Rahm and Axe: Timmeh Has Got His Groove Back

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 that the arrest of Faisal Shahzad makes all those political battles disappear, at least for this week. For Anne Kornblut, it’s more valuable for the Attorney General to win the approval of a bunch of demagoguing political enemies than to get one after another terrorist to plead guilty and cooperate with the government.

Which sort of tells you about Kornblut’s judgment.

But it’s not Kornblut’s judgment that is most ridiculous in this article. It’s Rahm and David Axlerod’s:

Likewise, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel acknowledged that Holder had “a very good week,” comparing his ups and downs to those experienced by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. “A year ago, people were saying Geithner isn’t what he’s supposed to be — and now he has his mojo back,” Emanuel said Wednesday. “The same with Eric.”

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, drew an identical comparison in a separate interview, saying: “Washington is a town of ups and downs, and there are other members of the administration — I think of Geithner, for example — who was in the barrel for a while. And it’s just the way this town works.”

So apparently Anne Kornblut felt her little theory that Eric Holder had a good week was important enough to ask the White House Chief of Staff about.

Really, Anne? That’s what you waste Rahm’s time with? Rather than, say, a question about the coordination between Janet Napolitano and John Brennan on terror strikes and oil spills, something that is not only part of the Chief of Staff’s job description but actually matters?

Apparently, though, both Rahm and Axe not only took her call to answer such an inane question, but they gave her … exactly the same answer. “Sure Anne, Holder has had a good week, but have you noticed what a good week Timmeh is having?” That is, both of them magically turned her inquiry about Holder’s mojo into a question to highlight what they claim to be Tim Geithner’s mojo.

Really, Rahm? Really, Axe?

Not only is it an absurd response, revealing not only that they’d rather not crow about Administration successes if it involves celebrating Holder, but also that they’re conducting a concerted effort to seed the conventional wisdom that people like Timmeh again.

Which is all the more absurd considering the Administration may face its biggest conflict with Congress if the amendment to audit the Fed passes. That is, the Administration may be placed in the very awkward position of vetoing a key oversight and transparency measure at least partly to protect Timmeh, whom those with a bit of knowledge suspect may be neck deep in the fraud that brought down our economy. Congress is attempting (and has widespread bipartisan support, even if it doesn’t pass the amendment) to target Timmeh and the culture of corrupt dealing he comes from, yet Rahm and Axe are telling journalists that Timmeh has gotten his groove back.

I guess they judged the relative skepticism of their audience well, though, cause Kornblut repeated it without guffawing or even snickering.

And all of this–Rahm and Axe’s juvenile popularity contest, their dubious claim that a guy involved in corrupt doings that are finally being exposed is somehow free from taint from those corrupt doings, and Kornblut’s incorporation of that dubious claim into a story measuring that popularity contest–got placed on the front page of the Washington Post.

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25 replies
  1. Patri says:

    Anne Kornblut and The Washington Post are happy to kiss the rings of Rahm and Axelrod in order to maintain access to the administration. She and her colleagues throughout WaPo will say and do anything they are told to ensure that the American People are kept in the dark about all the corruption, greed, and power grabs that are going on behind the scenes. Neither the administration moguls nor the MSM care about the people. Most of the media are slimy corporatists and those pulling the strings in this administration (i.e., Rahm, Axelrod, Geithner, Rubin, Summers, et alia) are even worse. Progressives, unite. Get rid of the slime and start sweeping out the Washington sludge and slime that are Congress and the Obama administration!

  2. BoxTurtle says:

    I had such hopes when Holder was selected. It seemed likely to me that he’d be above the politics and we might get some justice for BushCo.

    STOP LAUGHING, DAMMIT!!!

    Anymore, the idea of Rahn, Axe, and Holder playing tattletales and other playground games simply means they’re not covering up or screwing up somthing else at the time. And much like Bush going on vacation during a crisis, it’s a good thing.

    Boxturtle (I think if Hillary was president, there’d be bitchslaps for all)

    • JTMinIA says:

      >> “I had such hopes when Holder was selected.”

      Same as we had hopes for Craig and Johnsen and a few others. Which is what ObamaRama promised: hope. He never said he would fulfill those hopes. Just that you could have your hope (and eat it, too).

      So quite yer b*tch*n’ and go back to hopin’ like yer supposed to.

      • BoxTurtle says:

        So quite yer b*tch*n’ and go back to hopin’ like yer supposed to.

        GOOOOOOO Browns!!!!! I see 11-5 this year and the top seed for the playoffs!

        Boxturtle (STOP LAUGHING, DAMMIT!)

  3. skdadl says:

    I hadn’t got to your deeper levels, EW, but those two successive paragraphs, especially when they actually include this line

    drew an identical comparison in a separate interview,

    are such a hoot on the face of it. I mean, that is close to self-parody — how could the person who got those two “identical” interviews and wrote them out not then look at what she had written and smack herself on the forehead?

  4. Leen says:

    Rahm “Likewise, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel acknowledged that Holder had “a very good week,” comparing his ups and downs to those experienced by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. “A year ago, people were saying Geithner isn’t what he’s supposed to be — and now he has his mojo back,” Emanuel said Wednesday. “The same with Eric.”

    Rahm has done more than his fair share to undermine Holder’s decisions.

  5. Mary says:

    Another aspect that didn’t provoke much questioning on Kornblut’s part is the role of Obama’s policies with respect to this domestic threat. It’s not al-Qaeda or the Afghan Taliban that we went to war against that are being linked to this attack – it’s the Pakistani Taliban. And no word on Obama’s policies of amped up and ramped up civilian killings in Pakistan and what kind of domestic blowback they could be beginning to generate.

  6. earlofhuntingdon says:

    I guess I never learned the good government amounted to no more than a popularity contest involving one’s seniors and their paid journalist hacks; actually operating a huge department or agency and effectively managing thousands of people must be for suckers and hippies. Who woulda thunkit.

  7. cregan says:

    I agree with your post. Very good. But, it is apparent that Rahm and Axe WANTED to get this message out. Kornblut provided a very convenient forum.

    Rather than wasting their time, she likely helped them accomplish one “message of the day” point.

  8. Mauimom says:

    The Washington Post Corporation is selling the wrong entity [Newsweek].

    OTOH, they seem to be increasingly taking on the characteristics of their most successful component, Kaplan Test Preparation Services: memorize a bunch of “facts” and spit them out to win the approval of your “betters.”

    For a while I had hope that Warren Buffett [on the WaPoo board, and former mentor of Katherine Graham] might kick the WaPoo in the shins to protect Berkshire’s investment. But after hearing Buffett’s defense and endorsement of Goldman and Blankfein at the BH annual meeting last weekend, all such hope [and faith in his judgment] is gone.

  9. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Barack Obama: institutionalizing torture, institutionalizing excessive executive power, secrecy and unaccountability; institutionalizing the politicization of the Department of Justice. Karl Rove’s wet dream: he can blame it all on the Democrats.

  10. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Timmeh is a stand-in, the sock puppet over the hand of Summers, Rubin and their less visible compadres. Who has whose hand up their puppet among Obama, Rahm and these guys I leave to other commentators.

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