Feinstein - the new chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who will oversee Panetta’s confirmation hearings - raised eyebrows when she expressed surprisingly sharp disapproval of Panetta as nominee for CIA chief on Monday. She said that “the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge.” Panetta has no intelligence agency experience.

Feinstein, the outgoing chair of the Senate Rules Committee, followed that shocker Tuesday by breaking with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Obama when she said Roland Burris should be seated as the newest U.S. senator after he was appointed to Obama’s seat by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is under investigation for trying to sell the seat vacated by the president-elect.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday it was a mistake not to give Feinstein a courtesy heads-up about the coming nominations of Panetta and retired Adm. Dennis Blair as national intelligence director. But even after Biden and Obama contacted her personally Tuesday, the California senator didn’t soften her opposition to Panetta, saying only that now she is “looking forward” to talking to the former Clinton White House chief of staff “about the critical issues facing the intelligence community.”

Those who know Feinstein well and have worked intimately with her insist that her public critique of Panetta was not personal in nature. Though the two have competed on the political stage - a movement in 1998 to get Panetta to run for governor was derailed largely by rumors that Feinstein would throw her hat in the ring - insiders say that this week’s dustup was more a message to the incoming Obama administration about Beltway politics.

“Leon certainly has management and organizational experience up the wazoo, and clearly he knows how to run an organization,” said Barbara O’Connor, professor of political communication at Cal State Sacramento. But Feinstein is “chair of the committee … the rules are the rules. You have to get along with the senior elected officials of your own party, and she’s one. And they require face time. Had they briefed her adequately … she wouldn’t have been surprised,” she said.

Power move

One high-level Democrat with strong ties to Feinstein, who spoke on condition of anonymity, characterized the senator’s statements on Panetta this week as “a show of strength, a brush-back pitch, from a powerful chair who can be helpful or hurtful” to Obama.

“She feels strongly about protocol,” Feinstein’s friend said. “As chair of the Intelligence Committee, she expected a courtesy call, especially if it was going to be outside the norm.”

“If she did not respond with a show of strength, she’d be seen as weak,” the insider said. “This is not the time for weak leaders. And she is not the kind of wallflower that would simply turn the other cheek with this kind of offense.”

Feinstein’s public irritation was not echoed by the junior senator from California, Democrat Barbara Boxer, who expressed enthusiastic support of Panetta in an interview with The Chronicle on Tuesday.

“He’s a wonderful leader, manager, reformer … with a lot of skills,” Boxer said. “And I guess there’re two things you could look for - an outsider like Leon who could come in and reform the agency and build up the trust … and make it more amenable to working with the other agencies. The other is to just take an expert in intelligence and put them in charge - and that’s more a hands-on person, an ‘into the weeds’ person.”

Obama, she said, “took the right approach … you pick someone like Leon,” with insider experts like Blair working alongside him and others with experience assisting him.

Reality check

With just 14 days until the president-elect’s inauguration, the unexpected umbrage from a powerful California senator over the naming of a well-known and highly respected California nominee underscores what one Democratic insider describes as a political “reality check for Obama.

“The lesson is that, despite the Democratic euphoria over winning the White House back and expanding our margins in the House and the Senate, you still have very powerful committee chairs … who will be very protective of their turf,” said Democratic strategist Garry South.

Democrats who dismiss such matters might recall that “Jimmy Carter came into office and ran afoul almost immediately of the Democratic Congress - and never recovered because of that,” he said. “It is a warning sign to the Obama administration that despite his significant electoral victory and popular victory, he still has to contend with powers that be in the Senate.”

But critics decried Feinstein’s move as representative of tired inside-the-Beltway politics - the very thing voters rejected when they elected Obama. The critics dismissed objections that Panetta lacks intelligence agency experience as outrageous - pointing out that former President George H.W. Bush served the CIA competently as its director after serving as a congressman and ambassador to China with no previous agency experience.

A key voice

Some, who won’t be quoted by name, even suggest that Feinstein aims to establish her clout as an influential player on intelligence issues - and as a key voice from California - as Obama takes office. Panetta, they note, has long been popular with state Democrats and has a good relationship with the incoming president.

Boxer acknowledged that for any president, “it’s good to work with the chairman” of key committees on important appointments - though she noted Obama “didn’t confer with me on the (Environmental Protection Agency) appointment. I talked to him about it, and I would have loved to have known.”

“I think the more communication with the Senate, the better … (it’s) a better way to go,” she said. “We’re all going to be on his team.”

Boxer predicted the controversy will soon be over - she said she’s confident Panetta will be confirmed.

Then, she said, the whole issue will be merely “water under the bridge.”

Until then, O’Connor said, it should be a lesson learned.

“You don’t want a chair of your own party, who’s chairing a major subcommittee, reacting this way to your appointment,” she said.

With the withdrawal of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary - in the face of a pay-to-play inquiry - and the current brouhaha over Panetta, she said, “I would be more careful. You don’t want to squander all the good will from the election.”

Contact Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

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By Jonah Goldberg

It’s become a cliché to say that the Republican Party has lost its identity and is wandering around aimlessly like a slow-witted kid abandoned at the mall. Of course, simply because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not pretty much true. The GOP does have real problems, because many Republicans treated their conservative “brand” like a cheap, rented car; a useful vehicle when needed, one that can be driven without concern for its longevity and easily discarded the moment it takes you where you want to go.

But though the GOP’s mistakes are real, it’s also worth keeping in mind that many of its problems are not quite so unique to the Republicans as its liberal detractors and the news media (increasingly a distinction without much of a difference) would have everyone believe. Many of the GOP’s problems stemmed from the fact that it was simply the party in power in a bitterly divided country.

The bad and the ugly

Take the GOP’s “corruption problem.” The Democrats retook Congress in 2006 largely on the strength of popular dismay with Republican scandals. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff dominated the news, as did allegations of impropriety and corruption on the part of then-Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and confirmed cases of criminality on the part of Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Just before the ‘06 election, Florida congressman Mark Foley was alleged to have “preyed” on young male congressional pages via online chats. The following summer, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was accused of using gay-bathroom Morse code to signal to an undercover cop in the next stall that he’d like a wingman on a trip to funky town. These stories fueled the corruption narrative leading to the Democratic sweep last November.

Sounds bad, and it was. But it’s worth remembering that Democrats had plenty of scandals of their own. In 2004, New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey resigned after the married father was alleged to have hired an unqualified boy toy to run his Homeland Security Department. In 2006, Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana was caught with nearly $100,000 in his freezer. That same year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island rammed his Ford Mustang into a Capitol Hill security checkpoint and, faster than his dad could say “Chappaquiddick,” checked himself into rehab for a pill addiction. Last spring, New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, a self-righteous anti-corruption zealot, resigned after it was revealed he had been using a call-girl service. Then the Democrat who replaced Foley was brought down for allegedly firing his mistress. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was caught cheating on his cancer-stricken wife. Charles Rangel, the Democratic dinosaur in charge of the House Ways and Means Committee, is embroiled in a series of allegations of self-dealing corruption. And now, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has bowed out as President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be Commerce secretary thanks to an unfolding investigation into possible pay-for-play deal of less than Blagospheric proportions.

Such scandals are subjected to enormous double standards by many in the anti-Bush news media. But at least one of those double standards is defensible. The party in power warrants — and gets — more scrutiny than the other guys. Well, the Democrats now dominate American politics in a way they haven’t since the 1960s, if not the 1930s. Suddenly, a Democratic “culture of corruption” seems like a pretty easy story to write, thanks only in part to the most enjoyable — and therefore un-ignorable — scandal of the 21st century so far: Blagopalooza. Wiretaps, grotesque corruption, the race card, R-rated dialogue and hair you can see from space: What’s not to love?

Of course, the GOP’s problems can’t and shouldn’t be chalked up entirely to ethics. The handling of the Iraq war before the troop surge created enormous problems for the GOP, as did the absolutely diarrheic spending of the Republican Congress in the Bush years.

But it’s worth recalling that Democrats clawed their way back into power by promising to be all things to all people and by hewing to a politics of “if Bush is for it, we’re against it.” Neither of these poses is going to be of much use in power. “To govern is to choose,” goes the old saying, and the Democrats will have to make choices that will brand it in the minds of voters.

A mandate, but what else?

Fortunately for the Democrats, Obama has the political wind at his back and a relatively clear mandate to tackle the economy. Even so, when you descend from the presidential level to the congressional and (ahem) gubernatorial level, the Democratic Party increasingly looks like a rerun of the old sitcom Soap, with all the hijinks, corruption and tomfoolery once associated with the GOP. Congress’ Democratic bulls have agendas of their own that might serve their purposes — “card check,” gay marriage, whatever — but won’t help brand the Democratic Party as a majority party.

George W. Bush faced a similar climate in 2000 when the GOP machine had its own self-serving priorities. Only partly in response to the Democrats’ knee-jerk partisanship, the White House ultimately decided to pursue an equally partisan Republicans-only governing strategy. It worked for a while, but eventually Bush and the Republicans burned through their credibility, goodwill and popularity and are now licking their wounds and moping like a big dog whose food bowl has been moved.

It’s a lesson Obama should keep in mind now that the era of Democratic branding has truly begun.

Jonah Goldberg, editor at large of National Review Online, is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.

Source: USA Today

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In her latest book, “Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America,” the conservative firebrand stirs up controversy again, contending that liberals in America try to play victim when really, they’re the bullies.

While she’s at it, she points fingers at what she calls the liberal media.

“(The book is) basically about how victimhood is rewarded and everyone wants to be a victim,” Coulter told CBS News. “It’s about the rewards and praise you get for being a victim and the way liberals use victimhood and they oppress others.”

At one point in “Guilty,” Coulter remarks about an interview of Sen. Ted Kennedy by Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith in which Smith asks Kennedy if Barack Obama is at increased risk of being assassinated because he’s African American. She dismisses the notion, saying presidential assassinations have been the work of left-wingers or people with no political leanings at all.

Coulter and Smith met face-to-face on The Early Show Tuesday, and didn’t mince words about that issue or anything else.

Among other things, Coulter contended that liberals are at fault for the skyrocketing rate of out-of-wedlock births in the U.S.

Smith said, in one context, Coulter is a whiner, and accused Coulter of doing the very thing she claims liberals do: playing the victim.

Source: CBS

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Senate Republicans had planned to disrupt the opening of the new Congress on Tuesday by blocking Franken’s swearing-in.

And in another ugly fight, Senate Democrats vowed to block, at least for now, the seating of fellow party member Roland Burris whose appointment by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich carries a whiff of political scandal.

The 57-year old Franken, who gained fame as a writer and performer on the satiric Saturday Night Live television show, on Monday officially was declared the victor by a 225-vote margin by Minnesota state officials from nearly 2.9 million votes cast.

But lawyers for incumbent Republican Norm Coleman complained the recount was conducted unfairly and promised a court challenge that could take weeks to resolve.

“Shortly after Election Day, Coleman criticized Mr. Franken for wanting a recount and wasting taxpayer money. Now that it is clear he lost, Coleman should follow his own advice and not subject the people of Minnesota to a costly legal battle,” Jim Manley, spokesman for Reid of Nevada, said in a statement.

“However, there will not be an effort to seat Mr. Franken tomorrow,” Manley said.

If both Franken and Burris were sworn in, the Democrats’ majority in the normally 100-member Senate would swell to 59 — their biggest margin in 30 years and just one short of the needed 60 votes to end Republican procedural roadblocks.

‘HOPING AND PRAYING’

Many Democrats say Blagojevich’s appointment of Burris to the Senate is tainted since the governor has been charged with having earlier tried to sell the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama after the November 4 elections.

But others, including some prominent black politicians, say it would be wrong to withhold the seat from Burris, who would take over from Obama as the only African-American member of the chamber.

“We’re on our way to Washington as a senator from the great state of Illinois,” Burris told reporters in Chicago on Monday before boarding a plane to the capital. “I’m hoping and praying that I will be seated.”

Reid, who plans to meet with Burris on Wednesday, said without elaboration this week there may be room to negotiate while the 71-year-old former Illinois attorney general said he would not be chased away easily.

“The appointment is legal … what has been done here is legal. That’s legal. I am the junior senator from Illinois and I wish my colleagues from the press would recognize that,” Burris said, adding that he was nevertheless prepared to be turned away from Tuesday’s official swearing-in ceremony.

“My lawyers will take it from there; we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Burris declined to discuss the possibility of agreeing not to run for a full term in 2010 if Democrats permitted him to be a senator for the next two years — a possible face-saving deal for all. “I can’t negotiate in the press,” Burris said.

In the Minnesota battle, Republicans said the declaration of Franken as the winner did not end the contest.

“The race in Minnesota is not over,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said. “Under Minnesota law, an election certificate does not issue until litigation has been concluded. And it’s my understanding that a lawsuit will be filed … contesting certain aspects of the accounting.”

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

Source: Reuters

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The board was to meet Monday and was expected to declare which candidate received the most overall votes from nearly 3 million ballots cast. The latest numbers showed Franken, a Democrat, with a 225-vote lead over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who led Mr. Franken on election night.

But after the announcement, there will be a seven-day waiting period before an election certificate is completed. If any lawsuits are filed during that waiting period, certification is conditional until the issue is settled in court.

Lawyers for both campaigns have laid the groundwork for lawsuits through public comments and legal maneuvering. In recent weeks, as Mr. Franken clung to a small lead, Sen. Coleman’s lawyers promised a lawsuit over their claim that some ballots duplicated on election night wound up being counted twice in the recount.

The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected Monday Sen. Coleman’s request to count an additional 650 rejected absentee ballots. Sen. Coleman had argued the ballots were improperly rejected. In a five-page ruling, the high court said the dispute was among issues better handled in an “election contest,” or lawsuit.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who until recently was the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Sunday that Mr. Franken had won the election.

“While there are still possible legal issues that will run their course, there is no longer any doubt who will be the next Senator from Minnesota,” Sen. Schumer said. “With the Senate set to begin meeting on Tuesday to address the important issues facing the nation, it is crucial that Minnesota’s seat not remain empty, and I hope this process will resolve itself as soon as possible.”

Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called Sen. Schumer’s comments premature and troubling, since Schumer is the new chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, which has jurisdiction over contested elections.

“Senator Schumer will likely play a key role in determining who ultimately assumes this Senate seat,” Sen. Cornyn said. “Pre-judging the outcome while litigation is still pending calls into question his ability to impartially preside over this matter when it comes before the Committee, as it most certainly will.”

Sen. Coleman’s term as senator officially expired Saturday.

Senate Republican leaders have said the chamber shouldn’t seat Mr. Franken until all legal matters are settled, even if that drags on for months.

Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said in an email Sunday: “In terms of future planning, we’re taking it one step at a time. The next step is the canvass board’s meeting tomorrow, where we have every expectation they will declare that Al won the election.”

Source: Wall Street Journal

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According to Gallup, Bush’s overall job approval rating stands at 49.4, ranking him above Nixon, Ford, Carter and Truman.  However, the president ranks last amongst U.S. presidents that were elected to a 2nd term (behind Eisenhower, Clinton and Reagan).

During his first term, the president actually ranks as one of the best, with only Johnson, Kennedy and Eisenhower ranking higher:

Of course, most of Bush’s problems occurred (as they often do) in his second term, which ranks as only better than Nixon amongst second term presidents, when looking at 2nd term rankings only:

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Richardson
This morning, it was reported that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was withdrawing his nomination as Obama’s commerce secretary, citing a federal grand-jury investigation into a “pay to play” scheme in his home state.  While another nominee for this post will certainly be forthcoming, the potential smell of scandal could flow readily from the still-popular Richardson’s New Mexico to Obama’s Washington, depending on the outcome of the probe.  Recall that Richardson - a former Clinton UN ambassador and Energy secretary - was an early supporter of the then-Senator from Illinois during the later stages of the Obama vs. Hillary Clinton nominating process and many viewed his support of Obama as one of the keys to the president-elect’s eventual nomination win.

Illinois
The continuing scandal concerning Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will now make way for Washington, DC when Blagojevich’s Senate appointee Roland Burris attempts to take Obama’s former seat when the Senate convenes this week.   If the Senate tries to bar Burris, an African-American,  from the Capital, all hell could quickly break loose causing fracture in the Democratic ranks.  Meanwhile, Blagojevich remains, although impeachment is likely.

Minnesota
Democrat Al Franken has a 225 vote lead to take Republican Norm Coleman’s seat in the U.S. Senate.  Still, Senate Republicans vow to block any attempts at seating Franken pending unresolved legal issues associated with the Minnesota recount.  To date, the Senate Democrats have been mum on whether or not they will open the doors for Franken, although that will be increasingly likely if Minnesota certifies a Franken victory, which could come this week.  With Minnesota amongst its seats, the Democrats would see their majority climb to 59 seats.

New York
With Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat about to become vacant, increasing pressure is being placed on the Empire State’s governor to appoint a replacement.  Although dynasty princess Carolina Kennedy looked like an easy bet on taking the seat prior to Christmas, today that reality may or may not happen depending on whom is asked.  Regardless, once the seat is filled the Democrats will have one less worry in this new year.  Then again, perhaps this story will cause further headaches with regards to the New York senate seat, a.k.a. the Clintons.

The Middle East
When George W. Bush exits the stage, Barack Obama - and the entire Democratic party - will take quick ownership of the growing problem in the Middle East.  With Israel continuing its takeover of the Gaza Strip, Obama will need to formulate - and make public - his own Middle East policy very quickly come January 20th.

The Economy
Oh yeah, the U.S. economy remains in recession and like the Middle East situation mentioned above, come mid-January, it becomes the Democrat’s child and the public will be watching.

To be in the majority…

Source: The GOP Wilderness

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A snapshot of today’s political landscape? Yes. But it’s also a precise description of the predicament Republicans faced at the end of 1992, when Bill Clinton, not Barack Obama, was preparing to take over the presidency.

As low as the GOP was after that 1992 election, within two years it had roared back to take control of the House for the first time in half a century. The point is simple: Tattered as Republicans look today, it’s easy to forget that they’ve been here before, and not so long ago, and recovered fairly quickly.

One who remembers it well is Haley Barbour, the current governor of Mississippi, who had either the great fortune or misfortune (it wasn’t clear at the time which it was) of taking over as Republican National Committee chairman at the dawn of the Clinton presidency.

Having seen this play before, Gov. Barbour knows it needn’t have an unhappy ending for his party. The script he followed at the time, in fact, may be illuminating for his party today.

Gov. Barbour is spending this holiday week fishing and relaxing with family members, but took some time the other day to muse about parallels between then and now. The key to Republican recovery, he argues, isn’t to start rebuilding from the top: “When you’ve had the White House for eight years, you become a very top-down party. We Republicans are clearly better as a bottom-up party.”

As the dust settles, the parallels between 2008 and 1992 look ever more eerie. Bill Clinton won that year with 370 electoral votes; Barack Obama this year got 365. Democrats won 258 House seats and 58 Senate seats then; now they have 257 in the House and 58 in the Senate, with the Minnesota Senate cliffhanger still to be decided. Democrats won control of 33 governor’s offices then, 29 now.

And then, as now, Republicans felt they had been laid low. Gov. Barbour, at the time a former White House political director, entered the scene to launch a four-part recovery plan for his party. Each piece would seem to make as much sense for Republicans today as it did then.

Step one was to rebuild state parties. When a party is in control of the White House, its strength lies at the national level. But when it’s in the minority, Gov. Barbour says, the route back to strength is for national leaders to help build strong state party organizations.

After the 1992 GOP debacle, the fruits of that effort came almost instantly. Within two years, the number of Republican governors had risen to 31 from 17.

Step two was to rebuild the party’s small-donor base. Another consequence of controlling the White House is that a party finds it easier to raise big money from big donors, and it tends to let its small-donor network atrophy. That’s what Gov. Barbour found in 1992. The party had raised records amount of money, but from a shrinking base. Its roster of donors had shrunk from almost a million in the mid-1980s to about 400,000. By focusing on regaining small donors, he built it back to 1.2 million by 1996.

Step three was to push the party to the cutting edge of political-communications technology. After 1992, that meant getting more plugged into talk radio and satellite transmission of television content. So Gov. Barbour built a first-class TV studio at Republican national headquarters, launched a Republican television network and used satellite uplinks to beam interviews with Republican lawmakers to stations back in their home districts by the dozen.

Today, of course, the challenge for Republicans lies in a different kind of technology: They’re behind Democrats in using the Internet to communicate directly with voters and donors.

Finally, and crucially, step four in the Barbour plan was to convince voters Republicans had fresh ideas — specifically, ideas that translated conservative philosophies into policies that addressed contemporary problems.

Gov. Barbour started that process by sending a questionnaire soliciting policy views to every Republican donor and officeholder in the land. He then launched his own in-house think tank to put meat on those bones of ideas.

“You want to get as many people as possible to participate in the policy-making process,” Gov. Barbour says. “And by that I mean literally in the hundreds of thousands.” By the time House Republicans wanted to compose the now-famous “Contract with America” as a policy platform on which to run in 1994, the content was fully cooked.

The parallels between 1992 and 2008 aren’t exact, of course; the economy at the beginning of the Clinton era was coming out of a mild recession, while it now seems to be in a deep one.

But the broader lessons of the Barbour era seem relevant — and cause for a bit of holiday cheer for a party that found mostly coal in its stocking this year.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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