Is it just me? First, Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, William Daley and now Jacob Lew. What they have in common? Well, let’s say that they are ‘insiders,’ Wall Street variety.
What does the COS do? According to Wiki,
The duties of the White House Chief of Staff vary greatly from one administration to another. However, the Chief of Staff has been responsible for overseeing the actions of the White House staff, managing the president’s schedule, and deciding who is allowed to meet with the president. Because of these duties, the Chief of Staff has at various times been labeled “The Gatekeeper”, “The Power Behind the Throne”, and “The Co-President”.
So the question I pose is this: Is Obama even appointing these guys? Does Obama have any control over who is at State, Treasury or War? Or is he a willing captive, pretending to be the man behind decisions made by others? It’s been apparent some time now, perhaps since Watergate, that presidents can be taken down, so perhaps the culling process now yields weak men like Obama, willing to be the Monkees pretending to play their own instruments when we all know they are not. It’s just a show? Is the office completely captive now to what FDR called “economic royalists?”
Has it come to that? I suspect so.
Piece of Mindful 
“Once in a Lifetime” or “Stop Making Sense” by David Byrne and the Talking Heads may have contemplated similar phenomena when Ronnie was sleep-walking those same White House corridors. Does not Obama evoke many of those same emotions of disbelief?
For me, The Emperor has had no clothes since Kennedy’s assassination. What’s changed? Well, for starters, the President is now the assassin and quite proud of if.
LikeLike
Looking for a new book. Thanks.
I have to to regard the Kennedy assassination as happenstance, my greatest revelation being that before and after, nothing changed. JFK worshpers insist without evidence that he wold have prevented Vietnam, whereas I came later to realize that one thing changed as a result of his death, and again, mere happenstance, that the Cuban people were spared a barbaric attack and its regime, flawed though it is, was spared. So as a result of his death the US was less warlike, less imperialistic for a brief time.
Russ Baker unintentionally stumbled into Watergate while pursuing other objectives, and came away thinking it was coup d’état with some heavy Bush presence. His Family of Secrets is pretty good, and I’d be glad to send it along if you’re interested. Unfortunately, Baker too was subsumed by JFK mythology, but he’s an honest inquirer, so may come around.
LikeLike
That’s s song, isn’t it. David Byrne and the Talking heads no an author.
LikeLike
Songs about living in Reagan’s America. “Same as it ever was…”
LikeLike