Some Ammo for Brother JG

Your cousin comes at you with an email, you reply with an IBD editorial, She sends you an AP link, you mail her a copy of Atlas Shrugged. It's the Chicago Way...

I have heard "The Chicago Way" many times (they even had it on the Irish TV series "Ballykissangel"), but I never knew where it was from. Kim Strassel provides a citation, quotes it, and then compares it to the Obama Administration. Great stuff and another Friday jk link to Strassel won't surprise nobody.

But my blog brother was looking for examples of "disingenuousness" from the President. And I feel the biggest bait-and-switch was the promise of "a new kind of politics" that is post-partisan, post-racial, post-political, post-toasties, &c. Candidate/Senator Obama promised Gandhi; President Obama gives us a cross between Nixon and Al Capone.

What makes these efforts notable is that they are not the lashing out of a frustrated political operation. They are calculated campaigns, designed to create bogeymen, to divide the opposition, to frighten players into compliance. The White House sees a once-in-a-generation opportunity on health care and climate. It is obsessed with winning these near-term battles, and will take no prisoners. It knows that CEOs are easily intimidated and (Fox News ratings aside) it is getting some of its way. Besides, roughing up conservatives gives the liberal blogosphere something to write about besides Guantanamo.

The Oval Office might be more concerned with the long term. It is 10 months in; more than three long years to go. The strategy to play dirty now and triangulate later is risky. One day, say when immigration reform comes due, the Chamber might come in handy. That is if the Chamber isn't too far gone.

White House targets also aren't dopes. The corporate community is realizing that playing nice doesn't guarantee safety. The health executives signed up for reform, only to remain the president's political piñatas. It surely grates that the unions—now running their own ads against ObamaCare—haven't been targeted. If the choice is cooperate and get nailed, or oppose and possibly win, some might take that bet.

There's also the little fact that many Americans voted for this president in thrall to his vow to bring the country together. It's hard to do that amid gunfire, and voters might just notice.

It's Kim Strassel -- ya gotta read da whole thing, wheddah you's from Chicago er not.

UPDATE: Not just mean old Republicans complianing: Politico: White House Attacks Worry Moderate Democrats

"It’s a mistake," said Rep. Jason Altmire, a moderate Democrat from western Pennsylvania. "I think it’s beneath the White House to get into a tit for tat with news organizations."

Altmire was talking about the Obama administration’s efforts to undercut Fox News. But he said his remarks applied just the same to White House efforts to marginalize the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a powerful business lobby targeted for its opposition to climate change legislation.

"There’s no reason to gratuitously piss off all those companies," added another Democrat, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia. "The Chamber isn’t an opponent."

Politics Posted by John Kranz at October 23, 2009 11:34 AM