one, am going to interact. When I see Obama blowing it, I'm not going to, "Chill out," like Weinberger suggests.
One of the maxims of the Open Source movement is that many eyes make even the toughest bugs tractible. If enough of us who understand the power of the Internet calls it like we sees it, maybe we can help the Obama Administration govern better. There's no way that means, "Chill out."
Obama should find a better person to pray for America at the Inauguration than Rick Warren. He should find better people for his economics team than Geithner, Summers and Tyson.
Disclosure: I count David Weinberger among my dearest friends AND wisest sources of wisdom. So I feel a little queasy pushing the "publish" button. But you're wrong on this one, David, despite our otherwise-shared values.
Technorati Tags: BarackObama, DavidWeinberger, Economics, Obama
Comments:
David, I understand your outrage. You know we agree overall on the issues that spur it. And I would venture that we are equally passionate about those issues. Yet I still think RW was a good choice.
The choice of who to give the invocation is clearly symbolic. I think you're reading the symbol wrong, i.e., not as Obama intends it and not as most of the country will take it. RW is noted among Christian evangelists for insisting that the real issue Christians ought to be exercised about is not gay marriage or abortion but world poverty. That's half the intended symbolism. The other half is precisely that RW is not a Democrat, not a liberal, not in agreement with Obama on important issues. The non-Left part of the country is celebrating the choice of RW not because they take it as a symbol that Obama has decided to abandon his progressive beliefs but because Obama is including _every_ American in the celebration. The rest of the country understands this far better than the Left does.
David, I love you like a brother, but I think you (and many other people I love and admire and agree with) are reacting in a way that drives us crazy when the Right does it. And, I believe, we really really really have to get past this. We have to find what's good and right in one another.
David, my fear is that the Left will insist on ideological rigidity over symbols. The ideological Left will thereby be marginalized just as its voice could be heard more effectively ... if it were willing to embrace those with whom it disagrees. Not compromise its values, mind you, but embrace and engage with its political opponents by according them basic human respect.
In friendship,
David W.
The choice of who to give the invocation is clearly symbolic. I think you're reading the symbol wrong, i.e., not as Obama intends it and not as most of the country will take it. RW is noted among Christian evangelists for insisting that the real issue Christians ought to be exercised about is not gay marriage or abortion but world poverty. That's half the intended symbolism. The other half is precisely that RW is not a Democrat, not a liberal, not in agreement with Obama on important issues. The non-Left part of the country is celebrating the choice of RW not because they take it as a symbol that Obama has decided to abandon his progressive beliefs but because Obama is including _every_ American in the celebration. The rest of the country understands this far better than the Left does.
David, I love you like a brother, but I think you (and many other people I love and admire and agree with) are reacting in a way that drives us crazy when the Right does it. And, I believe, we really really really have to get past this. We have to find what's good and right in one another.
David, my fear is that the Left will insist on ideological rigidity over symbols. The ideological Left will thereby be marginalized just as its voice could be heard more effectively ... if it were willing to embrace those with whom it disagrees. Not compromise its values, mind you, but embrace and engage with its political opponents by according them basic human respect.
In friendship,
David W.
David, seems to me from reading some of your blogs, you strive to be fair and equitable. But your comment re Larry Summers is neither. Summers has a strong supporting women's education and rights (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheryl-sandberg/what-larry-summers-has-do_b_142126.html) and the question he raised is a valid (if un-pc) scientific hypotheses that ought not to be vilified in a society that purportedly supports Free Speech, Free Inquiry and Science -- it should simply be investigated (by whoever is interested) and disproven, if false. To crucify Summers, as he was in the press, without looking at the full context is intellectual laziness, and to classify him as misogynistic is grossly unfair.
Thank you
Thank you
Now that they've been on the job for three months, it seems clear to me that David (and I) were completely right about the economic team.
The way they are handling the situation is bad economics and certainly bad politics, but I don't blame them-they're just doing what 35 years in the free market, deregulated Wall St. consensus tells them to do. I blame Obama for selecting people that I immediately felt were on the wrong side of today's pressing issues. If I'd wanted this group, I would have supported Hillary.
The banking plan is terrible and it is a complete giveaway to the same investors who got us here. I've now got conservatives arguing with me that the entire Obama agenda is to pretend to be progressive so he can raise taxes on middle class Americans to send millions to his Wall Street friends. I don't buy it but he's left the door open to a lot of criticism on this.
I donated over $1,000 to the campaign but right about now I wish I had my money back.
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The way they are handling the situation is bad economics and certainly bad politics, but I don't blame them-they're just doing what 35 years in the free market, deregulated Wall St. consensus tells them to do. I blame Obama for selecting people that I immediately felt were on the wrong side of today's pressing issues. If I'd wanted this group, I would have supported Hillary.
The banking plan is terrible and it is a complete giveaway to the same investors who got us here. I've now got conservatives arguing with me that the entire Obama agenda is to pretend to be progressive so he can raise taxes on middle class Americans to send millions to his Wall Street friends. I don't buy it but he's left the door open to a lot of criticism on this.
I donated over $1,000 to the campaign but right about now I wish I had my money back.
# posted by 
: 4/07/2009 10:14 AM
: 4/07/2009 10:14 AM
