Barack Obama Snubs Howard Dean

 President-elect Obama hasn’t gotten off to the greatest pre-inauguration start. Between the Blogojevich controversy with Rahm Emanuel, the unconstitutional appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, BIll Richardson’s resignation, Dianne Feinstein’s disapproval of Obama’s choice to head the CIA; Leon Panetta, his silence on the Israeli/Hamas battle leading Al-Qaeda to blame Obama for the violence which then in turn led to Obama deciding to talk to the terrorist organization; Hamas, the growing apprehension to his stimulus package from his own party, making fun of Nancy Reagan, and the media finally realizing that there are never any specifics in any of his speeches. The list keeps growing and growing.

 Now we can add this to the above list. President-elect Obama has snubbed Howard Dean, angering his supporters. When the president-elect named Tim Kaine to the head of the Democratic National Committee he didn’t even make a courtesy call to Dean and didn’t invite him to attend the press conference to witness the transferal of power.

 This is not sitting well with his supporters, especially since Howard Dean was also snubbed in regards to a cabinet position.

“The snub today was no accident,” said one Dean ally. “I guarantee you he would have rescheduled his trip if asked to attend. It’s easy to [screw] over people when you are riding high in the polls, let’s see how many people are singing his praises in six months.”

“It’s easy to screw people when you are on top”, that is a harsh statement. Here is more reaction:

It’s the most puzzling thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” added a longtime Democrat and friend of Dean, echoing the exasperation and befuddlement many close to him feel about his treatment since the election. “I have tried my best through [Obama advisers] Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and David Plouffe to ask if he ever committed some crime. I don’t get it. He’s been a good soldier

If we can forgive Joe Lieberman for actively campaigning against Obama, this seems crazy to me. And Hillary Clinton did OK, and lots of her people are getting plum assignments,” noted the ally. “I really think [Dean] has rehabilitated himself. He showed he can be team player. It just seems so odd, and I don’t know what the reasons are.

“He said he wanted to be in the Cabinet,” joked the source. “So they stuffed him in the Cabinet and locked the door.” 

 One supporter even blamed friction between Rahm Emanuel and Howard Dean.

Emanuel served as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and battled repeatedly with Dean over party priorities in 2006. Emanuel, then an Illinois congressman, wanted to focus resources on competitive House races while Dean was more focused on expanding the party’s reach into red America as part of his “50-state strategy.”

“Now one of them is the chief of staff to the president of the United States, and one of them is the outgoing party chair,” Trippi wryly observed.

 You do have to give credit to Howard Dean, his political career looked over after the infamous scream. Conservatives were laughing when Howard Dean muscled his way into the DNC chair, but he led the party to two straight victories in 2006 and 2008. We are not laughing any more.

He brought the party together and now they are in control of the whole thing. But now he is on the outside looking in.

 Here is where the problem lies with Obama and his supporters. President-elect Obama promised everything to everybody during the campaign. With his generalities and cliches and his lack of a voting record he was a blank canvass. He was all things to all people. People were able to look at him and listen to his speeches, which sounded great but said nothing, and read into them what they wanted to hear.

 There was never any way that Barack Obama was going to make everyone happy but his supporters didn’t see it that way. Some people were always going to be disappointed and now it is happening. Nobody can make everyone happy. This is going to be an ongoing theme throughout his presidency as people realize that he is going to have to make some concessions along the way.

 Opponents of candidate Obama were critical of his lack of details on any of his plans, but they themselves were criticized for the criticism by Obama’s supporters. Obama’s supporters denied that Obama was saying nothing because they were enamored with how he said it.

 Slowly but surely Obama’s supporters are beginning to see that maybe his critics had some legitimate points. They just have to hope that in the long run he can make enough people happy to win re-election or there will be a change.