May 18, 2009

5/18: Huntsman Goes To China

Liberal bloggers haven't always appreciated Pres. Obama's efforts to nominate GOPers for key positions (see: Judd Gregg), but they love his decision to nominate UT Gov. John Huntsman (R) as U.S. amb. to China. Lefty bloggers see the Mandarin-speaking governor as an excellent choice for the position, describing him as "very well-qualified" and "someone who will be a very good public face for our country". Moreover, they love the political optics of the selection. In their view, Huntsman only accepted the position because he believes that the GOP has moved too far to the right for him to win the party's presidential nod in 2012.

Conservative bloggers, meanwhile, don't particularly care about Huntsman's decision, as he was never one of their favored WH '12 candidates. Michelle Malkin quips: "You know who won't miss Huntsman? Tea Party protesters who booed him on Tax Day."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Impomeni, Mirengoff, Lopez, Ponnuru) are criticizing the Univ. of Notre Dame for inviting Obama to speak at its graduation ceremony. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Fallows, Kleiman, Benen, Coates) were impressed by Obama's commencement speech.
• Conservative bloggers (McLaughlin, Hewitt, Johnson, Geraghty) continue to blast Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for criticizing the CIA during her 5/15 presser. Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Kleiman, Benen) are accusing conservatives of attacking Pelosi in order to intimidate Congress into not launching a torture investigation.
• Conservative bloggers (McCarthy, Johnson, Althouse) are accusing Obama of hypocrisy now that he's reportedly decided to keep George W. Bush's military commission system even though he explicitly criticized it during his presidential campaign. Several liberal bloggers (Greenwald, digby) are criticizing Obama as well.
• Liberal bloggers (Gardner, Benen, Dayen, Black, Foser) are criticizing New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd for plagiarizing a blog post written by TPM's Josh Marshall.
• Liberal bloggers (Peterr, LithiumCola, hilzoy, Benen, Aravosis) are buzzing about the revelation that ex-Def. Sec. Donald Rumsfeld's intelligence briefings from the early days of the Iraq War contained cover sheets that "juxtaposed war images with inspirational Bible quotes."

HUNTSMAN: Another Blow To The GOP?

Liberal bloggers are portraying the Huntsman selection as yet another sign that the GOP has moved too far to the right:

• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "I look at this as preserving the seed corn of the GOP. The current virus of crazy teabagging Palinite theocon wingnuts has to burn out sooner or later (one would have thought they would have already collapsed, exhausted by their hate, sheer stupidity and the weight of their own internal contradictions, but sadly, that group of crazies seem to have a little bit of life in them still), and if we can save the sane portions of the Republican party and reintroduce them to the wild, unscathed from the current taint at a later date, the better off we all are. [...] Unless my judgment is as bad as it was in 2000 [...], in 2016 Jon Huntsman could be the face of a rational opposition party."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Seeing Huntsman alongside President Obama this morning at the White House, I kept thinking about an incident from a couple of weeks ago. Huntsman had scheduled several campaign-style stops in Michigan, apparently to help lay the groundwork for future support. Republican leaders in one key Michigan county abruptly withdrew Huntsman's invitation, however, when local officials learned that the Utah governor had the nerve to support civil unions for gay couples. [...] It was a ridiculous move, of course, but it also sent a signal to Huntsman about the level of maturity in his party -- or in this case, the lack thereof. It's certainly possible the response from this county and other GOP activists made clear to Huntsman that it's not worth even trying to take the lead in the party, at least not in the near future. So, for now he's teaming up with Obama, perhaps wondering if Republicans will have grown up by 2016."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "...Huntsman was one of a relatively small number of prominent Republicans to have avoided a turn to the far-right over the past 12 months and seemed like the guy many progressives thought could best put a politically credible mainstream face on conservatism. [...] You've got to figure that Huntsman's decided that he couldn't possibly win a presidential primary, so he'll take the gig."
• Daily Kos's Dana Houle: "[PA Sen.] Arlen Specter's defection-under-duress to the Democratic party demonstrated the Republican base's intolerance of politicians who aren't doctrinaire far right wingers. It's gotten so bad that one of the most impressive potential presidential candidates who might have run against Barack Obama in 2012, a Republican from Utah, has not only given up his presidential aspirations, he's joining the Obama administration! [...] Taking a position with the Obama administration is conservative apostasy; this means any aspirations Huntsman had for being a Republican president are gone forever. Can anyone think of a possibly viable presidential candidate not only giving up a run by taking an ambassadorship, but in fact taking the ambassadorship to serve a president of the opposing party?"

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan loves the pick: "In what can only be called a genius move for the Democrats and a terrible blow to the GOP, Obama has coopted Utah governor John Huntsman to be his new ambassador to China. Huntsman is the one of very few -- Jeb [Bush] and [Charlie] Crist are the others, in my view -- who could rescue the GOP from generational oblivion. He's a conservative from Utah, but understands how ugly, bitter and extremist the Republicans have become. A pro-civil union Mormon who gets the problem of climate change, Huntsman was the un-[Dick] Cheney. And Obama just snagged him."

On the other hand, liberal blogger AdamGreen is annoyed that Obama praised Huntsman in his introductory speech: "Obama Speechwriters Give Jon Huntsman His First 2016 Presidential Campaign Ad...Good jub guys. [...] I think the decision to send Huntsman, who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, to China is reasonable. And I'm fine with Obama using it to advance his own post-partisan image. But for the White House to hand Huntsman Obama's 'always puts country first' imprimatur now is just irresponsible. Like attempting to clear the field for Arlen Specter, it's putting their own short-term expediency ahead of giving voters in our democracy an intellectually-honest choice at the polls. As someone who values intellectually-honest debate, that's not appreciated."

HUNTSMAN II: Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

Conservative bloggers aren't exactly fans of Huntsman:

• Malkin: "No wonder he's been skipping out on GOP meetings lately. [...] You know who won't miss Huntsman? Tea Party protesters who booed him on Tax Day. [...] DLTDHYOTWO."
• AmSpec Blog's Paul Chesser: "A politically active friend in the Beehive State reports a gleeful mood among colleagues over the apparent pending departure of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. -- a [Arnold] Schwarzeneggar/Crist clone on global warming -- because of his selection by President Obama as ambassador to China. His message: A great day for Utah - how can we ever thank the people of China?!"
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "And to think, some people accuse centrist Republicans of being Democrats in disguise."

Allahpundit continues: "What's his angle here? Three possibilities: (a) Despite all appearances, he was never thinking of running for president. (b) He was thinking of running, but he's enough of a patriot that he couldn't say no when the president called on him. (c) He was aiming at 2016 all along and this is actually a brilliant move to burnish his bipartisan cred and his foreign-policy gravitas in advance, especially insofar as it makes him a player with a rising superpower like China. My only question is, how does he get back on the national stage after he's done as ambassador? He could run against Utah's lone Democratic congressman, I guess, but that's not much of a perch from which to launch a presidential bid. Bob Bennett is 76 years old, but his Senate seat's up next year; even if he's planning to retire, Huntsman's not going to quit Team Barry so soon to run for it. I can only assume he's eyeing Orrin Hatch's seat, which is up in 2012. Hatch will be 78 at the time, which isn't old for a Senator but isn't young either. If he does run for another term, though, then Huntsman's frozen out. Maybe his interest in China is such that he simply couldn't turn down the opportunity, whatever it might mean for his future ambitions."

RedState's James Richardson thinks Huntsman will be a formidable candidate in '16: "By co-opting Huntsman, Obama will have successfully pacified the lone Republican 2012 challenger, thereby ensuring a stable route to victory. Then, of course, is the knowledge that he'll likely receive Republican praise for his gesture of bipartisanship, however politically shrewd it may be. Obama is an impressively calculating politician, perhaps more so than his former opponent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As such, he realizes a nomination of this nature will offer Huntsman the last needed ingredient for presidential success: foreign policy bona fides. [...] After running the greatest candidate-centered campaign of history, Obama is principally focused on his reelection campaign in 2012. It is of little concern, then, that he will have propelled Huntsman to the national stage in 2016 by no doing of his own."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Consummate Politician

The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates offers his thoughts on Obama's Notre Dame speech:

"Making your enemies look petty: Obama really excels at it. I was a kid during [Ronald] Reagan's day, so I'm not sure if that was the key to his success. But I watched Obama's speech yesterday, and he did it again. His basic pose is -- 'I'm willing to concede your good will, and maybe even a couple of periphery issues.' When his adversaries can't do the same, they just look small-minded.

It's almost unfair to people who disagree with him -- if I truly believed that abortion was the murder of children, I don't think I'd be interested in trading 'fair-minded words' with pro-choicers. It's murder, and I think I'd pursue it with exactly the sort of zeal as those who were booing Obama. But that's my perspective, and my outlook -- obviously it isn't the outlook of all pro-lifers. I'm just saying, I can see why you might be an extremist on the issue.

Politics aside, I think you have to give Obama credit for stepping right into the issue. I've seen weaker politicians drowning in handlers, reading from a carefully prepared text which fails to acknowledge the elephants dancing in the room. Obama, like he did in his race speech, went right at it. It likely won't please a lot of folks on either side, but if your goal is to grow the base, and expand the party, you've got the best man for the job -- even if it, at times, grates on people like me. But, hey. Expanding the party isn't my job -- it's his."

LEST WE FORGET: Chicken-Shit Asteroid Veers Away At Last Minute

From The Onion:

"TUCSON, AZ -- Though initial calculations showed it to be on a direct collision course with Earth, a pansy-ass asteroid approximately the size of Rhode Island has instead altered its trajectory to avoid the planet by more than 40,000 miles, astronomers at the University of Arizona reported Monday.

'Guess it just didn't have the spuds to go through with it,' Richard A. Kowalski of the school's Catalina Sky Survey said. 'Real big surprise. Maybe you can try again when you accrete a little more mass than 6.32 x 1015 kilograms, okay? Chicken-shit.'

Kowalski said that one month ago Asteroid 2009-XG2 -- nicknamed 'Old Limp Dick' -- was following a path that, even accounting for heat friction and gravitational pull from other celestial bodies, gave it a 97 percent chance of striking Earth. Further observation and calculations, however, indicated that the asteroid would instead tuck its balls between its legs and change its course by more than 22 degrees."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at May 18, 2009 12:45 PM