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Michael Barone has studied at both Harvard and Yale, where he was editor for publications from both colleges. He has also served as an editor for ...
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Michael Barone has studied at both Harvard and Yale, where he was editor for publications from both colleges. He has also served as an editor for ...
Read more about Michael Barone.
Obama Hits Opponents With Chicago Brass Knuckles
Michael Barone
"His father was a great friend of my father." The reference to William
Ayers' father was how Mayor Richard M. Daley began his defense of
Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather
Underground terrorist. Daley's father, of course, was Richard M.
Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers'
father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based utility,
from 1964 to 1980.
You bet they were great friends. That's governance, Chicago style. The head of government is friends with the heads of every big business, lobby and union, and together they make decisions on how everyone else will live. Those on the inside get what they want. Those on the outside -- well, they get what the big guys want them to have. That's life in the big city.
It's not the worst way to run a city. I know -- I'm from Detroit, which might be better off if it had mayors named Daley for 41 of the last 54 years. But it's not the optimal way to run a national administration, at least if you've promised to bring in a new era of bipartisanship and mutual respect. Even so, it appears to be the way that Barack Obama, who once aspired to be mayor of Chicago, has decided to run his administration.
We can see that nowhere better than on the health care issue. Over the spring and summer, the White House door has been wide open to lobbyists from health care businesses. The doctors' lobby has gotten promises that physician payments won't be knocked down too much. In return, they are expected to lobby for whatever bill the congressional Democrats come up with.
The pharmaceutical firms' lobbyist, former House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, has gotten assurances that his clients' business model won't be wrecked any more than it already has been by stringent regulation. In return PhRMA is running TV ads for health care reform.
The health insurance companies were on board, too. Until, that is, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus presented his bill requiring them to cover anyone who applies but exacting only small fines from healthy individuals who decide not to buy insurance until they get sick. Since this looked like a quick road to bankruptcy, the health insurers' lobby commissioned a study that pointed out, correctly I think, that the Baucus bill would increase the cost of insurance to those who already have it.
The response of the Chicago-style Obama White House was reminiscent of the response of the late Mayor Daley when asked an inconvenient question by a reporter whose father and brother were Democratic precinct committeemen. "Sometimes in the best of families, there's a bad apple," replied Daley, to the bewilderment of reporters from out of town. A bad apple is, in Chicago, a former great friend who is not playing team ball.
So the health insurers have been denounced by White House spokesmen and Democratic congressional leaders as foul fiends and gougers of working families. Prominent Democrats have been talking about revoking insurance companies' exemption from the antitrust laws (granted so that small firms would have access to data needed to compete with the giants). Translated into Chicagoese: Nice little insurance company you got there. Too bad if something happened to it.
The same treatment is being given to Fox News, which according to White House spokesmen, "is not a news organization." "Other news organizations, like yours," Obama consigliere David Axelrod told ABC News, "ought not to treat them that way."
In other words, when Fox breaks the news that the White House green czar is a self-proclaimed "Communist" or that operatives of pro-Obama ACORN have been aiding and abetting child prostitution, other news outlets should spike the story. Or risk being demoted from great friend to bad apple.
Last February, Obama told Fox News (to which I am a contributor), "I don't always get my most favorable coverage on Fox, but I think that's part of how democracy is supposed to work. You know, we're not supposed to all be in lockstep here."
Now we are. Maybe Obama thought everyone in Washington would be his great friend. Having encountered un-Chicago-like dissent and disagreement, he has responded with classic Chicago brass knuckles. We'll see how far this kind of thuggery gets him.
========
Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Copyright 2009 U.S. News and World Report. Distibuted by Creators Syndicate Inc.
This news arrived on: 10/22/2009
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Posted Comments:
10-24-2009 21:30
JCE wrote:
Actually, it is JCE and country. Obama is the first president in a long time to go to bat for the country. He is taking on the insurance companies, and the health companies, making a start on the energy companies, the credit card companies, and has discussion about the lawyers and big banks. That is my kind of action. It will take a lot of hard fighting, and dirty fighting. I like that. Taking on the special interests is one of the most important things to be done if we are going to take control of our government, and fix the country. I understand you anonymous ones are generally against that.
10-23-2009 08:52
wrote:
Jce and Obama sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
10-22-2009 18:44
JCE wrote:
How ironic. The republicans can stop doing its job as minority party, and become total opposition party. They can attack Obama with all they got. So can Fox news. They can lie, and do anything they want, and when caught, all they can do is cry. Given that Fox and the republicans are in deep in the pockets of the industries, it is long past time some representative of the people fight back. So Obama is doing just what he was elected for. Of course the white house doors have been open. Too the lobbyists, the republicans, and the democrats. A wise general gets all the facts, and learns his enemies. Obama has done that. His enemies, and the enemies of the people, have shown themselves. Obama told us what he wanted when he campaigned. He told congress what he wanted. Congress has been giving in too much to the industry. The republicans expected another easy defeat for reform, like the good little insurance flunkies they are. Not happening like they planned, or spent on. Now is the time for Obama to come out swinging, for the people, with no holds barred. A peoples champion will have to out think, and out fight, very dirty, the enemy. Way to go Obama. He needs to win this one, and move on. There is so much to do, so many special interests to take on.
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