David Axelrod

In his New York Times column today, David Brooks writes that Republicans opposed to tax hikes as a part of a debt limit deal "have no sense of moral decency." The column happens to include a rather conspicuous typo:

The boss blasted President Obama’s plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan a couple minutes ago on Fox News. “Most strikingly,” Bill Kristol said, “was the president's announcement about the September 2012 deadline: cutting the fighting season in half next year and really putting at risk our achievements in Afghanistan. I mean, it is really remarkable when our troop deployment schedule is being determined by David Axelrod, not by David Petraeus.”

President Obama isn’t quite in hibernation. But he’s saying less, proposing less, appearing in public less, doing less, interacting with Congress less, plugging his health care plan less, and singling out a Republican demon less. It took two years and the harsh rejection of a midterm election for Obama to figure out what shouldn’t have been a secret: The magic of the presidency declines with overindulgence.

The Huffington Post is reeling, at least that's what the red banner headline (saying, "White House Gives In On Bush Tax Cuts") suggests. Here's the story:

David Axelrod, the president's chief spin master: 

I don’t actually have proof that John Podesta’s Center for American Progress is funded by foreign interests and corporations, but does anyone have proof that it isn’t? This is the new standard set by the Obama administration for organizations engaged in political activity it dislikes – guilty until proven otherwise.

What keeps White House adviser David Axelrod up at night? The answer to that question is clearly suggested by the Associated Press:

When you've lost Bob Herbert, you've lost ... Bob Herbert:

It’s getting harder and harder for most Americans, looking honestly at the state of the nation, to see the glass as half full. And that’s why the public opinion polls contain nothing but bad news for Barack Obama and the Democrats.

Earlier today, David Axelrod said on CNN that if Joe Sestak's allegation was true--that Sestak was offered a high-ranking administration job to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate race--it would "constitute a serious breach of the law." But don't worry, said Axelrod. White House lawyers say that nothing inappropriate happened, though Axelrod declined to say exactly what it was that happened.

Dick Durbin became the second high-profile Democrat to say that Sestak should come clean. "At some point I thing Congressman Sestak needs to make it clear what happened," said Durbin. Yesterday, Anthony Weiner said the White House should explain exactly what happened.

Andrew Malcolm writes:

Many political observers are coming to see that the ex-state senator from the South Side is running his federal administration in Washington much the way they run things back home: with a small....

...claque of clout-laden people from the same school who learned their political trade back in the nation's No. 3 city, named for an Indian word for a smelly wild onion.

That style is tough, focused, immune to any distractions but cosmetic niceties. And did we mention tough. A portly, veteran Chicago alderman once confided only about 40% jokingly, that he had taken up jogging to lose weight but quickly gave it up as boring because "you can't knock anyone down." That's politics the Chicago way.

Obama and his top advisers Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, and David Axelrod all hail from the Chicago school. Press secretary Robert Gibbs is an Alabaman who worked for North Carolinian Democrats, but he's adapted to the Chicago method with ease. Together, this band of operatives has not deviated from the themes and goals of Obama's 2008 campaign. They do not admit errors of substance. Faced with a troublesome midterm election, Obama did not search out new figures and guides for his party. He reached back to his 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe.

Top White House adviser David Axelrod believes the U.S. government properly handled the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, despite the fact that Abdulmutallab stopped talking to interrogators after having had Miranda rights read to him.  In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, Axelrod was asked about the decision to read Abdulmutallab his rights after just 50 minutes of interrogation.  "We have not lost anything as a result of how this case has been handled," Axelrod said.