Obama's Advisers..."Obamanomics"Austan Goolsbee - Jeffrey Liebman - David Cutler

I gotta say, Obama confounds me. It's as if he's using his liberal reputation to win the primary activists' votes, but is building a much more centrist agenda for the general election.
We know that Bill and Hillary are both DLC'ers (Democratic Leadership Council). But the DLC is the attempt by Democrats to bring the party back to the center. What the press dubbed "triangulation" was often actually Clinton throwing a McCain type maverick action into the gears of the leftist ideological machine. Do you get it? Only McCain is a "maverick" BECAUSE he's a Republican. When Bill Clinton did the same sort of maneuver, he was a "political genius." McCain is a "thorn" in the party's side, while Clinton "triangulates," when he makes an out-of-character-for-his-party type of move.
And so I think we may be in for some strange maverick triangulation with an Obama administration. Obama's chief economist is the impressive chief economist for the DLC, Austan Goolsbee.
George Will's October 4, '07 column is devoted to Goolsbee's thinking on a range of issues and it's well worth the read. Will concludes with this paragraph...

Economics is the only academic discipline that in recent decades has moved in the direction that America and much of the world has moved, to the right. Goolsbee no doubt has lots of dubious ideas -- he is, after all, a Democrat -- about how government can creatively fiddle with the market's allocation of wealth and opportunity. But he seems to be the sort of person -- amiable, empirical and reasonable -- you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be.

I hesitate to link to any of the leftist opinion sites, not only because of what else one might find on their web pages but also because of the language used to describe the "sellout" Obama is committing by signing these guys on to his team. (So consider this fair warning, I don't think there's anything out of the ordinary on these provided links, and the reading is interesting, but...) They are in apoplectic tailspin over the trio's ideas that SocSec might be "partially privatized," or that health-care need not be single payer (completely nationalized) or that welfare isn't good for everyone, or that free trade is a good thing. Even the the semi-official publication to the paranoid left, "The Nation," has noticed, as evidenced by this note in an article about the various solutions to the "sub-prime crisis"....

As he has done on domestic issues like healthcare, job creation and energy policy, Obama is staking out a position to the right of not only populist Edwards but Clinton as well.

Not that Obama's presidency will have conservatives in all out party mode. From the NRO's Larry Kudlow ...

This is disturbing news on the taxation front. The Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore says Obama’s tax plan would add up to a 39.6 percent personal income tax, a 52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax, a 28 percent capital-gains tax, a 39.6 percent dividends tax, and a 55 percent estate tax. In other words, Sen. Obama is a very-high-tax candidate. Whether Wall Street has fully discounted this, I have no idea. Probably not yet. But somebody in the investor class ought to be thinking about it, because it’s not good.

Interestingly, at least two of Obama’s top economic advisors — Austan Goolsbee and Jeffrey Liebman — are highly regarded free-market economists. Goolsbee from Chicago, Liebman from Harvard. But somehow their candidate has a very punitive high-tax campaign plan for the economy.

On healthcare, the libs fault Obama's plan for aloowing folks the freedom to opt out, as opposed to Hillary's "mandate" for participation. The following speaks of economist David Cutler on healthcare.....

But then you get a Harvard economist saying this about mandates: “A better approach is to do everything possible to make it affordable and available. When it is, almost everyone will have it.”

I think by “it” he’s referring to health insurance and this is the same Harvard economist who thinks our current health care system provides “reasonable value”.

I am eagerly awaiting Cutler’s explanation of how he reconciles the “reasonable value” we are allegedly currently getting from the health care system with the presumably massive reduction in prices/costs of health care that’s going to be needed to make insurance “affordable”. I guess we’ll just be getting excellent value then!

CODA: By the way if you doubt that Democrats favor single payer then consider these two questions from the recent Gallup Poll:

"Do you think it's the government's responsibility to make sure that everyone in the United States has adequate health care, or don't you think so?"

84% of Democrats say yes. compared to 54% of independents and only 32% of Republicans

The leftist blogger has a point. We are still detail "challenged" - shall we say?

Obama's Advisors;David Axelrod

If all you have is a dagger, and your opponent is a knight on a white stallion, your cause looks lost. But if you look closer, the knight's armor isn't always as solid as it looks from a distance. Those folks who can recognize weak links in the adversary's seemingly invincible polling data are called "political consultants."
This is Obama's man...

Given his rhetorical skills, Harvard Law pedigree, up-by-the-bootstraps bio and, well, his race, it is hard not to compare recently elected Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to his friend Barack Obama. Both men entered crowded primaries in which they were definitively not favored. They both inspired a kind of personal pride among supporters that is rare in politics. On the evening of Obama's convincing primary victory, the crowd and the candidate joined in chanting, "Yes We Can!" and if you listen closely to video of Patrick rallies, you'll hear the crowd chanting the very same thing. When Patrick looked into the camera in one ad and said the state's problem wasn't a "deficit of dollars but a deficit of leadership," it was hard not to hear echoes of Obama's oft-used line that the country's biggest problem isn't a budget deficit but an "empathy deficit." And in Patrick's most effective ad, he stands on a stage delivering an impassioned speech to a crescendo of applause as Obama sits on a stool just behind him, nodding approvingly, his head perfectly framed in the shot.

Which brings us to something else the two men share: David Axelrod, the 51-year-old reporter turned media consultant who was the key media strategist for both men's campaigns. He's the one who wrote those ads, framed that shot and came up with the "Yes We Can" tag line.

Axelrod has done Chicago's mayor as well as Cleveland's. He did Paul Simon's presidential bid and Elliot Spitzer's New York gubernatorial victory.

This LATimes article from Feb 15, '08...

That's the essence of the Illinois senator's message: Obama equals change; Hillary Rodham Clinton equals status quo. All else cascades from there. In this contest -- where the candidates are but a micron apart on most policy matters -- message is everything.

...

The burly 52-year-old with the drooping mustache helped put together the team working to get Obama elected. He oversees ad creation and coordinates with the campaign's pollsters. During preparation for debates, he plays Clinton.

...

Axelrod is described as Obama's answer to Karl Rove and the most powerful political consultant not on a coast. And at a time when New York Sen. Clinton is shaking up her own campaign staff, he is someone, said one political observer, who "ain't going to be fired."

These articles are little more than self-puffery, of course. Whatever the byline, they were probably written by the campaign, handed to the politics desk, and then published verbatim. They still provide a little insight to what the campaign manager believes is important, and what they want us to know about them.

Obama's Advisers;Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Brzezinski , Carter administration national security adviser, uber-globalist, author, Israel antagonist, and now Obama campaign foreign affairs consultant, recently led a Rand Corp financed delegation to Syria, of which Obama's campaign denies knowledge.
The Israeli media Ynet linked above contains the following;

Brzezinski, selected by Obama to advise him on foreign policy affairs, has taken a highly critical stance towards Israel in the past, and has defended an academic attack on the American Jewish lobby which has been branded by some as being anti-Semitic. He has previously served as a national security adviser to President Jimmy Cater.sic

It's suggested somewhere that Obama is using Brzezinski's endorsement and calling him an adviser to give his campaign the "gravitas" it lacks, and to counter the charge that Obama hasn't enough experience. It wouldn't be honest to leave Zbig out of this exposition of Obama's people, but it's either true that Obama didn't know about this Rand Corp trip, or Obama's campaign is naive to the point of being laughably out of control. It is quizzical that the "Change" advocate would call on the epitome of "same old, same old" policy expertise for advice - unless Mr Brzezinski has untried ideas, in reference with Israel in particular.
Self described "lunatic fringe" folks are very frightened of Zbig.

This is the same Brzezinski who created the Illuminati's Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973. The Trilateral Commission is dedicated to a world government dictatorship and closely connects with other strands in the web like the Council on Foreign Relations (member: Barack Obama) and the Bilderberg Group.

Brzezinski's foreign 'policy' during the Carter administration, as he has since admitted without regret, was to entice the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan in December, 1979. The idea, he said, was to weaken their rival superpower and the result was a ten-year occupation that cost the lives of an estimated 1.3 million Afghans and spawned the Mujahedin, Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

Deep breath: he's now advising Barack Obama on foreign policy ...

Obama's Advisers; Cass Sunstein and Samantha Power

It occurred to me that I couldn't get through to the real Obama during his campaign. If I wanted to know who he is, I'd have to learn more about who has his ear. At some point, it is he, the real Obama, who decides, "I like the way this person thinks." One of the reasons I was warm to the idea of a Giuliani presidency, in spite of his obvious personal flaws, was that I was familiar with his advisers. I believe, unless America grows out of its media induced stupor, Obama will be the next president, so I'm going to take a look at those to whom he listens.

A noontime speech by two of Obama's policy advisers, University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein and Harvard University government professor Samantha Power, was delayed an hour as the two explored Virginia's rural back roads.

This is Sunstein: (domestic policy advisor)

Supreme Court appointments: Sunstein described Obama as a "visionary minimalist," who would bring balance to activist conservative justices' efforts to "constitutionalize the Republican platform," but would not repudiate opposing views.

And this is Power: (foriegn policy advisor)

Iraq: Obama is "thinking about getting American troops out safely, but having full regard for those who have come to depend on us," Power said. She said Obama has a detailed withdrawal plan for Iraq that would include giving Iraqis fair notice of American departure and soliciting Iraqi opinions as to which neighborhoods should be evacuated first.

Middle East diplomacy: Obama "has said when he becomes president that he will go on a listening tour of Islamic countries," Power said. When dealing with "rogue regimes" such as Iran's, it's "better to be in the room than lobbing verbal grenades" from afar, she added.

China: In addressing Chinese human rights violations, exploitation of African economies and threats to American business interests abroad, Obama "is not going to be uncritical," said Powers. However, "We have to get our own house in order" first. Once Obama has restored international support for the United States, "The same backlash seen against colonialism is going to be seen against China."

Another S Power Time mag article.
There are scads of stuff on these two and the many other Obama advisers out there. I picked some articles that were in their own words, rather than written about them. From these self-revealing articles however, some of the articles that HAVE been written about them are more easily judged for apparent accuracy.