Rahm’s White House going away present – dead fish wrapped in newspaper
What do you get a guy who’s leaving the White House to run for Mayor of Chicago?
White House colleagues presented Rahm Emanuel with a dead Asian carp wrapped in Chicago newspapers at the morning meeting on his last day.
It was a symbol of two of the many political battles fought by the man who became President Barack Obama’s chief of staff — he once sent a dead fish to a pollster as a message of displeasure, and the other was his fight against the Asian carp threatening to invade the Great Lakes.
Our White House correspondent Steve Holland tells us that Austan Goolsbee gave it to Rahm at a senior staff meeting, saying, “I talked to the policy team and we wanted to give you a going away present—something to show how we feel about you but also shows we understand your new possibilities. I was the natural go between—I voted for you all three times you ran for Congress and even in that first primary. So here is your present.”
Emanuel opened it and said, “this is a dead fish!” And Goolsbee said, “to most people, it looks like a dead fish. But to a future mayor of Chicago, it looks like a dead Asian Carp. And you’ll be happy to know that it wasn’t easy to find one of these.”
“ In Chicago, this is how friends say goodbye ,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Rahm told senior staff in the Roosevelt Room: “I know that I pushed you all very hard. But I did it in service to the president and I believe that our whole country is better off for it.”
from Summit Notebook:
Lady Gaga may not be the only one singing a new tune in November
The 2010 Reuters Washington Summit included 4 days of on-the-record interviews with policymakers, congressmen and Obama Administration officials here in the DC bureau. The interviews covered a wide range of topics…from the impact of the mid-term elections to the importance of the Lady Gaga vote.
With less than six weeks to go before the mid-term elections the focus was on what a potential shift in power to a Republican-controlled Congress could mean for policy priorities in the coming year. We heard from Senators’ McCain, Dodd, Gregg and Bingaman. On the House side we spoke with the man responsible for getting Democrats elected…Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He called this election season a “tough and challenging environment,’ but predicted Democrats would retain control of the House.
From the Obama Administration, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs opened his comments by admitting that early on the administration did not have a “real understanding of the depth of what we were in.” News of Larry Summers’ departure as White House advisor came on the eve of our interview with a man who has worked with Summers, Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. Goolsbee said he expected that Mr. Summers’ replacement wouldn’t be part of “a dramatic change in direction.” On the economy, Goolsbee noted that he does not see a double dip on the horizon and that “pulling back on current spending programs could spook the markets.”
On the regulatory front, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair was adamant in her remarks about “ending too big to fail” and said that “the banking system is healing…and there is continuing improvement in low quality loans.” Meanwhile, Treasury’s Special Inspector General for TARP, Neil Barofsky, the man charged with policing the government’s exit from GM and AIG, said his group would begin a probe into the GM IPO after it launches to make sure that it was in the best interest of taxpayers.
On Afghanistan, we heard from Richard Holbrooke, Special Advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan who was measured in his response to the Obama Administration’s planned timetable for withdrawal.
And, what about the Lady Gaga vote? Senator McCain brought up the pop star and her opposition to 'Don’t Ask Don’t Tell' which was scheduled for a vote the day after McCain’s visit to our bureau, saying “I didn’t Twitter back. I only twitter with Snooki as you know. I did say, I said, look, I welcome her in the debate, I’ll welcome all of her young fans into the debate. Let’s have everybody in the the debate…it’s good to have lots of people involved.”
The summit upshot: if polls are correct and Republicans win more seats in the Senate and retake the House, all of Washington may be singing a different tune come November 3rd.
from Summit Notebook:
No time for fun for White House officials
While senators like Lamar Alexander have time to play classical piano with the symphony or attend sporting events, some people in Washington don't have as much time for fun or relaxation.
Take Austan Goolsbee, the new chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, who until recently worked as a member of the council and a long-time economic adviser to Obama.
Goolsbee used to compete in triathlons. Now he jokes that he is so out of shape he can hardly make it up the stairs without losing his breath.
"I stopped working out completely when I got here," Goolsbee told the Reuters Washington Summit. Now I can't walk up the stairs without going a-huff, a-huff, a-huff," he said as he made the sounds of someone gasping for air.
Of course the trim Goolsbee -- who doesn't look at all like he would be panting for air going up the stairs -- is also a jokester.
Though he claims he is not very good, he lists "improv" as well as triathlons as his extracurricular activities. Last year he won the Funniest Celebrity in Washington Contest, though in self-deprecating humor he dismissed the honor saying the competition was not tough, noting that one of his opponents was "Joe the Plumber."
Remember him? He's the man who became a Republican icon after challenging Obama on the economy during the 2008 election campaign.
Washington Extra – The finer things in life
If I come back in my next life as an American, I am thinking that a career in the Senate might be a better way to go than in the administration or the military. Whatever you think of their political views, the senators who have visited our offices for the Washington Summit this week have not just been charming and interesting to talk to, they also seem to have time for the finer things in life. Take Senator Lamar Alexander, who not only has the time to watch Tennessee football pretty regularly, but also likes to play classical piano and has a date on center stage with the Jackson Symphony at the end of next month. “I try to keep a balanced life,” he said.
No such luck for hard-pressed administration types, working at a pace that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says “is and has been grueling for a long period of time,” especially if you take two years of campaigning into account. Take Austan Goolsbee, who used to compete in the triathlon, but now has no time to train and jokes he is so out of shape he can’t walk up the stairs without gasping for breath. Or General David Petraeus, who is already at work by 5:30 in the morning, and when he goes to bed around 10 or 11 at night, only manages a couple of pages in whatever book he is reading “before it falls on the floor.”
That grueling pace is one reason, Gibbs argued, why many members of Obama’s economic team and political inner circle are on their way out, to spend a bit more time “with their family and their friends.” It is not, as Goolsbee insisted, an acknowledgment that the administration has made mistakes, or that it needs to change direction.
The president sets direction and has always been focused on improving the economy, Goolsbee told the summit today. “And I don’t see that changing at all. Whoever comes in and goes out, I anticipate very much that the president is going to identify people who aspire to stick on that same course.” And presumably, people who don’t mind long hours.
Finally, some great stories from the summit today, including Goolsbee warning against any premature “belt-tightening” next year, Petraeus on plans to gradually withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Democratic Senator Jim Bingaman basically admitting defeat on climate change legislation, and various Republicans on their plans to chip away at healthcare and financial reform legislation after November’s elections. Plus our exclusive Reuters/Ipsos poll from Arkansas.
Here are our top stories from today…
Obama to push message on economy, hold news conference
Washington pundits questioned President Barack Obama’s decision to devote so much time this week to foreign policy with his Iraq speech on Tuesday and his foray on Wednesday into Middle East peacemaking at a time when Americans are preoccupied with the economy.
But Obama’s message next week seems like it will be heavily focused on jobs and the economy. He will mark Labor Day with a “Laborfest” event on Monday in Milwaukee and travel to Cleveland on Wednesday for an event on the economy.
On Friday, he will hold a news conference at the White House.
Could next week bring a decision on how he will fill two key jobs — chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and the head of the new U.S. consumer agency?
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs won’t say. But he did advise that it was unlikely there would be a decision on either of those jobs this week.
Meanwhile, speculation is growing that Austan Goolsbee is the favorite to replace departing CEA chair Christina Romer and that Elizabeth Warren is likely to be tapped as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Talk that the White House might be getting ready to make an announcement on Warren grew on Thursday after The Washington Post reported that the Harvard law professor and outspoken consumer advocate will no longer be teaching a contracts class that had been on her schedule for the fall.
White House adviser nods to bubble risk in China
He was probably only trying to be funny. But White House economist Austan Goolsbee touched a raw nerve by inferring Chinese investors currently exhibit the same kind of bubble mentality that Americans displayed prior to the collapse of the U.S. technology stock bubble in 2000.
Goolsbee, chief economist to Obama’s Economic Recovery and Advisory Board, was asked if poll findings that 72 percent of Chinese would invest money in technology stocks, versus 60 percent of Americans who would put it in a bank, meant the United States had lost its nerve on taking risk.
“We are in a deep recession. It is clear that that has scared people,” Goolsbee told a panel at a conference on innovation and the economy sponsored by Intel Corp. and the Aspen Institute.
“I bet in 1999 in the U.S., we’d have had 72 percent saying ‘yeah, I want to invest in a tech company’. Give them a few popping bubbles, and maybe they’ll be putting it in the bank,” he said.
Surging U.S. technology stock prices peaked in March 2000, with the subsequent collapse tipping the economy into a short recession.
Analysts warn that China is ripe for a bursting bubble of its own. The country’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed on Monday at 3,235, back from a recent peak above 3,470, but almost twice its trough during last year’s global financial crisis around 1,700.
“Did you see The Onion headline? They had a joke headline: ‘Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In’. There is a sad grain of truth to that,” Goolsbee said, referring to the satirical U.S. publication.
Goolsbee: economist by day, comedian by night
Funny guy emerges from the dismal science.
Austan Goolsbee, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, proved last night that economists can dish as good as they get.
He turned the tables on the image of the economist as a numbers nerd usually on the receiving end of jokes, by winning the 16th annual “D.C.’s Funniest Celebrity” contest.
The video of his winning routine at the Washington D.C. Improv posted on Politico.com can be seen below.
The wiry Chicago economist did his stand-up routine in front of the microphone in suit and tie with White House credentials hanging around his neck.
The jokes were inserted (asides) to a monologue on political life in Washington.
First Draft: toxic central
It’s all about toxic assets today.
The Obama administration has come up with a plan to deal with those loans that are so underwater you need a deep-sea diving outfit to find them (kind of like my NCAA bracket, but that’s another sad story).
The plan is for the government to partner with the private sector — including hedge funds (remember their role in bringing the markets down?) — and provide an antidote for the toxicity of the bad loans.
Christina Romer, a White House economic adviser, in her explanation of the program managed to mix a sports metaphor with a coin toss (again we’re back to the NCAA bracket).
“This is really tails both the government and the private sector win, heads both the government and the private sector lose,” Romer said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” show. “We both are going to have, as the saying goes, skin in the game.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner gets a chance to comfort jittery financial markets by providing details of the plan this morning. Let’s see if his performance improves over last time, when he layed out an outline and the markets tumbled.
And then again there’s always the birthday cake analogy. “It’s kind of like a horrible birthday cake with fire, the candles are burning all over it, we’re trying to blow out the candles in every direction,” Austan Goolsbee, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers told Reuters Financial Television.
Heads we we all win, tails we all loose? 50/50 odds. That surely inspires confidence. I would have set the bar a little lower. Here’s an interesting metaphor. A weapon of “mass distraction” custom to address looming economic “mass destruction.”
