BREAKING NEWS: Tom Daschle to be both Health Czar and Health and Human Services Secretary

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN:

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the former Senate majority leader has indicated he wants the job, three sources close to the transition told CNN Wednesday.

The sources said that Daschle negotiated that he will also serve as the White House health "czar," or point person, so that he will report directly to the incoming president.

By wearing two hats, Daschle -- not White House staffers -- will be writing the health care plan that Obama submits to Congress next year.

It's not official yet -- no comment from the Obama team, and of course Daschle would still need to be confirmed -- but, if true, it's an excellent pick.

Daschle was hugely instrumental in Obama's election win, providing not just his support from early on but also many of his former staffers. And he also has the political savvy and experience to lead the policy development and implementation process and to guide the legislation through Congress once the time comes.

As is so often the case with all things health-care-related, I turn to TNR's Jonathan Cohn: "This is a perfect role for Daschle. Although he was always been interested in health care, in the last few years he's become a true wonk on the subject, publishing a book called Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. It urges precisely the sorts of reforms President-Elect Obama and his congressional allies are promoting right now."

For those of us who think health care should be one of Obama's key priorities going forward, this is a promising move, to say the least.

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UPDATE: Ezra Klein is also pleased: "This is huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform. You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate. And he accepts because he has been assured that you mean to attempt health care reform.

Hillary to Foggy Bottom?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The latest juicy morsel of speculation coming out of The Transition, or at least making its way around Transition watchers, has to do with Hillary being a candidate for Secretary of State. Here's WaPo:

There's increasing chatter in political circles that the Obama camp is not overly happy with the usual suspects for secretary of state these days and that the field might be expanding somewhat beyond Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and maybe former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

There's talk, indeed, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) may now be under consideration for the post. Her office referred any questions to the Obama transition; Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment.

Well, okay, though I'd prefer to have Hillary in the Senate working on, say, health care reform.

I still think it'll be Kerry, who clearly wants the job, who would provide progressive leadership on U.S. foreign policy, and who would be an effective counterweight to the more hawkish, Republican-lite Democratic foreign policy establishment with which Obama has surrounded himself (Richard Holbrooke, another possibility for the job, et al.). I don't mind Richardson, but there's just too much of the bumbling fool about him, and Hagel... well, as much as I admire him for his tough stand against the Iraq War, he's still a conservative Republican.

At MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell reports that Tom Daschle could be a "compromise choice." I didn't think much of him when he was Senate majority leader, but his support for Obama, from early on, was impressive, and I think he'd be an asset to the Obama Administration. I just don't think he's right for State.

As for Hillary, I just wonder how effectively she and Obama would be able to work together. At Politico, Mike Allen reports that she may be "the favorite," and that appointing her to State "would create the ultimate 'Team of Rivals' cabinet, according to officials involved in the discussions." Fair enough, and, indeed, there is certainly a lot to recommend her -- not least her foreign and military policy experience, her engagement in world affairs, and her undeniable stature and credibility. And it would certainly be a news-dominating pick, overshadowing the rest of the Transition and Obama's other Cabinet appointments. (For more, see Taylor Marsh, who makes a good case for her.)

I'd be happy with either Kerry or Hillary. I've been leaning towards Kerry, given that I'm closer to him on policy, but the thought of an Obama-Hillary foreign policy team, if it is at all workable, is rather appealing.

GWB: "not a man of peace"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it -- and, well, most of us did -- President Bush gave an interview to The Times (U.K.) in Slovenia the other day during which he admitted that, well, things haven't all gone well during his presidency:

President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a "guy really anxious for war" in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.

In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. "I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric."

Phrases such as "bring them on" or "dead or alive", he said, "indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace". He said that he found it very painful "to put youngsters in harm's way". He added: "I try to meet with as many of the families as I can. And I have an obligation to comfort and console as best as I possibly can. I also have an obligation to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain."

Almost enough to arouse one's sympathy for the man, no?

Well, no, not really.

Look, I don't think Bush is the pure evil he is often made out to be, and I'm sure there's a side to him that is more genuinely humane than the macho image of himself he so often presents to the world. And I'm sure that the loss of so many of America's young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan -- his wars, that is, particularly the former -- arouses that more humane side.

Also, I'm sure that, in terms of the Iraq War (and of his foreign policy generally), he has been motivated by noble aims (alongside the ignoble ones). It isn't just about oil and Amerian hegemony for him. In that sense, he isn't like Cheney or Wolfowitz or Libby or Feith or the neocon warmongers who all along have demanded war, war, and more war. There's a scene recounted at the beginning of Hubris, the excellent book about the selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, where Bush, on the South Lawn of the White House with Ari Fleischer and other communications staffers, responds to being told about gadfly reporter Helen Thomas's questions about a possible war with Iraq with this sudden stream of righteous passion: "Did you tell her I don't like motherfuckers who gas their own people? Did you tell her I don't like assholes who lie to the world? Did you tell her I'm going to kick his sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mideast?"

Therein, I think, lies the essence of the man, in all its contradictions. He believes in the eternal struggle between good and evil. He believes that he is on the side of justice. He believes that he has a responsibility to wage war against injustice. And, of course, he was right about Saddam -- that is, he was right about him to the extent that Saddam was a brutal dictator who committed genocide against his own people (obviously, he wasn't right about Saddam's alleged WMD capabilities, or about Saddam's allegedly imminent threat to American interests).

I can excuse the language, but there isn't much nuance or subtlety to Bush. It's about kicking his "motherfucking ass," not about building an international coalition to stabilize the Middle East. Bush is a self-righteous man, with strong (if somewhat shallow) convictions, but he is also a child, one who could easily be manipulated by adults like Cheney.

Regardless, it's a bit late for contrition, however (in)sincere. He may have his regrets, but, ultimately, he is to blame for what happened. He politicized 9/11, using it as a partisan wedge. He pushed far war with Iraq. He spun the lies and misrepresentations, just as much as his underlings. He ruined America's image and credibility around the world. He balked at (and undermined) diplomatic efforts to resolve international conflicts. He ratcheted up the warmongering rhetoric against Iran. He used the sort of language that made him sound like anything but a man of peace. He may be thinking about his legacy, about how he will be remembered, about what history will say about him, but to claim now that he is really just a compassionate man of peace who encourages diplomacy is laughable -- and hardly borne out by the record.

Hubris is full of evidence to refute Bush's revisionistic claims that he is a man of peace who regrets that things went the way they did. Here's one incident that stands out (p. 117):

At a breakfast with a few congressional leaders in late September [2002], Bush expressed exasperation when the issue fo a diplomatic settlement arose. Saddam had shown his contempt for the United States, he told the legislators. There was no use talking to him. "Do you want to know what the foreign policy of Iraq is to the United States?" Bush asked angrily. The president then answered his own question by raising his middle finger and thrusting it inches in front of Senator [Tom] Daschle's face, according to a witness. "Fuck the United States!" Bush continued. "That's what it is -- and that's why we're going to get him!"

Yes, "a different tone, a different rhetoric" would have been nice, but, again, Bush was playing partisan politics over 9/11 and Iraq all along, especially ahead of the 2002 congressional elections and then again in 2004 when he was up for re-election.

Sorry, Mr. Bush, we know you far too well to take you at your revisionistic word.