Old School Ties UPDATE: Lobbyist?

Yesterday, the question was asked, “Who Is Eleanor Acheson?” The answer is that she’s the Amtrak vice president and legal counsel whose name is relevant to last week’s unexpected retirement of Amtrak inspector general Fred Wiederhold.

Acheson (“Eldie,” to her friends) was also Hillary Rodham Clinton’s college roommate and . . .

By sheerest coincidence, yesterday the State Department held its annual commemoration of “Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month,” at which the remarks were given by the department’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills:

First, on behalf of Secretary Clinton, I am honored to be here today and to celebrate LGBT Pride Month . . .
It is my great pleasure now to introduce a woman who has spent years serving the American people at Amtrak, at the Justice Department, at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She is a dear friend of Secretary Clinton, and she has been a wonderful public servant model and friend to me, Eldie Acheson.

NTTAWWT.

UPDATE: Ah, but there might be something wrong with this: Dan Riehl has discovered that, as recently as December 2008, Acheson was listed on a lobbyist disclosure form.

So, dear old Joe Biden gets $1.3 billion in “stimulus” money for Acheson’s Amtrak, and they don’t need no stinkin’ IG sniffing around.

But wait a minute, there’s more. As Michelle Malkin points out, Biden’s all abou Amtrak. Suppose that Biden’s fingerprints were discovered on some shenanigans at Amtrak, so that there was a real scandal? If dear old Joe had to resign . . .

Vice President Hillary? OK, that’s far-fetched. But did anybody else notice that Hillary’s now got Sidney Blumenthal working for her over at State Department?

Obama’s popularity is starting to fade, Obama backstabs the gays, now all sorts of scandal talk is starting to swirl and is it really a conspiracy theory to ask, Cui bono?

C’mon, folks. Andrew Sullivan blogs kookier stuff than that every day. Question the timing!

Dear Associated Press: Let’s talk about political celebrities and their ghost writers

Y’know, it was nice of you guys to assign Hilel Italie to write that story suggesting Sarah Palin doesn’t have the brains to write her own book.

Shall we discuss the editorial process behind, say, Bill Clinton’s My Life or Hillary Clinton’s Living History? Between them, the Clintons employed enough ghosts to staff the day shift at Disney World’s “Haunted Mansion” ride.

Having been a Washington, D.C., journalist since 1997, I can assure you that we “talk shop” often enough so that every writer inside the Beltway knows who’s ghosting whom. No need to name names, but suffice it to say that once somebody has served in the Cabinet or been elected Senator, any book published under his name can be assumed to be, at best, a team effort in which the named author was the quarterback. (Or sometimes, as one hears in regard to the Clintons, the meddlesome team owner who insists on second-guessing the editorial quarterback.)

However, since the Associated Press has taken this sudden and keen interest in the subject of potential future presidents and their ghostwriters, perhaps you could be bothered to run down a disturbing theory that has troubled me for several months.

After I founded Authors Against Obama, a reader called to my attention Jack Cashill’s theory that Dreams of My Father was ghost-written. Cashill offered abundant circumstantial evidence to support his theory, and perhaps the mighty AP could assign Hilel Italie to investigate this.

Or, as seems likely, perhaps not.

(Cross-posted at Hot Air Green Room.)

UPDATE: Allahpundit loves me! And Chris Matthews still hates Sarah Palin:

Republicans roll over for Hillary

The vote was 16-1 in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with Louisiana Sen. David Vitter as the only Republican with enough testicular fortitude to vote no. Jim Antle of the American Spectator:

It’s a pretty sad statement that so many Republicans are rolling over for Hillary Clinton. And the fact that many conservatives consider Hillary preferable to other alternatives shows that our political debate is continuing to drift left over time.

Tell it to Vince Foster.

‘I can’t stop thinking about this picture’

So says former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers:

An incredibly talented young aide, to an impossibly idealistic new president, gets caught doing something indefensibly stupid and undeniably sexist. Everyone is uncomfortable. But should anyone be held accountable? Apparently not.
The incident I’m talking about, of course, is the photo of Jon Favreau, Barack Obama’s 27-year-old wunderkind speechwriter, with his hand on a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton’s chest. . . .
I can’t stop thinking about this picture, and I confess I find it really upsetting. And, no, it’s not because I don’t have a sense of humor.

The fact that Myers feels the need to insist that she’s not humorless should clue you into the fact that what follows is . . . well, humorless:

What’s bugging me is his intention. He isn’t putting his hand on her “chest,” as most of the articles and conversations about the picture have euphemistically referred to it. Rather, his hand — cupped just so — is clearly intended to signal that he’s groping her breast. And why? Surely, not to signal he finds her attractive. Au contraire. It’s an act of deliberate humiliation. Of disempowerment. Of denigration.
And it disgusts me.

Oh, puh-leeze. Look, to start with, no one named “Dee Dee” is allowed to take themselves so seriously. Second, groping a cardboard cutout’s boob doesn’t “signal” anything, except maybe that the person doing it is drunk. Third, I greatly admire Andrew Breitbart and enjoyed his Monday column about this, but he was trying to make a point about double standards: What would have happened if the offending staffer were a Republican?

The question was asked as a hypothetical, to make a point. I’m not sure that Breitbart was advocating that Jon Favreau actually suffer that fate. And certainly, I don’t.

I cannot be accused of sympathy toward Obama, but I’m tired of seeing careers in Washington destroyed by one ginned-up “incident.” Fifty or sixty years from now, when Favreau dies, his Washington Post obituary will include a paragraph about the cardboard-cutout groping incident, and I’m sure he can live with that. But to try to get him fired over that? No. And not just no, but hell, no.

As a conservative, I am grateful to Jonathan Favreau for (unintentionally) exposing the partisan double standards of media outrage about “sexism” — the scare-quotes signifying that I don’t think Favreau is any more “sexist” than anyone else. And if someone out there has a Facebook photo of a Hillary Clinton staffer acting disrespectfully toward a cardboard cutout of Obama, please publish it, so that we can discuss “racism” in the same context.

This all goes back, as Breitbart said in his column, to when “righteous feminists . . . tried to destroy Clarence Thomas – for nothing.” The worst that was alleged against Thomas was that he had made a couple of off-color jokes at the office, which somehow became transmogrified by feminist witch-hunters into sexual harassment of the “hostile environment” variety. It was insane and unjust and I hope that Jonathan Favreau, at least, can now understand why it was insane and unjust.

As for you, Ms. Myers: Spare us your phony belated outrage. You were a joke as White House press secretary, and the only reason anyone pretends to take you seriously now is because your husband is an editor at Vanity Fair.

UPDATE: Linked at Hot Air. Thanks! Over at Q&O, McQ coughs up a lung laughing at the irony of a former staffer for Bill Clinton being offended by sexual harassment. I’m sure Kathleen Willey is laughing, too.

UPDATE II: James Joyner:

If Obama wants to fire this guy for being a dumbass and embarrassing himself and his boss, that’s fine by me. If he doesn’t, though, it’s not a signal that he’s indifferent to sexism but rather that he doesn’t think groping a cardboard cutout is a hanging offense.

Unless the cardboard cutout files a lawsuit, or unless Favreau is caught on an FBI wiretap declaring that a Senate seat is a “f—ing valuable thing,” I’m pretty sure Favreau will keep his job, on the “No Drama Obama” principle. On the other hand, it’s nice to note how the Obama administration is already delivering juicy scandals more than a month before he’s even inaugurated. As I told a friend last night at my son Jefferson’s birthday party: “This is gonna be a good four years for me.”

Breitbart on double standards

The case of the cardboard-cutout Clinton:

If the photo had exposed a Republican offender, there’d already be a full-bore media scandal and cascading resignations. MSNBC would be rearranging its schedules for a wall-to-wall 24/7 bonanza. Rachel Maddow would finally have her big story. Barbara Boxer, Patricia Schroeder and other righteous feminists would walk up the Capitol steps, reprising the time they tried to destroy Clarence Thomas – for nothing.
Yet so far there is no groundswell of feminist rage in the District of Columbia. The unnamed co-conspirator thrusting the beer bottle into the mouth of the designated secretary of state isn’t yet a household slur.
Instead, with the accused being a member of the protected Democratic class, we only have a quick peripheral debate. The mainstream media headlines soften the story’s implications: “Obama speechwriter Favreau learns the perils of Facebook” (CNN).

The double standard is truly obnoxious, but I’m not really offended by the photo — and I don’t think Hillary was, either. I think she was actually flattered by the attention. As a matter of fact, that photo probably depicts Hillary’s fantasy of a wild weekend: “Grab me! Grope me! Make me drink Heineken!”

Oh, wait . . . that’s my fantasy weekend. Never mind.

UPDATE: Linked by VodkaPundit. Thanks.

UPDATE II: Moe Lane: “Besides, that cardboard cutout was totally asking for it.” Cardboard cutout consent.

Her Unconstitutionality?

Many bloggers are intrigued by the possibility that Hillary Clinton is forbidden, under Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, from taking the job as Secretary of State. Marc Ambinder sums it up:

Essentially, you cannot take a job if the salary was increased during your current congressional term. And the salary for cabinet officials has gone up in the past year.

Not that the Clintons have ever let the Constitution stand in their way before, but Ed Morrissey points out:

Still, the intent of the founders is clear, and not something to shrug off so lightly. They wanted to keep Congress from creating cushy sinecures for them to occupy when a friendly President took office. The attraction of power, cash, and cronyism would lead to corruption and a permanent political class that would cease answering to the electorate.

We are well past the point where constitutional restraints have any real meaning. On the one hand, the Supreme Court looks at the Constitution and sees things — “penumbras and emanations” and the “sweet mystery of life” — that aren’t there. On the other hand, the limits of the enumerated powers are ignored and the 10th Amendment eviscerated by the very existence of the massive establishment in Washington. If the Constitution had any real power, the Department of Education would not exist.

The Constitution now means whatever the fashionable professors say it means. Perjury and obstruction of justice cannot be “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the professors assured us during the Lewinsky scandal. I’m sure the Clinton Foundation can make a few research grants and buy off enough law professors to legitimize whatever it is that Hillary wants. The dictatorship of the professoriate!

Sid is back!

Wherever the Wicked Witch goes, can her flying monkeys be far behind?

Late last week, as stories swirled around Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s possible jump to the job of Secretary of State, another longtime Clinton aide’s name began to crop up: former journalist and Clinton back-room consigliere, Sidney Blumenthal.
Should Clinton accept the Secretary of State job, Blumenthal, it is believed, will move to Foggy Bottom as a counsel to the secretary, a post that will not require Senate confirmation, but will require an extensive security and background check.
According to Obama transition team sources, Clinton aides presented them with a list of potential senior staff for the Secretary of State office, and Blumenthal’s name — without a title or role described — was on it.

Hope! Change! Sidney Blumenthal! Don’t you know there’s got to be some Obama volunteers who walked precincts for him in New Hampshire who are now about to blow a gasket over Hillary getting a Cabinet post — and bringing her evil minions with her?

The media’s anointed One

John McCain aide Mark Salter complains bitterly about how totally in the tank the media is for Obama, and Tom Bevan recalls that Hillary Clinton’s aides had the same complaint.

The longer the Democratic primary campaign lasted, the more the national press corps acted like they were on Obama’s payroll. I’ll never forget that day in Shepherdstown, W.Va., right after the North Carolina primary, when this fat, obnoxious CBS reporter more or less told Hillary to quit:

Does her vow to keep fighting, asked one network TV reporter, mean that Clinton will continue her campaign all the way until the vote on the convention floor in Denver?
“I’m staying in this race until there’s a nominee, and I obviously am going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee,” she answered. “So we will continue to contest these elections and move forward.”
The reporter fired back with a follow-up question: “But what do you say to those Democrats who fear that you’re putting the Democratic Party’s chances at risk by…continuing to stay in?”

Honestly, who were “those Democrats” whose fears that jerk from CBS was expressing? Him and his liberal buddies on the press bus, that’s who.

Americans should remember this well. If the Obama presidency goes bad wrong — and does anyone seriously expect it to go well? — it was the media who elected him. Those biased bastards like that guy from CBS will bear a huge responsibility for the result.

How not to solve the problem

Hillary Rodham Clinton:

We should also put in place a temporary moratorium on foreclosures and freeze rate hikes in adjustable-rate mortgages. We’ve got to stem the tide of failing mortgages and give the markets time to recover. . . .
If we do not take action to address the crisis facing borrowers, we’ll never solve the crisis facing lenders.

Moron. Let’s go through this, shall we?

Q. “Failing mortgages” are caused by . . . what?

A. People not making their payments.

So Hillary’s answer is to let people stay in “their” houses, even though they’re not making the payments? What she is actually saying is that the federal government should give people houses.

By Hillary’s reckoning, people who swindled banks by signing mortgages they couldn’t pay are victims. The moral calculus of liberalism therefore justifies fraud.

‘Hillary is not on the ticket’

Patrick Healy: “You know what I keep hearing privately from advisers to Hillary? They say, ‘Why is it our job to blunt Palin’s impact? Hillary is not on the ticket. Obama didn’t choose her.’ I don’t think it’s so much about resentment, it’s an honest assessment that Hillary can only do so much in this regard.”

“Hillary is not on the ticket.” They’re going to keep saying that and saying that, and after John McCain gets elected on Nov. 4, you’re never going to hear the end of them saying it: “Hillary was not on the ticket.” Then we’ll spend the next four years waiting for Hillary to run again, and any Democrat who even thinks about challenging her will be demonized.

And forget about Obama after Nov. 4. The Democrats shoot their wounded. For better or worse, Republicans operate by the “it’s his turn” principle, whereas Democrats are always about the “fresh new face.” As Howard Dean showed, you’ve got exactly one chance to be the “fresh new face” with the Democrats, and once you blow that, you’re through.

So McCain wins this year, the economic collapse grows increasingly worse, the entitlement crisis gets punted a few yards downfield, and the stage is all set for Hillary’s big comeback in 2012. She’ll be really inevitable next time around.