At the beginning of Obama’s term, when he talked about governing as a pragmatist, I perhaps foolishly believed he meant not pragmatism as DC understands it–as a principle-less squishy middle–but as the Pragmatist school of philosophers would mean it–as someone fundamentally open to and respectful of the ideas and viewpoints of all. Mind you, it [...]

Barack Obama is in Korea lecturing Americans to suck it up and embrace the catfood at the same time Biden was left to represent the WH at the Arlington National Cemetery ceremony to honor America’s Veterans; all so Obama could sell out American labor via a Korean free trade agreement. Dumbest politics ever.

There’s a lot to despise about David Axelrod’s announcement of Obama’s capitulation to the oligarchs on tax cuts, not least that he made this announcement on the same day Obama’s Catfood Commission Chairs started the process of stealing from seniors to “fix” our deficit. Let yesterday be marked as the day when a nominally Democratic [...]

The Federal Housing Administration Commissioner, David Stevens, has joined David Axelrod in stating that the Administration sees no reason to halt all foreclosures. That’s not a surprise in itself–it was pretty clear that Axe’s statement reflected official Administration policy. But I’m particularly interested in how Stevens justified this position in an email sent to the [...]

According to this story, the Administration (in the voice of David Axelrod) sees no need to halt foreclosures while the authorities sort out the mess caused by the fraud committed by loan servicers. “It is a serious problem,” said David Axelrod, who contended that the flawed paperwork is hurting the nation’s housing market as well [...]

What a ridiculous piece of crap this A1 article by Anne Kornblut is, proclaiming that Eric Holder is having a good week. It parrots conventional wisdom about what a bad time Eric Holder has had–pointing to turf battles he lost, rather than matters reflecting on the success or failure of DOJ itself. And then proclaims [...]

Check out the way the WaPo reports the news–based on three anonymous Administration sources–that Obama will be personally involved in choosing the location of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial. President Obama is planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, three administration officials [...]

One of the most telling anecdotes in this must-read Edward Luce skewer of the way a small circle of Obama advisors (Rahm, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Robert Gibbs) dominates his Administration is this story about his trip to China. On Mr Obama’s November trip to China, members of the cabinet such as the Nobel [...]

As Jason notes, David Axelrod has already taped a CSPAN response to Jane Mayer’s piece on Rahm’s spat about distractions like “the law” and “human rights” with Eric Holder and Greg Craig. In it, Axe appears to try to distance the White House from the decisions that have been attacked in the last few weeks, [...]

Last month, David Axelrod told reporters that Obama had talked to Blago about his replacement in the Senate.

The transition team just sent out a statement saying that is incorrect.

I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the President-elect has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy.