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Saturday, February 07, 2009

More on Howard Dean at HHS

Posted by Jill | 7:55 AM

This topic is too important to leave just as a funny lolphoto and a link to another post.

Back in the 1980's, the Mets had a player named Gregg Jeffries. Jeffries was picked by the Mets in the 1985 amateur draft and proceeded to tear up the minor leagues. In 1989, the Mets traded the beloved and scrappy second baseman Wally Backman to the Minnesota Twins to make room for Jeffries at second base, where the bonus baby proceeded to hit a mediocre .258 that year.

Jeffries quickly gained a reputation as a whiner among his teammates, and in 1991 he wrote an open letter that was read on WFAN:

"When a pitcher is having trouble getting players out, when a hitter is having trouble hitting, or when a player makes an error, I try to support them in whatever way I can. I don't run to the media to belittle them or to draw more attention to their difficult times. I can only hope that one day those teammates who have found it convenient to criticize me will realize that we are all in this together. If only we can concentrate more on the games than complaining and bickering and pointing fingers, we would all be better off."

Instead of realizing that Gregg Jeffries was a troublemaker, the Mets organization responded to Jeffries' troubles with his teammates, even before the Infamous Letter, by trading away or jettisoning everyone who did not get along with Gregg Jeffries. Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez in 1989, along with the horrific Lenny Dykstra for Juan Samuel bungle. After the 1990 season, Darryl Strawberry was allowed to walk. In 1990-91, tit was Bob Ojeda and Tim Teufel.

By the time Jeffries was 23, his career in New York was already over, his nemeses long since scattered to the four winds. And the Mets were a mess. Jeffries was traded to the Kansas City Royals after the 1991 season for a past-his-prime Bret Saberhagen. Jeffries went on to have a couple of good years with the Cardinals, but retired in 2000 with a .289 batting average -- solid, but hardly the mark of the kind of star that he, his hard-driving father, and the Mets thought they had when they traded an entire team in an effort to make him happy.

I bring up all this because President Obama has his own Gregg Jeffries in the person of Rahm Emanuel. Rahmmy seems to resent having to live on the same planet as Dr. Howard Dean. If Rahm Emanuel had had his way, Barack Obama would have run the same campaign that John Kerry did in 2004, with probably the same result. It was Rahm Emanuel who decided to ditch the well-known Christine Cegelis in Illinois 6th district in 2004, instead moving in Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, whose opponent managed to paint her as a traitor despite her having left both legs in Iraq. Duckworth didn't get much support from Rahmmy either, against these attacks, and he pretty much left her high and dry. Because in the end, for Rahm Emanuel, it's all about Rahm.

So here we are, with the Obama Administration having a chance to at least partially redeem his cabinet choices after throwing the entire netroots that worked tirelessly to get him elected under the bus, by naming Howard Dean to HHS. And there is no way that Obama's Chief of Staff is going to let that happen.

Jonathan Cohn explains why:

Howard Dean is not going to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.

As best as I can tell, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is not about to let Dean in the same zip code, let alone the same branch of government. That is the political reality.

Still, writers should do more than reflect the political reality. They should try to change it--or, at least, explain why it's flawed. With that in mind, here are two very key assets that Dean would bring to the job--the job, I know, he'll never have.

The first is management ability. Ever since Tom Daschle withdrew his name from consideration for HHS Secretary, most of the discussion hs focused on what it meant for the president's health reform agenda. Daschle was a gifted communicator and deft political operator. Everybody wants to find a replacement who has those skills. Dean doens't have them.

But it's not essential that the HHS secretary be one of the key players, privately or publicly, on health reform. Other advisers and officials can take up that role, as can the president himself.

On the other hand, it is essential that the HHS secretary take charge of an agency with wide-ranging responsibilities, a vast bureacracy, and a recent history of neglect. Head Start is part of HHS. So are the Centers for Disease Control along with the Food and Drug Administration, two agencies that represent our first line of defense against disease. For the last eight years, they've struggled under an administration that, at best, ignored them and, at worst, used them to advance a socially conservative agenda.

The next HHS Secretary must do better. And one way (albeit not the only way) to guarantee that is to find somebody with a proven track record of managing organizations that work on health care. As the five-term governor of Vermont, Dean did exactly that. And while Vermont is a tiny state, the record he complied there was exemplary, not just on health insurance but on the whole range of issues dealing with human welfare.

Don't forget, too, that Dean showed pretty good management skills--not to mention judgment--at the Democratic National Commitee. With virtually no support from the political establishment, which held him in nearly universal disdain, Dean was true to his vision and--because of that--helped build a grassroots network that's paying real political dividends today. (Anybody laughing about the 50-state strategy now?)

Yes. Rahm Emanuel is. Because as far as he's concerned, anything good that happens is his doing. I hope Barack Obama realizes this over time. Because if he has to, Rahmmy will be the first in line to throw HIM under the bus if it's to Rahmmy's advantage.

Labels: assholes, Rahm Emanuel, sleaze

4 comments

4 Comments:

Bob said...

Already, Rahm's supposed strengths have proven not to be there.

2/7/09, 10:28 AM

jurassicpork said...

This is all we need. A pint-sized Karl fucking Rove.

2/7/09, 11:10 AM

D. said...

I know this is a political post, but I have to confess I spent the morning researching Mets' trades. One can spend hours...Times like this, I miss the National Sports Daily.

Any chance Mr. Emanuel is hiding a scandal somewhere?

2/7/09, 1:47 PM

Anonymous said...

Rahm Emanuel is going to be the main architect of any and all of the failures of Obama's best programs.

Why on earth did Obama ever pick that nasty piece of work to be his CofS?

2/7/09, 2:53 PM