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Get Away from Those Spinning Doors
Not
even three weeks in office and President Barack Obama is discovering
that being in charge is no bed of roses, even when you have a garden of
them just outside your Oval Office windows. February's frost has bitten
a bit of the bloom off the new President's aspirations as the swamp of
hypocrisy and partisan inertia that is Beltway Washington took its toll.
Weighed down by tax return problems and charges of DC influence
peddling, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle pulled out as
President Obama's candidate for Secretary of Health and Human Services
-- just as the President was trying to accelerate momentum for Senate
passage of his economic stimulus plan, and the Republicans were equally
trying to slam on the brakes.
Daschle's withdrawal, coupled with the same day, tax-inflicted stepping
down of Nancy Killefer, who was to be the White House's chief
performance officer, forced President Obama to use a lightning round of
network interviews he'd intended as stimulus promotion to defend
himself against charges that his oratorical hopes of cleaning up
government and solving all its problems had hit a speed bump.
The resulting "I screwed up" mea culpas were refreshing in a town where
shifting blame to the other guy is the standard modus operandi. But
whether contrition for the cameras, combined with President Obama's
continued high popularity, can translate into forward-moving action
remains unknown. By week's end, President Obama had dropped his
conciliatory tone of bipartisanship and gone on the attack to try to
rescue the stimulus package.
But one thing the Daschle affair and the problems with other Obama
appointments makes clear is that while new administrations come and go,
what hasn't changed -- yet -- is the phenomenon of the revolving door,
the back-and-forth fandango of lobbyists moving into government jobs at
the same time that officials out of power parlay their resumes into
suites on K Street. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and
conservatives -- all are guilty.
A recent report from the non-partisan organization CREW, Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, found that of 24 men and women
who served as cabinet members during the Bush Administration, seventeen
of them left office and raced to private sector jobs with some 119
companies. Sixty-five of those businesses spend money lobbying the
United States government -- and 40 are directly hitting up government
agencies the former cabinet secretary was in charge of.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft started his own lobbying firm.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham joined the board of Occidental
Petroleum. Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security, is
well-known for his involvement with companies profiting from the fear
of terrorist attack or natural disaster, including Lucent Technologies
and Home Depot, where duct tape is king.
But the poster boy seems to be former Health and Human Services
Secretary Tommy Thompson, who CREW says has worked for 42 different
companies since he left the Bush cabinet in 2005. They include Centene
Corporation, which runs Medicaid plans in seven states; the
pharmaceutical company Novartis; and even an operation called Whey Cool
Health Foods. Logistics Health, a medical readiness company of which
Thompson is president, saw its federal contracts go from $19.9 million
in 2003 to $104.8 million in 2007. The company claims Thompson never
contacted folks at Health and Human Services on its behalf, but
Logistics' founder and chairman told a Wisconsin newspaper, "Tommy
really is able to get us in to see the right people."
Maybe you thought the in-and-out revolving door would shudder to a halt
with a new President who vowed to clean up Dodge and campaigned on the
promise that no lobbyist would find job security in the White House.
The day after his swearing-in, President Obama signed an executive
order barring former lobbyists in government positions from overseeing
anything related to their past business interests.
Apparently, that presidential executive order comes with an asterisk:
no lobbyists in charge -- except when they are. Take Deputy Secretary
of Defense designate William J. Lynn III, former executive and lobbyist
with Raytheon, world's largest manufacturer of guided missiles,
including the Patriot missile. Raytheon received more than ten billion
dollars in defense contracts last year. Lynn says he lobbied for "only
a handful" -- missiles, destroyers, warheads, a radar system, a spy
satellite. Some handful. But because both the President and Defense
Secretary Robert Gates insist he's the only man for the job, Lynn's
been given a waiver.
Also please give a big welcome to anti-tobacco lobbyist William Corr,
the newly designated number two at Health and Human Services. He
insists he'll stay out of any HHS business that has to do with tobacco,
won't even yell at anyone smoking in the elevator. We'll see.
According to The Washington Times,
nearly two dozen of President Obama's executive level appointments have
worked as registered lobbyists. "Even the toughest rules require
reasonable exceptions." That was the explanation of White House Press
Secretary Robert Gibbs. True, there's an argument to be made for
bringing in people with expertise and experience in maneuvering the
mazelike intricacies of big government. But with so much money at
stake, so much power too easily corrupted, the perpetual revolving door
remains a big problem.
Ah, sigh the jaded cynics and opportunists who spawn along the shores
of the Potomac, the more things stay the same, so what can you do? What
you can do is speak up, and, as the late Molly Ivins would say, keep
raising hell. Otherwise, that breeze you'll feel blowing out of
Washington will never be the winds of change; just a fetid gust
generated by Beltway blusters of hot air and the endless spin of those
damned revolving doors.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers
11 Comments so far
Show AllAs a resident of Wisconsin,I just can't resist posting here.
"Toxic Tommy Thompson" had a 14 year reign of "errors" as governor.From his start in the State Legislature,he was the leader in bashing welfare Mothers.Once he became governor,he managed to abolish welfare,and build a Supermax prison that his own head of the corrections dept. said was not needed.
If there was ever a politician that deserved these multi-million dollar payoffs less than "Toxic",I'd like to hear about them.Wisconsin has been on a slow but steady slide since his years in power here.
At least 3 Madison residents contribute articles to CD-[Dave Zwiefel,Matt Rothschild,and John Nichols]-I hope one or all of them can convey my appreciation to Ed Garvey.Mr Garvey nearly beat "Toxic" and shortened his reign here.What a schizophrenic state Wisconsin is-we've had pols. like Bob LaFollette,Gaylord Nelson,Bob Kastenmier,Bill Proxmire,Russ Feingold,and Tammy Baldwin.Then there's "Tailgunner Joe McCarthy" and "Toxic Tommy Thompson".
As the nursery rhyme says: "When they are good, they are very, very good; and when they are bad, they are horrid!"
As a resident of Wisconsin, you have every right and reason to be highly cheesed off.*
* ... speaking of things one "just can't resist". ;)
· Yr Obd't Servant
Well, we'll see how far "give him hell" goes on Monday night when Obama holds his first prime time press conference. Two days after his inauguration he paid a "surprise" visit to say "hello" to the guys and gals in the press room and one of them asked him precisely about the "lobbyist" who was waivered to become Deputy Secretary of Defense and Obama became agitated and said, "jokingly": "I came down here to visit. I didn't come down here -- this is what happens. I can't end up visiting you guys and shaking hands if I am going to be grilled every time I come down here," http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/01/22/obama-suprises-white-house-press-corps-visit-briefing-room/ If Obama can't stand the heat from a hello visit, how is he going to deal with the hell raised by a Helen Thomas?
Like Bush, he will either ignore her or have her removed.
Running a country is not so difficult. It's just that Obama chose to make a mountain out of an anthill by throwing out his base voters and even true moderates. All he wants to do is pander to the GOP because his only goal was being a dumb fuck showoff so that he could say "See, I'm black and I can reach out to Republicans ! Har dee har har !!" Keep this up President Obama and we're gonna say in 2012 "HASTA LA VISTA OBAMA !!"
Ever notice how many former Clintonites and Bushco Boys are on the team for 'Change(tm)'?
How can you have 'Change(tm)' when you have the same people who caused this economic/social meltdown in the first place?
I give Obama until the end of his first 100 days in office. After which he will pull off the 'Change(tm)' mask and reveal he is the corporate shill chosen to be the public face presented by the corporations to spearhead the collapse.
Walk in peace.
WELL FOLKS: I KNOW WHY OBAMA HAS SO MANY PROBLEMS IN HIS FIRST DAY IN PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE. READ THIS ARTICLE ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM ON INDIVIDUALS, SPECIALLY ON THOSE INDIVIDUALS WITH ACCESS TO A LOT OF MONEY AND WEALTH:
THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM IS ORGANIZED NARCISSISM
http://www.lclark.edu/~clayton/commentaries/narcissism.html
Monday, August 13, 2001
We live in a society organized around private property, the right of private individuals and corporations to own the resources we all need in order to live. These resources, belonging to a small proportion of the top one percent of the population, include the natural products of the planet, what grows in the soil, the oceans and the forests, as well as all the products of human culture and history -- the techniques and knowledge and art we have created over the centuries. Even the techniques of nature encoded in the genes of plants and animals and the human body are now being swept up into the vaults of private corporations to be exploited to their financial benefit.
A society of private property is a society of deprivation. What is owned by a few is denied to the many. Obviously private property has to be defended by laws and their enforcement, that is, a state as the sole legitimate agent of violence. "No trespassing" signs are meaningless without an armed guard.
In my commentary a couple of weeks ago, I suggested that state-protected capitalism is a system of organized crime: it organizes the predatory activity of individuals against each other to make life safe for the winners. Today I'd like to expand on that theme by arguing that capitalism is the legitimation of psychopathic behavior.
First, here is some fairly typical corporate behavior. Responding to the Bill Moyers PBS special on the chemical industry, Richard Grossman points out that information has been available for many decades about "the mass production, use and dumping of toxic chemicals, and about persistent manipulations, murders, deceptions and usurpations by chemical corporation and government officials, " Anyone who chooses to look will find massive evidence of chemical corporation murder, pillage and lies. Anyone who chooses to look will see persistent corporate denial of people’s constitutional and human rights, and government complicity…"
Now here is a description of the psychopath by forensic psychologist Barbara Kerwin:
Most psychopaths could pass as normal people. They hold down jobs, they have relationships, though often superficial ones, and they manage to manage, however selfishly. But…more than most people, they are selfish, highly absorbed with securing the primitive comforts of life. They cannot delay their gratification, or set aside their resentments. … They are usually charming, eager to please, and quite often very smart. However, though they may function in the world effectively, they do not conduct their lives according to accepted moral codes and standards of behavior. They do not consider their crimes crimes. What seems a crime to us is to them an expedience, an act of entitlement. As intelligent as they may be, psychopaths lack …an awareness that they are participating in the overall drama of the human species. Accused of a crime, they believe that the world that owes them a living has done them wrong.
According to Kerwin, psychopathy is "not a mental disease or defect but a global attitude of selfishness that governs a person's interactions with others." More than just selfish, psychopaths are narcissistic. Narcissism makes people
dangerous…because it deprives them of the restraint that results from empathy and respect for others.…Narcissism permits them to ignore the humanity of their victims.… It …renders them insensitive to the act of killing. The blindness of the narcissist can extend even beyond the lack of empathy; narcissists may not "see" others at all.
The notorious Ted Bundy was a psychopath, according to Kerwin, who interviewed him at length. Bundy raped and mutilated at least thirty women, felt no remorse, regretted only that he'd been caught, and bragged that "he owned a girl like he owned a Porsche."
If Ted Bundy's narcissism unleashed his sado-masochistic impulses, corporate narcissism gives free rein to the materialistic impulses of the chemical industry. There are plenty of other examples. There are many products corporation have known to cause suffering and death: guns, cigarettes, the Dalkon Shield, defective cars and trucks. Recall also corporate reluctance to make live-saving drugs available at affordable prices to people suffering from AIDS and malaria in third-world countries. But these are only the more conscience-popping examples. At the very heart of capitalism is the structural imperative to maximize income and minimize costs, and in this process of being driven by the requirements of the account books, workers and consumers are reduced to mere instruments. The manager of capital cannot see people as persons at all. He or she may feel empathy for friends and family or for the characters in movies, but genuinely felt empathy for customers and employees is counter-productive. We must conclude, then, that capitalism is institutionalized narcissism. It is organized psychopathy.
From a moral point of view, a criminal is someone who is willing to seize whatever he can with no concern for the effect of that seizure on the lives of others. Crime is a short-cut to the object of one's desires; it's the road to what one wants that disregards the reality of other people, which ignores their experiences, their situations.
Psychologically, crime involves the inability to respect and empathize with others -- in fact, a blindness to the reality of others as real people like oneself. The narcissist is a solipsist for whom only her own experiences are real and other human beings are, as it were, robots. The game of capitalism rewards its players for taking this attitude towards each other.
Sioux Rose
DIET LORD: Very interesting posting, and I certainly can see the parallels.
Anyone want to respond to the main topic here, revolving doors? Both Republicans and Democrats are involved in being legislator turned lobbyist or lobbyist turned legislator. There is no holier than thou high ground to stand on for either party. I think we need to call it for what it is, business as usual within the beltway. And what needs to be done? That's where both parties are stuck. It is the same predicament pork is in. How do you get the porkers to vote for anti pork legislation? The parallel is how do you get the people directly involved in the revolving door to vote against it or setting limits on it?
So Obama can't remedy this problem within his first month in office and the Obama bashers are back again. NO ONE HAS SOLVED THIS PROBLEM IN OUR ENTIRE HISTORY. If you really take issue with this problem, we need to look to the younger generation in both parties that are not that involved with business as usual.
I must wonder at a vetting process that ignores Daschle's tax problems and the glaring fact that he made five million dollars in less than two years pimping for the Health Care industry. What sort of logic leads to a desire to put this guy in charge of our Health Care policies?
The stimulus package will, in its final version, be a useless attempt to stem the tide of our failing economy precisely because Obama is wedded to the same faulty logic and tired myths that we find in the last several Presidents. At a time when the American people are frightened for their jobs, their homes and their retirements, and many are already unemployed, foreclosed and without pensions, Obama turns his back on us all.
This would seem a perfect time to go to the people and use that enormous force we all represent. A pity that President Obama does not represent the change that his cultists wished for him.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Well, I have to admit that although I'm used to living in an economically numb status for the past few years, I was expecting Obama to slowly push for a change for the better but unfortunately I see that he's reminding me of Bill Clinton. That doesn't mean I'll go back to voting Republican but I'll be happy to see if I can find a progressive minded candidate to run for a state legislature even though the odds of getting that independent elected are slim to none. I guess we can't keep trying to hold our noses and expect a change in direction for the better, can we? I used to think that it would have been too early at this stage to judge but taking a look at the results doesn't seem to bode well. I didn't even expect a stimulus package so soon and thought that somewhere it looks too good to be true. Oh well, I guess we're about to find out.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota