“You are known by the company you keep.” That adage sure holds true in politics.
In 2008, Barack Obama was swept into the Oval Office on a mass wave of “hope and change.” Over the next two terms he spent down his political capital through serial concessions to the GOP, the deportation of more than two million undocumented immigrants, the failure to close Guantanamo Bay as promised, and a major expansion of both the U.S. surveillance state and Bush’s legacy of undeclared wars through special ops and drone strikes.
Oh, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner also presided over the prosecution of more whistleblowers than all previous U.S. presidents in total.
Yet, Obummer failed to jail a single principal behind the 2008 subprime mortgage bubble and financial collapse. This is no surprise considering those who rode his coattails into the White House, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, previously president of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and former Freddie Mac board member Rahm Emanuel, who served as White House Chief of Staff.
Former hedge fund manager Lawrence Summers was a key advisor on handling the post-2008 recession. Other Wall Street-friendly staffers seamlessly made the transition from the Bush to Obama administration.
Whether or not his declared intention to take on the “fat cats” of Wall Street was disingenuous from the get go, Obama and his circle ensured a few big banks would face billions in fines but no serious regulatory actions, much less individual prosecution.
On to Donald Trump. Whether or not he remains the GOP’s in-house incendiary device and/or Hillary-abetting sideshow, millions of Americans persist in believing that a self-promoting businessman will upend business as usual in Washington. All they have to support this peculiar notion is Trump’s narcissism, which appears to preclude any talent for Beltway team-playing.
Based on Drumpf’s ever-mutating remarks on foreign policy, many of his supporters believe he will pull the U.S. out of foreign entanglements, or at least make allies shell out for the courtesy. Yet the reality TV star’s thuggish intentions may be signalled in his selection of former Pentagon Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz as a key foreign policy advisor.
Schmitz was forced out of the Pentagon over accusations he was blocking investigations of corruption by Bush administration officials involving defence contracts. This is not the sort of guy who is going to petition against endless wartime profiteering and get a “you’re fired” from Drumpf in response.
As for the chickenhawk Democratic contender and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it would be naïve to believe her circle won’t be thick with bankster-enablers, corporate lobbyists, and warriors for Empire.
Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently stated that there is “a special place in hell” for women who don’t electorally support the former First Lady. This was the same Albright who once offered a jaw-dropping response to reporter Lesley Stahl about U.S. sanctions against Iraq.
“We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Stahl asked Albright in a 1996 60 Minutes segment.
“I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it,” she responded.
Meanwhile in B.C., our Premier has made some interesting new friends.
“Dozens of frightened refugees have been given political asylum by B.C. Premier Christy Clark, after losing all they held dear in their homelands,” comments Bill Tieleman in The Tyee, based on a story that first broke in Pacific Political Report.
Tieleman isn’t talking about Syrians, but rather former members of defeated governments in Ottawa and Alberta.
Trailing accusations of wrongdoing behind them, a number of former Harperites have found high-paid jobs in Clark’s government. Perversely, much of their work will be helping guide the B.C. Liberals into victory in 2017.
That’s Brutish Columbian politics for you: members of a neocon government flushed down the Rideau Canal wash up on the shores of Victoria, where they do their Walking Dead routine up the legislature steps.
Remember, you are known by the company you keep, Christy. On second thought, forget about it for now. Leave it to voters to remind you in 2017.
