Sandy GholstonFox News has long been a journalistic (I use that term loosely) safe house for Republican and conservative news and views. But, I was a little curious when I saw an article written by John R. Lott Jr. that was titled, “Obama’s Senate Games.” Many of you may know that some Republicans have been upset with New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg (a Republican) who supposedly is being considered for the Commerce Secretary position in the administration of President Barack Obama (who, obviously, is a Democrat). Naturally, Republicans feel this is strictly being done by the Democrats to help them reach a filibuster-proof majorityin the United States Senate. This may or may not be true and I don’t have much of a problem with Republicans speculating about the motive of President Obama supposedly offering the seat to Gregg (even if that is the motivation). Hey, we need to keep it real … politics is a grown-folks business.
Here is the chunk of the article that made me shake my head:
Yet, as Politico’s Ben Smith noted on Saturday:
“The White House, I’m told, is still trying to get a guarantee from Governor Lynch that he’ll replace Senator Gregg with a Democrat.”
Smith’s statement was a single sentence and no other implications have been drawn from it. But a report in The Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary today seems to confirm this claim.
Obama is misappropriating a government position, putting someone into his cabinet who he doesn’t believe is the best person for the job.
The Politico information indicates that Obama clearly does not view Senator Gregg as the best person to head the Commerce Department. Rather, it makes explicit that Obama was offering the Commerce job solely to buy a Senate seat for the Democrats.
The question here is: Do you believe Ben Smith? Who is telling Smith this information? Sounds like a whole lot of speculation without a whole lot of proof of anything. The article gets worse before it gets better (if it ever gets better). The writer (Lott) then accuses President Obama of putting someone in who he does not think is the best person for the job (essentially to get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate). Then, the writer goes on to bring up the name of Rod Blagojevich (you knew that was coming at some point in the article). Lott then passes the buck to Politico and uses Politico to advance his partisan interpretation and shield himself and his purpose for writing the article: to smear President Obama and Democrats in general.
Fox News:
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/02/02/lott_gregg_obama/
February 3, 2009 at 7:40 am
You ask “Do you believe Ben Smith?” As I read the piece, it is claiming that not only Politico makes this claim, “But a report in The Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary today seems to confirm this claim.” So I guess the question is: do you believe the Politico and the Wall Street Journal?
I guess that I am also puzzled because this strategy by Obama doesn’t seem to be that much of a secret. Your related post links go to “Chessmaster Obama’s Plan for a 60-Seat Super Majority!” and they make a similar claim.
Is the problem here solely that if Politico and the Wall Street Journal are correct, there is an explicit trade where Obama is appointing Gregg only because he has the understanding that the Dems will get this seat in 2010? I suppose that undermines Obama’s claims of bipartisanship. It might open him up to charges that he is buying the Democratic filibusterproof senate. So? Pay-offs are quite common in politics. Who cares if Obama is using government offices to buy a senate seat? Isn’t that just normal politics?
February 3, 2009 at 3:10 pm
You ask a good question. My primary issues are as follows: (1) the implication is that this individual is not qualified or as qualified as other candidates and is only being used to change the balance of power in the Senate, (2) that, and without supporting evidence, a writer states he has heard that there is a request that the replacement be a Democrat … as if to say it’s a deal breaker (3) bringing Rod Blagojevich into the article for no good reason. I also don’t think it undermines the claim of bipartisanship. I think that if anything it is more a case of hedging on a bet. I also would not agree with using terms like pay-offs or buying in this … because there really is nothing necessarily improper that has been proven. Using those terms wrongly implies there is some kind of financial incentive. I think it’s just politics and to bring Blago in it smells like a partisan hit job.
February 3, 2009 at 3:13 pm
In summary, I just think it’s a lot of speculation and a weak attempt to tie this to Blagojevich to try and make the president look bad.
February 4, 2009 at 6:14 am
Thanks for the reply. I assume that the reporters for Politico and the Wall Street Journal are just repeating what they have been told. My guess is that Obama ought to take some of his aids to the woodshed for talking out of turn. The word “guarantee” seems to imply it was a deal breaker.
I think that Blagojevich has been given the bum rap on all this. The fact that politicians make trades shouldn’t be shocking to anyone — especially a trade where the new Democratic senator would help the Democratic governor raise campaign funds. What is wrong with that? Why shouldn’t a Democratic governor want someone who can help him win election? It just seems to me that these critics ought to get off their high horses and think about what was actually involved in the trade. As to Obama, so what if he wants complete control of the senate and he is willing to have someone who he never would have picked for that job to do it? Again politicians have to make trade-offs all the time and Obama knows what he needs to get his job done.
Here is what the Wall Street Journal wrote on Monday. It appears to confirm the basic point in Politico. Again my point is: who cares?
Obama Brings Back the Smoke-Filled Room
Will Barack Obama make another move to improve the “bipartisan” image of his administration by appointing a GOP Senator as his Secretary of Commerce? Sources tell me that it’s likely New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg will leave office this month after 16 years to serve a Democratic president.
Republican Senators looked stricken last Friday when the news broke, fearing that a likely Gregg departure would turn over yet another Senate seat to Democrats. New Hampshire Governor John Lynch, who would appoint a replacement, is a Democrat.
But in one of those cozy insider deals that have become so common with Senate seats, it looks as if Mr. Obama and Mr. Lynch are willing to guarantee that the seat will go to a caretaker Republican for two years, as long as it is a weak Republican who could not win election. Democrats, who are increasingly dominant in the Granite State, would then have a good shot at picking up the seat when it becomes vacant in 2010.
Several potential caretakers are mentioned, including Liz Hager, a GOP state legislator who supported Mr. Obama for president. But the most likely appointee is Bonnie Newman, a moderate Republican who served as Mr. Gregg’s chief of staff for several years and has since been an interim president of the University of New Hampshire.
If Ms. Newman becomes a Senator, she would be the latest member of an elite club of former staffers who have become Senators largely because of their connection to the Senator who is stepping down. Another is Ed Kaufman, longtime chief of staff to Joe Biden, who is now serving the last two years of his old boss’s term. He will step down in 2010, when Beau Biden, the state’s attorney general, is due to finish up his military service in Iraq and will be available to run for his Dad’s old seat.
All of this may work out in the clubby circles of Washington, but there’s something a little disconcerting about seeing Senate seats traded like baseball cards with the primary beneficiaries being people who have an inside track through their Senate employment. The losers are clearly the voters, who would be better served by an appointment process that cast a wider net among the talented men and women of the states involved.
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