The 10 Worst Media Moments Of 2008

OK, now that we’ve celebrated all the good things that media professionals managed to grace our world with this year, let’s skip ahead to a listicle of lowlights, which is probably what you all really want anyway, since everyone runs on schadenfreude these days and is filled with impotent rage!

Anyway, as before, many of you will agree and many will disagree, and that’s cool! Please do! Especially if you want to comment or send an email about it! But note that I’ve left off a lot of examples that many of you will no doubt feel are obligatory inclusions. For instance, I can already predict an email complaining that Bill O’Reilly doesn’t make this list. It seems to me that some examples of stupidity are far too ubiquitous to be remarkable. Nevertheless, the comments are there for all of you to cherish the moments I missed.

TEN THINGS THAT SUCKED OUT LOUD IN 2008, MEDIA EDITION

1. The Economy Kills Everyone
Some greet the effects of the down economy on the media with mockery, some with mournfulness, some with a combination of the two I shall call mournckery. Eventually though, a writer you admire gets laid off, or a reporter you’ve depended on has to take a buyout, or RADAR Magazine folds and their fantastic web operation comes under the rule of a bunch of gibbering twits with birdcrap for brains and it all hits home. And look, everyone knows that the web is going to solve all of the world’s problems, but tell me: how does the imminent failure of, say, New Jersey’s Star-Ledger grab you? Worried about that at all? Of course not! Everyone knows that the State of New Jersey is filled with affluent laptop/iPhone owners and their politicians are the most honest people in the ever-loving world!

2. ABC’s Terrible Debate
Political debates are all alike; every terrible debate is terrible in its own way. And yet the ridiculous attempt by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson nevertheless ranks as the supreme example of incompetence. It didn’t matter that every single one of their gotcha questions, save Gibson’s high-toned bitchery over his investment portfolio, had already been asked 4,751 times: George and Charlie were bound and determined to be the 4,752nd to do so! As such, the entire debate played like something ABC News took all of fifteen minutes to prepare for, right down to the tatty production values and asinine, utterly tone-deaf references to the Constitution. The resulting debate wasn’t fair to either candidate and was an insult to every viewer who tuned in. “The crowd’s turning on me,” Gibson quipped, after it was over. Would they had done so earlier!

Oh, and did Stephanopoulos hypocritically engage in the sort of behavior that he once decried as a political operative? OF COURSE HE DID.

On the bright side, this happened.

3. The Day of Lipstick On A Pig
I don’t think a single event managed to sum up the media’s inability to distinguish activity from achievement, their willingness to delve deeply into irrelevant minutiae, or their tendency to obsess themselves with transparently stupid meta-narratives any better than they day we all woke up to discover that the commonly used phrase “lipstick on a pig” had become transformed into some sort of sexist insult. It was a sickening and foul display - media professionals on all networks and platforms hurling this loafer of high-toned nonsense at our heads. Naturally, the very premise of their argument was unremittingly false, and the resulting blockstop coverage and commentary was nothing more than widespread platform abuse. Then, as soon as this zombie contagion struck the media, it was gone, and no one ever talked about it again. NEVER FORGET THAT ADULTS - ACTUAL GROWN-UPS! - PERPETRATED THIS NONSENSE.

4. NYT’s Vicki Iseman story
Speaking of platform abuse, how is it that we all know that the New York Times knew full well that their John McCain-Vicki Iseman story was a stinkfest on arrival? For me, it was the way the shuffled it out online during evening rush-hour, as if they wanted viewers to be moving in the opposite direction of their journalistic turd when it fell to earth. The story may have had some viability, but whatever truth there was in McCain’s interactions with Washington lobbyists came sandwiched between sensationalistic and salacious intimations of sexual infidelities between John McCain and a lobbyist named Vicki Iseman. You had to love the way the Times worked their drizzle of sizzle up into the lede and then spent three pages avoiding the matter before veering back to it. The Iseman part of the saga is supported by precisely one on-the-record source, former McCain confidant and adviser John Weaver. In my opinion, Weaver’s quotes are, uhm…woven to make it look like he is confirming the Iseman-McCain relationship. Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt faulted the paper as well, saying, “The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and Iseman had a romance.”

5. Endless Talk of the “Gender Card”
Everyone talked about how sexist the media was this year, and everyone had their own idea as to where this sexism was most glaringly revealed. I’ll tell you what set my teeth on edge: every time someone made mention of Hillary Clinton playing the “gender card.”

Let me get this straight. It’s okay for Barack Obama to put his racial background to advantageous use. It’s okay for John McCain to put his war-hero past to advantageous use. It’s okay for John Edwards to put his Son-of-a-mill-worker-hood to advantageous use. It’s okay for Rudy Guiliani to put his proximity to the September 11th attacks to advantageous use. But if Hillary Clinton attempts to leverage her femininity to her advantage, suddenly everyone has to debate the relative fairness of it? Is American politics a milieu in which the participants often forego their natural advantages in competition, out of a spirit of fairness? No? Then suggesting Hillary Clinton be tied to a different set of standards is horseshit, the end.

6. Thrill Up The Leg
The sad curse of immortality is that it is often our moments of folly that end up outliving us. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews will come to understand this in time. While covering the 2008 “Potomac Primary,” Matthews enthused that Barack Obama’s oratory caused a physiological reaction, specifically:

I have to tell you, you know, it’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.

Matthews thus became a symbol for everyone who has ever complained, or will complain, about “Obama adulation” in the media. In all likelihood, Matthews will never live this down. Not ever.

7. 32 Important Words The Media Missed
Back when Henry Paulson wrote up the proposed $700 billion bailout package, it contained this part called “Section 8,” whose thirty-two words basically precluded any or all efforts to hold anyone involved in the disbursement of these monies accountable:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

The mainstream media totally missed this. Today, they are all yelling at banks, wondering what happened to all the money. It’s quite pathetic, really.

8. Message Force Multipliers
On April 20th, David Barstow of the New York Times told the incredibly true story of how the Pentagon unleashed a platoon of administration shills with extensive conflicts of interest upon the television media, presented as neutral “miltary analysts,” to serve as a “Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.” The complacent/complicit networks did little to shoulder the responsibility of their failure to vet and/or disclose to the public the true affiliations of these P.R. agents. But hey, were it not for Barstow himself, following up on the matter months later, it’s not like the New York Times took all that active an interest in their own story. So, yes, America: you are entitled to your cynicism!

9. NYT Mission Accomplished Panel
In May, the New York Times commemorated the anniversary of the “Mission Accomplished” banner by hosting a symposium from celebrated thinkers, most of whom were well-known as people who got the Iraq War wrong. They were allowed, in that symposium, to continue to get the Iraq War wrong. Mission accomplished!

10 (tie). Charlotte Allen/Bill Kristol
How do you prefer your op-ed idiocy America? Rendered in a thousand cuts from Bill Kristol, phoning in his obligation to the New York Times? Or delivered in one sharp, shock-and-awesome example of stupidity, a la Charlotte Allen in the Washington Post?

_____________

As for (dis)honorable mentions, where do begin and end? CNN capped off their year of election overkill with their infinitely mockable “holograms,” which will now stand in for the human talent they’ve been shedding. Portfolio inexplicably put American Apparel’s Dov Charney on their cover at a time when everyone else was chronicling the economic catastrophe. Amy Chozick wrote an idiotic piece for the Wall Street Journal about whether Obama was “too fit” to be President - some of her “sources” were anonymous message-board denizens who she prodded into participating. Barbara West went after Joe Biden with every GOP talking point she could stuff into her head, and later claimed that zeroed the balance. And MSNBC’s The Race For The White House was the dumbest political show ever conceived by sentient beings.

Read more: Video, 2008, Media Criticism, Media News

2008: The Year In Media Highlights

It’s the end of the year, and so I must answer the call for summative listicles of things. So, why not a list of stuff I liked that people in the mass media did this year? Okay! Obviously this is by no means meant to be complete or offered despotically as the be-all-end-all list on this subject. Maybe you’d like to add your own highlights in the comments, or send me an email with your own nomination? That way, I’ll have the fodder for something to write on New Year’s Eve as well! Anyway, i hope you enjoy this!

TEN THINGS THAT MANAGED TO NOT SUCK IN 2008, MEDIA EDITION

1. FiveThirtyEight.com
The uncanny, poll-wrangling, stats-freaking Nate Silver took it upon himself to demonstrate that some level of governable, rational reality could be brought to bear on the confusing world of competing tracking polls, and along the way all but cemented the geek-chic trajectory of this election season. But FiveThirtyEight did flesh-and-blood reportage just as well as they did number crunching. Vastly undersung were the wonderful series of posts that Silver’s partners in crime authored as they traveled the country assessing the ground-games of both campaigns. Their only worry now is what will happen in four years when their terrifying accuracy inspires the electorate to stay home and avoid the polls out of existential overconfidence.

2. Rachel Maddow
While many cheer the stellar rise of Rachel Maddow as further proof of the viability of progressive voices on primetime cable news, I’d rather celebrate the rise of a voice that’s not endlessly yelling or yammering away with all of the dull and insensate tonality of a pair of pecans inside a tin can. Genial, witty, and composed, Maddow runs her MSNBC show with a unique-to-cable-news understanding that amplified stridency is not a substitute for a strong set of beliefs. Plus, she’s fun. Don’t people like to have fun, anymore? For Pete’s sake! If you’re going to watch cable news in prime time when you could be doing ANYTHING ELSE IN WORLD, shouldn’t it not be like grim punishment?

3. Compassion Forum
Did you ever imagine that they could stuff four hundred debates inside a single election season? Me neither! And most of them ranged between awful and excremental. But one of the few I enjoyed was the Compassion Forum, despite its resolutely stupid name. As representatives of the media, Campbell Brown and Jon Meacham’s questions tended toward the reductionist and the cliched. But the various religious officials who were on hand to question Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were OUTSTANDING, asking deep and involved questions on both faith and policy. The forum’s quality questions inspired both candidates to offer some of their most engaging responses. More importantly, it was a lovely example of the value of a contemplative life.

4. Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald, on torture
The torture of human beings is an unquestionable moral failure and a rank-smelling blot on a society that permits it, and yet who knows where those of us who would take up this seemingly futile cause would be without the relentless rational ballast provided by the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan and Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, who have relentlessly added to the case against these crimes and who show no sign of discontinuing that effort.

5. Peter Schiff, on the economy
There were a few voices in the wilderness, gravely warning of the imminent collapse of the economy, to whom no one listened. Euro Pacific Capital’s Peter Schiff was made to endure the relentless mocking of idiots on the TV, and for that, we salute him.

6. “Katrina’s Hidden Race War,” in The Nation
A.C. Thompson’s epic, harrowing piece for The Nation, which describes in detail the way racist vigilantes ran their own little campaign of ethnic cleansing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, is investigative journalism done right. More importantly, it’s a necessary reminder that our past is not done with us by a long shot. And by the “past,” I’m not simply referring to the three years that have transpired since Katrina leveled a city.

7. Alex Pareene
For most of the people who ply their trade in political “analysis,” the essential task is one of superficial dazzle, to see how much mystical crap they can get dancing on the head of a pin. Witness Mark Halperin, who turns his idiocy into painful Zen koans and is thought of by important people as a sage authority. Gawker’s Alex Pareene is an antidote. Through his relentless refusal to indulge himself in the senseless, masturbatory mystification of the simple, Pareene manages to strip down a political event or a media obsession to its essential, understandable elements. He’s just not that impressed with the people who populate the political milieu. And he’d fracking hate being included on this listicle. God bless him for that. Now, can we find Pareene a perch where his paymasters aren’t bent on burning him out?

8. Ross Douthat and Reihan Salaam
Hey, have you heard about this “Republican Party?” If you wander into the deep woods, they’ll be the ones naked and howling, with sadness. Yes, the 2008 election has sent a fractured group off to do some of that soul-searching. Some of them will be aligning themselves with the Aerial Wolf Huntress From Wasilla. Some will choose an even blander course. But the GOP that survives to once again be a formidable opponent will be the ones who’ve got a dog-eared copy of Grand New Party on their nightstands. Authors Ross Douthat and Reihan Salaam aren’t the only ones working the return-to-the-working-class territory, but they have the added advantages of being new-media and new-blood.

9. Bob Costas interviews George Bush
Is it sort of dumb to include Bob Costas on a year-end list of the finest media moments? Well, if more people demonstrated the ability to conduct a substantive interview with President Bush, then yes! But they don’t! Seriously: can’t you see Costas hosting Meet The Press?

10. Damon Weaver
Damon Weaver is the ten-year old kid from Florida who interviewed Joe Biden and who wants to interview Barack Obama over Inauguration Weekend. He is JUST THE BEST. I want him to get his interview with Obama, and so do many of you, and together, we will MAKE THIS HAPPEN. Damon just makes you feel like there’s some stuff going on in this world that’s RIGHT. Here’s some details from one of his teachers, Brian Zimmerman:

Since Damon has been a reporter for our school’s television station his grades have improved. He is not a gifted student. He is an average student who has been working very hard. I asked him why his grades have improved since being a reporter and he told me that people out in Pahokee practice a lot to get better at football so he thinks it’s important to try harder in school so that he could become a journalist. Over the years, Damon’s has had some behavior issues in his classes, but since he has been involved with being a reporter the behavior issues have gone away. I must also mention, through all of the attention Damon has stayed well-grounded and never brags to the other students.

Kathryn E. Cunningham/Canal Point Elementary consists of a lower socio-economic student population. 96% of the students are on free or reduced lunches. 80% of our students are African-American. In Florida the schools are given grades based on their test scores. Our school was a failing school we had a low “D”. The past couple of years our school has raised its grade to a “B” and we are trying for an “A” this year.

This kid is doing it right folks, and he’s reflecting the larger efforts of a lot of other people who are also doing it right.

______________________

Honorable mentions? Well, I’ve been a fan all year of McClatchy’s great coverage of Iraq. And I’m fond of The Washington Independent as well, especially the work of Spencer Ackerman and Laura McGann. Public Service Administration has put out some of my favorite political parodies. Campbell Brown made beating up on McCain punishment-junkie Tucker Bounds cool, and I loved her humane, histrionic-free defense of Arab-Americans. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs was delightful in his confrontation with Fox’s Sean Hannity. And this Bloggingheads conversation between Brian Beutler and Ta-Nehisi Coates is probably the best thing Bloggingheads has ever done.

Read more: 2008, Media Criticism, Holiday Season Commentary, Media News

Obama Media Strategy Insight: Ignore The Page , Politico

So, the paragraph that everyone’s dining out on from this weekend’s coming New York Times Magazine profile of President-elect Obama’s communications guru Robert Gibbs appears to be this one:

The paradox of this scene was that the Obama campaign’s communications strategy was predicated in part on an aggressive indifference to this insider set. Staff members were encouraged to ignore new Web sites like The Page, written by Time’s Mark Halperin, and Politico, both of which had gained instant cachet among the Washington smarty-pants set. “If Politico and Halperin say we’re winning, we’re losing,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, would repeat mantralike around headquarters.

Now, look. I think you’re really kidding yourself if you think the Obama campaign straight-up ignored the Politico. I’m quite sure they were dutifully fed the Obama camp’s talking points on a regular basis. Nevertheless, the statement “If Politico and Halperin say we’re winning, we’re losing” is not entirely hyperbolic.

Some examples? Roger Simon’s repeated, dubious defenses of Sarah Palin’s debate performances come to mind as precisely the sort of content that caused the Obama campaign precisely zero concern. Simon penned a addlepated valentine to Palin’s debating that basically boiled down to: “By not soiling herself onstage, Palin was the big winner.” He followed it up with similarly goopy, out-of-the-loop defenses on TV, such as this exchange with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Here she is, Governor Palin, on the office of the vice presidency. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SARAH PALIN (R-AK), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that’s not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also. I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: OK. I want to know what you both think about what 00 I mean, I thought for a moment I was hearing “precious bodily fluids” there.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: All of a sudden, a candidate — a candidate for president — vice president of the United States is talking about a new expansive role for the vice presidency in presiding over the Senate.

Roger, you have been defending her performance tonight. Explain what she is up to here.

SIMON: You know, that was like the 86th minute of the debate or something.

MATTHEWS: Yes. I was paying attention.

SIMON: Yes. Was America?

Ha ha. As it turns out, America was paying attention, silly goose! The debate had been billed as THE geek show of the political season, after all! Polls conducted by CBS and CNN after the debate declared Biden the decisive, double-digit winner, and, at her next opportunity, comedienne Tina Fey leveled Palin’s performance by putting all the things that Simon missed in his analysis (especially Palin’s strategy of answering questions with answers that did not in any way relate to the question) on high-contrast display. Americans paid attention to that, too! What Americans managed to reject in large numbers was the notion that Palin’s debate performance elevated her, or her ticket, in any meaningful way.

Of course, that the Obama camp ignored “The Page” makes even more sense, because The Page is just an incoherently written website geared towards tricking people into making as many ad-revenue-generating clicks as possible. But, specific to the matter of “if they say we’re winning, we’re losing,” I recall noting a well-documented example of this phenomenon. In a week where John McCain said multiple conflicting things on the state of the economy, got slagged by a slew of prominent conservatives for selecting Palin, complained about the rough treatment he received on The View, had one surrogate banished for suggesting that he lacked the acumen to run a corporation, had another surrogate make a perplexing statement about how the candidate had invented the Blackberry, and topped it all off by picking a bizarre fight with Spain, Mark Halperin declared in the biggest and most colorful fonts he could muster that “McCain Wins The Week.”

So, yeah. I’d totally put The Page on fade, too. And now that the election is over, I’d wager that most people are following this aspect of Robert Gibbs’ media strategy.

Read more: Politics News, Obama New Media Sites, Gibbs New Media Site, New York Times Magazine, Gibbs Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs Obama, Robert Gibbs Debate, Gibbs Nyt Magazine, Robert Gibbs, Obama Message, Barack Obama, Gibbs Political Message, Media News

Jane Smiley: Joe Biden Asked Me For Money Today

Every week or so, Joe Biden sends me an email and tells me how expensive the transition is, and asks me to contribute yet again. This morning, after I gasped at the ridiculous choice of homophobe and anti-choice activist Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Inaugural, there was Joe again, holding out his hand. In his note to me, Joe didn’t seem at all perturbed by his new alliance with a man who rejects and condemns everything I stand for. Joe just wanted my money.

I handed the Obama campaign as much as I was allowed to over the fall, and I bet I gave them a good deal more than anyone at the Saddleback Church. My suggestion to Joe is that instead of coming to me for money, he spend a little of his own and go see Milk, which I did last night. By the end of that movie, pretty much everyone in the audience around me was sniffling and weeping. It’s a sad movie, and what’s sad is not just that Harvey Milk and George Moscone were shot by a homophobic religious nut. What’s sad is that Milk was shot in 1978, thirty years ago, and Rick Warren still hasn’t learned which way is up–or rather, which way is the decent, Christian, and humane way to be–that is, give all Americans equal rights and stop fomenting prejudice and hatred against people you don’t agree with.

Rick Warren gets a free ride, tax-wise, from me, because his political action committee is disguised as a “church”. That’s bad enough, and I plan to work hard to take away his free ride, but what’s worse is that Joe Biden is asking me again and again for a donation so that he and Barack Obama can give Rick Warren, hate-monger, a platform. Joe, I’ve watched the transition and I’ve held my tongue and given you guys a chance to show your true colors. But don’t ask me for any more money until you figure out that Rick Warren hasn’t been buttering your bread. People like me have been doing that, and we are getting a little ticked off.

Palin files late disclosure for free 2007 trips (AP)

AP - Gov. Sarah Palin has added to her financial disclosure forms two free trips that she took nearly two years ago but failed to report. Palin, who was Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, made the disclosures last month, but after Election Day when she and McCain lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The trips were first revealed in a story by The Associated Press in October.

Alito ribs Biden for plagiarism (Politico)

Politico - At a gala dinner hosted by the American Spectator on Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. cracked wise at Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s expense, raising the Delaware senator’s past brushes with academic dishonesty, to the delight of his conservative audience.

Clinton Senate Seat Timing Could Have Historic Implications

With Hillary Clinton headed for the State Department, the question now on everyone’s mind is whom Gov. David Paterson will appoint to replace her.

Names bubbling closest to the surface include New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, and Caroline Kennedy, a generally politics-avoiding heir of the famous family. Bill Clinton’s name was floated on Tuesday morning, but a spokesman for the former president summarily shot the rumor down.

And yet, there are highly consequential aspects to the naming of Clinton’s Senate replacement beyond who actually gets the nod. When that appointment is made and, more specifically, when that person is sworn into office could have long-term, historical implications.

Regardless of what happens in the next few weeks, Clinton’s replacement will be one of the lowest ranking Democrats entering the next Senate. If, however, Clinton were to resign from her seat early — under the tacit understanding that she will be confirmed as Secretary of State — and Patterson were to make a quick decision on who will take the seat, that individual could be sworn into office before the newly-elected members on January 3rd. Senate rules subsequently dictate that Clinton’s replacement would be higher-ranked within the party.

Following another hypothetical, if Clinton were to step down as Senator and her replacement were to be sworn in with the newly elected members on January 3rd, then he or she will have seniority determined by previous political experience. As Norm Ornstein, a leading expert on these wonky procedural matters, told the Huffington Post: “If you are a House member you get ahead of those who didn’t serve in any elected office.” State office experience is valued less than federal.

In all likelihood, however, Clinton won’t be relinquishing her seat until she is actually confirmed for her new job. (Ornstein advocates a system in which current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would step down from the post, President Bush would appoint Clinton, and the Senate confirm her before Obama took office — thereby eliminating any time lapse between the office-holders. But this almost certainly won’t happen.)

New York’s next Senator will, in this scenario, be sworn in on January 20th. He or she may not be the lowest ranking member. Joe Biden’s replacement, Ted Kaufman, could be sworn in at the same time, although he plans to only serve two years. The recount election between Al Franken and Norm Coleman may still be unresolved, meaning the comedian-turned Democratic candidate could be destined for the Senate’s lowest rungs.

Either way, it seems certain that Clinton’s replacement — while getting a election-free ride to the post — will nevertheless be near or at the bottom of the heap when it comes to party seniority. And that is not, Ornstein argues, a minor matter:

“This is something that has its relevance in two ways. The first is, if you go on a committee you become ranked in order of seniority. That matters in terms of day-to-day activities, like being in line to ask questions … But to the degree that seniority matters in terms of who becomes committee chairs it would be 20 years down the road. The fact that you got sworn in the day after Person X did could mean that when a vacancy occurs on the Foreign Relations Committee, you are there to take it instead of him or her.”

Read more: Senate Heirarchy, Senate Ranks, Clinton Replacement, Clinton Patterson, Patterson Sworn In, Bill Clinton, Clinton Senate Seat, Norm Ornstein, Hillary Clinton, Clinton Senate, Home News

Mark Nickolas: Line of Succession: Hillary Clinton Just Four Heartbeats Away From The Presidency

One of the interesting factoids about President-elect Obama’s (D) choice of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) as secretary of state is that protocol will dictate that Clinton sit immediately to the right of Obama in cabinet meetings, making for great photos and a fascinating dynamic. The vice president sits immediately across from the president, and each cabinet secretary sits to their right in alternating fashion based on the date the department or agency was created.

Along those lines, according to the order of presidential succession — per the Succession Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 380, 3 U.S.C.§19) — the secretary of state is fourth in line to the presidency, after the Vice President (Biden), Speaker of the House (Pelosi), and President Pro Tempore of the Senate (Byrd), meaning that Hillary Clinton will be just four heartbeats away from the presidency after she is sworn-in.

Here’s how the Obama administration line of succession is currently shaping-up:

PRESIDENTIAL LINE OF SUCCESSION (Obama Administration)

1. Joe Biden (Vice President and President of Senate)
2. Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House)
3. Robert Byrd (Senate President Pro Tempore)
4. Hillary Clinton (State)
5. Timothy Geithner (Treasury)
6. Robert Gates (Defense)
7. Eric Holder (Justice)
8. TBD (Interior)
9. TBD (Agriculture)
10. Bill Richardson (Commerce)
11. TBD (Labor)
12. Tom Daschle (HHS)
13. TBD (HUD)
14. TBD (Transportation)
15. TBD (Energy)
16. TBD (Education)
17. TBD (Veterans’ Affairs)
18. Janet Napolitano (Homeland Security)
19. *Susan Rice (UN Ambassador)
20. *TBD (EPA)

Note: Currently, neither the United Nations ambassador nor the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are cabinet-level positions. But there has been considerable discussion that Obama intends to elevate both slots to cabinet level. However, since succession is determined by the order of creation of each agency or department, it is unclear whether both posts would be placed at the end of the line (after Homeland Security) or whether the initial creation of each office (UN ambassador in 1945 and EPA in 1970) would dictate their placement.

Mark Nickolas is the Managing Editor of Political Base, and this story was from his original post, "Line of Succession: Hillary Clinton Just Four Heartbeats Away From The Presidency"

Jacob Heilbrunn: Obama Shouldn’t Bide His Time On Biden

It was supposed to be self-deprecating, but like all jokes, it had a kernel of truth to it. Joe Biden plaintively observed at the Governors’ meeting in Philadelphia on Tuesday that “Since the race is over, no one pays attention to me at all.” Forget Barack Obama’s cabinet picks on foreign policy. They’re not the problem. Giving Biden the shaft is.

Perhaps Obama has a role in mind for Biden. But so far, there’s no evidence that he does. Instead, Biden appears to be relegated back to the old, passive role of stand-in for the president. George H.W. Bush became famous for attending funerals on Ronald Reagan’s behalf. Does Obama have something more planned for Biden?

Biden’s wealth of experience in the Senate, where he chaired the foreign relations committee and oversaw an excellent staff, mandates that Obama tap him to play a major role in foreign policy meetings. Biden is intimately familiar with world leaders and could play a big role in repairing relations with Europe. No, he shouldn’t have the kind of powers that Dick Cheney exercised. But that’s not even a remote possibility given the kind of firepower that Obama has assembled in his cabinet.

Instead, Biden should have an equal voice, but he seems to be fading into the woodwork. The danger is that he’ll simply serve as a decorative ornament in the Obama administration, wheeled out to help defend policies that he has played little, if any role, in devising. Maybe Obama is just biding his time on Biden. But it would be more comforting if there were clear signs that Biden will assume more than a token role.

Robert Dreyfuss: Still Preparing to Attack Iran: The Neoconservatives in the Obama Era

Reposted from TomDispatch.

What, exactly, does Barack Obama’s mild-mannered choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, former Senator Tom Daschle, have to do with neocons who want to bomb Iran?

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners, and neoconservatives expects Barack Obama’s proposed talks with Iran to fail — and they’re already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to enhance coordination with Israel, tougher sanctions against Iran, and a region-wide military buildup of U.S. strike forces, including the prepositioning of military supplies within striking distance of that country.

Once the future negotiations break down, as they are convinced will happen, they propose that Washington quickly escalate to war-like measures, including a U.S. Navy-enforced embargo on Iranian fuel imports and a blockade of that country’s oil exports. Finally, of course, comes the strategic military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran that so many of them have wanted for so long.

It’s tempting to dismiss the hawks now as twice-removed from power: first, figures like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith were purged from top posts in the Bush administration after 2004; then the election of Barack Obama and the announcement Monday of his centrist, realist-minded team of establishment foreign policy gurus seemed to nail the doors to power shut for the neocons, who have bitterly criticized the president-elect’s plans to talk with Iran, withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, and abandon the reckless Global War on Terrorism rhetoric of the Bush era.

“Kinetic Action” Against Iran

When it comes to Iran, however, it’s far too early to dismiss the hawks. To be sure, they are now plying their trade from outside the corridors of power, but they have more friends inside the Obama camp than most people realize. Several top advisers to Obama — including Tony Lake, UN Ambassador-designate Susan Rice, Tom Daschle, and Dennis Ross, along with leading Democratic hawks like Richard Holbrooke, close to Vice-President-elect Joe Biden or Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton — have made common cause with war-minded think-tank hawks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and other hardline institutes.

Last spring, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, for example, took part in a WINEP “2008 Presidential Task Force” study which resulted in a report entitled, “Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen U.S.-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge.” The Institute, part of the Washington-based Israel lobby, was founded in coordination with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and has been vigorously supporting a confrontation with Iran. The task force report, issued in June, was overseen by four WINEP heavyweights: Robert Satloff, WINEP’s executive director, Patrick Clawson, its chief Iran analyst, David Makovsky, a senior fellow, and Dennis Ross, an adviser to Obama who is also a WINEP fellow.

Endorsed by both Lake and Rice, the report opted for an alarmist view of Iran’s nuclear program and proposed that the next president set up a formal U.S.-Israeli mechanism for coordinating policy toward Iran (including any future need for “preventive military action”). It drew attention to Israeli fears that “the United States may be reconciling itself to the idea of ‘living with an Iranian nuclear bomb,’” and it raised the spurious fear that Iran plans to arm terrorist groups with nuclear weapons.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with consultations between the United States and Israel. But the WINEP report is clearly predisposed to the idea that the United States ought to give undue weight to Israel’s inflated concerns about Iran. And it ignores or dismisses a number of facts: that Iran has no nuclear weapon, that Iran has not enriched uranium to weapons grade, that Iran may not have the know-how to actually construct a weapon even if, sometime in the future, it does manage to acquire bomb-grade material, and that Iran has no known mechanism for delivering such a weapon.

WINEP is correct that the United States must communicate closely with Israel about Iran. Practically speaking, however, a U.S.-Israeli dialogue over Iran’s “nuclear challenge” will have to focus on matters entirely different from those in WINEP’s agenda. First, the United States must make it crystal clear to Israel that under no circumstances will it tolerate or support a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran. Second, Washington must make it clear that if Israel were indeed to carry out such an attack, the United States would condemn it, refuse to widen the war by coming to Israel’s aid, and suspend all military aid to the Jewish state. And third, Israel must get the message that, even given the extreme and unlikely possibility that the United States deems it necessary to go to war with Iran, there would be no role for Israel.

Just as in the wars against Iraq in 1990-1991 and 2003-2008, the United States hardly needs Israeli aid, which would be both superfluous and inflammatory. Dennis Ross and others at WINEP, however, would strongly disagree that Israel is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Ross, who served as Middle East envoy for George H.W. Bush and then Bill Clinton, was also a key participant in a September 2008 task force chaired by two former senators, Daniel Coats (R.-Ind.) and Chuck Robb (D.-Va.), and led by Michael Makovsky, brother of WINEP’s David Makovsky, who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the heyday of the Pentagon neocons from 2002-2006. Robb, incidentally, had already served as the neocons’ channel into the 2006 Iraq Study Group, chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton. According to Bob Woodward’s latest book, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, it was Robb who insisted that the Baker-Hamilton task force include an option for a “surge” in Iraq.

The report of the Coats-Robb task force — “Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development” — went far beyond the WINEP task force report that Lake and Rice signed off on. It concluded that any negotiations with Iran were unlikely to succeed and should, in any case, be short-lived. As the report put the matter, “It must be clear that any U.S.-Iranian talks will not be open-ended, but will be limited to a pre-determined time period so that Tehran does not try to ‘run out the clock.’”

Anticipating the failure of the talks, the task force (including Ross) urged “prepositioning military assets,” coupled with a “show of force” in the region. This would be followed almost immediately by a blockade of Iranian gasoline imports and oil exports, meant to paralyze Iran’s economy, followed by what they call, vaguely, “kinetic action.”

That “kinetic action” — a U.S. assault on Iran — should, in fact, be massive, suggested the Coats-Robb report. Besides hitting dozens of sites alleged to be part of Iran’s nuclear research program, the attacks would target Iranian air defense and missile sites, communications systems, Revolutionary Guard facilities, key parts of Iran’s military-industrial complex, munitions storage facilities, airfields, aircraft facilities, and all of Iran’s naval facilities. Eventually, they say, the United States would also have to attack Iran’s ground forces, electric power plants and electrical grids, bridges, and “manufacturing plants, including steel, autos, buses, etc.”

This is, of course, a hair-raising scenario. Such an attack on a country that had committed no act of war against the United States or any of its allies would cause countless casualties, virtually destroy Iran’s economy and infrastructure, and wreak havoc throughout the region. That such a high-level group of luminaries should even propose steps like these — and mean it — can only be described as lunacy. That an important adviser to President-elect Obama would sign on to such a report should be shocking, though it has received next to no attention.

Palling Around with the Neocons

At a November 6 forum at WINEP, Patrick Clawson, the erudite, neoconservative strategist who serves as the organization’s deputy director for research, laid out the institute’s view of how to talk to Iran in the Obama era. Doing so, he said, is critically important, but only to show the rest of the world that the United States has taken the last step for peace — before, of course, attacking. Then, and only then, will the United States have the legitimacy it needs to launch military action against Iran.

“What we’ve got to do is to show the world that we’re making a big deal of engaging the Iranians,” he said, tossing a bone to the new administration. “I’d throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into it.” He advocates this approach only because he believes it won’t work. “The principal target with these offers [to Iran] is not Iran,” he adds. “The principal target of these offers is American public opinion and world public opinion.”

The Coats-Robb report, “Meeting the Challenge,” was written by one of the hardest of Washington’s neoconservative hardliners, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. Rubin, who spent most of the years since 9/11 either working for AEI or, before and during the war in Iraq, for the Wolfowitz-Feith team at the Pentagon, recently penned a report for the Institute entitled: “Can A Nuclear Iran Be Deterred or Contained?” Not surprisingly, he believes the answer to be a resounding “no,” although he does suggest that any effort to contain a nuclear Iran would certainly require permanent U.S. bases spread widely in the region, including in Iraq:

“If U.S. forces are to contain the Islamic Republic, they will require basing not only in GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, but also in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Without a sizeable regional presence, the Pentagon will not be able to maintain the predeployed resources and equipment necessary to contain Iran, and Washington will signal its lack of commitment to every ally in the region. Because containment is as much psychological as physical, basing will be its backbone.”

The Coats-Robb report was issued by a little-known group called the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). That organization, too, turns out to be interwoven with WINEP, not least because its foreign policy director is Michael Makovsky. Perhaps the most troubling participant in the Bipartisan Policy Center is Barack Obama’s éminence grise and one of his most important advisers during the campaign, Tom Daschle, who is slated to be his secretary of health and human services. So far, Daschle has not repudiated BPC’s provocative report.

Ross, along with Richard Holbrooke, recently made appearances amid another collection of superhawks who came together to found a new organization, United Against Nuclear Iran. UANI is led by Mark Wallace, the husband of Nicole Wallace, a key member of Senator John McCain’s campaign team. Among UANI’s leadership team are Ross and Holbrooke, along with such hardliners as Jim Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Fouad Ajami, the Arab-American scholar who is a principal theorist on Middle East policy for the neoconservative movement.

UANI is primarily a propaganda outfit. Its mission, it says, is to “inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran’s role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad” and to “heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the region and the world.”

Barack Obama has, of course, repeatedly declared his intention to embark on a different path by opening talks with Iran. He’s insisted that diplomacy, not military action, will be at the core of his approach to Tehran. During the election campaign, however, he also stated no less repeatedly that he will not take the threat of military action “off the table.”

Organizations like WINEP, AIPAC, AEI, BPC, and UANI see it as their mission to push the United States toward a showdown with Iran. Don’t sell them short. Those who believe that such a confrontation would be inconceivable under President Obama ought to ask Tony Lake, Susan Rice, Dennis Ross, Tom Daschle, and Richard Holbrooke whether they agree — and, if so, why they’re still palling around with neoconservative hardliners.

Robert Dreyfuss, an independent journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, is a contributing editor at the Nation magazine, whose website hosts his The Dreyfuss Report, and has written frequently for Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and the Washington Monthly. He is the author of Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

Copyright 2008 Robert Dreyfuss

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