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Caroline Kennedy Has the Qualifications for the Senate
Tweet Share on Facebook December 31, 2008 Comment (26)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I don't know if Caroline Kennedy is the best choice to be junior senator from my home state, and, as a general matter, I'm certainly not wild about senators getting elected by constituencies of one. But that said, I disagree with Thomas Jefferson Street colleague Bonnie Erbe regarding whether Caroline K. is qualified to serve.
"Caroline Kennedy is certainly not qualified for the office she seeks," Bonnie wrote this morning.
As Peter Roff (a GOPer) noted in our op-ed section earlier this week, Kennedy is certainly, strictly speaking, qualified. But Bonnie's presumably referring to her paper qualifications.
So take the name (and gender) out of the equation.
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Roland Burris, Rod Blagojevich: Illinois Politics Gets Weirder and Weirder
Tweet Share on Facebook December 30, 2008 Comment (13)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
So...Rod Blagojevich emerges from the miasma of scandal that has enveloped him long enough to appoint a law-enforcer type to replace Barack Obama as a U.S. senator from Illinois. (What is Burris thinking here?) Or attempt to, anyway—the Secretary of State of Illinois says he won't certify the appointment, and Senate Democrats say they won't seat him. The surreality is breath-taking.
Blago's finest comedic moment came when he implored (with as much moral authority as he could muster) that the allegations surrounding him not interfere with the appointment.
(No—scratch that, as I wrote that last sentence, he took the mic again and said that he had enjoyed the limelight he's had for the last couple of weeks. Wow.)
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Caroline Kennedy and the Sarah Palin Qualifications Test
Tweet Share on Facebook December 29, 2008 Comment (96)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Peter Roff, a Republican strategist, writes today over in the op-ed section about Caroline Kennedy's qualifications for Senate. She is qualified, he argues, because she meets the constitutional criteria.
Peter puts the Kennedy qualification debate in the context of the recent quarrels about Sarah Palin's fitness to serve as vice president. He's not the first person to make this comparison, with conservatives decrying a perceived double -standard that Palin got crucified for lack of qualifications while Kennedy gets a free pass.
Kathleen Parker, a conservative who gained national political attention for noting that Palin was clearly not ready to be vice president, argues, however, that the Kennedy-Palin comparison is apples and oranges: not only is the vice presidency a substantively different office than junior senator from New York, but opposition to Palin was "firmly based on substantive concerns about competence, as well as wariness about her tone and temperament, which became increasingly divisive. Palin's demonstrated lack of basic knowledge, her intellectual incuriosity, her inability to articulate ideas or even simple thoughts all combined to create an impression of not-quite-there."
Parker is correct, of course. But there is something more to the Kennedy-Palin comparison. The would-be senator must still pass what we can call the "Palin test."
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Barack Obama, Baby Boomers, and the Next Generation President
Tweet Share on Facebook December 24, 2008 Comment (3)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Michael Barone's column this week, on Barack Obama as a figure of generational change, reminded me of a piece by Jamie Stiehm on the same theme that we ran in the op-ed column a few months ago: that Obama is a post-Bboomer (and, by the by, that John McCain's silent generation has never had a White House occupant). Both Michael's and Jamie's pieces are worth a read.
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Hillary Clinton Expanding State Shows Barack Obama Made the Right Call
Tweet Share on Facebook December 23, 2008 Comment (18)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Today's New York Times brings news illustrating why Barack Obama's decision to tap Hillary Clinton for State was a smart call.
Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis.
This is a good thing regardless of who is the secretary—too much of our foreign policy (not simply the contours of the policy but its day-to-day execution) has been taken over by the Pentagon over the last eight years, and not simply because we're actively fighting in various parts of the world; the sun never sets on the U.S. military, and our officers and civilian defense officials have increasingly played roles more traditionally left to diplomats.
But Hillary Clinton is particularly well suited for this job. From the Times:
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Cheney, 9/11, and His Nutty Visions of Presidential Power
Tweet Share on Facebook December 22, 2008 Comment (3)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In case you missed it, Vice President Cheney has been let loose upon the countryside and, as usual, he's full of something beyond just hot air (though he's got plenty of that, too). From today's New York Times:
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8 Books For Barack Obama
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2008 Comment (1)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
If you haven't seen it, noted presidential scholar Stephen Hess (who got his start as a speechwriter for Dwight D. Eisenhower) has a new book out, aimed at Barack Obama but shared with the rest of us: What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect. Why am I shamelessly plugging someone else's book? Because he graciously plugs mine: According to Washingtonian, Hess lists White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters among eight books the incoming chief executive should read.
I'm unhappy to report that Obama has not yet been spotted reading either What Do We Do Now or White House Ghosts. Maybe they're on his Christmas list?
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Rod Blagojevich, Barack Obama, and the Republican Attack Ad
Tweet Share on Facebook December 15, 2008 Comment (6)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I guess the folks over at the RNC have a lot of time on their hands. They have put together a nearly three-minute-long Web ad slamming Barack Obama for connections to disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Questions remain, the ad argues. John McCain whacked the RNC for the ad on Sunday, and Allahpundit over at Hot Air notes that while questions do remain, "I'm not sure any really important questions do." The blogger closes by asking: "Should the RNC have waited on this? No benefit of the doubt during the interregnum, at least?"
Partisan preferences aside, as a practical strategic matter, the answer is "Yes." Obama is an enormously popular politician at the moment and has said and done the right things in terms of appearing to want to move past the era of hyperpartisanship. Granted that the RNC's raison d'être is to remove Barack Obama from office, the RNC could at least be smart about it. With Obama enjoying a happy public-opinion honeymoon, the GOP would be wise to lie low and wait for something to happen (and it will) that will make the public more receptive to anti-Obama criticism.
Instead, the RNC leaps after a hint of pseudo scandal in much the same way my dog chases leaves blowing in the street—and with as little regard for oncoming traffic. Weighing in with a three-minute attack ad now might make the party's cranks happy, but it also risks marginalizing the GOP as a crank party.
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The End of the Global War on Terrorism
Tweet Share on Facebook December 15, 2008 Comment (2)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I've long disliked the phrase "global war on terrorism" because terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology or movement. Patrick Cronin of National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies elaborates over in the Op-Ed section today on the limitations of the "war on terrorism":
After 9/11, the United States reduced its role in the world to one big idea: prosecuting the "Global War on Terrorism." Inevitably, terrorism, which is a tactic, not a philosophy, failed to provide a universal organizing principle for U.S. security. Now President-elect Barack Obama faces a wicked dilemma: how to recalibrate America's strategy to meet myriad complex challenges with diminished power.
Cronin goes on to identify eight separate challenges that Barack Obama will face after January 20. The whole thing is worth a read.
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Barack Obama Speechwriter Jon Favreau, the Hillary Clinton “Grope” and Scenes From the Surveillance Republic
Tweet Share on Facebook December 12, 2008 Comment (39)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Bonnie wrote about Obama chief speechwriter Jon Favreau's recent unfortunate encounter with the perils of Facebook, joining a chorus calling for Favreau's professional head.
Well, no. The Favreau kerfuffle certainly holds broader meanings, but they have little to do with the character of the next president's head wordsmith.
