THE DAILY BLADE: Keep Your Friends Close
Until now, Barack Obama has been keeping his enemies, er, rivals, really, really close, having nominated Sen. Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State and Fmr. IA Gov. Tom Vilsack (who endorsed Hillary Clinton and donated to her presidential campaign) for Secretary of Agriculture, as well as tapping Rahm Emanuel to serve as his White House Chief of Staff (formerly a Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy during the Clinton Administration). So it’s only natural that he now look to his friends to fill important positions in his administration.
No, not old buddies like Rashid Khalidi, William Ayers and Antoin “Tony” Rezko. His pals in the media who – collectively - failed to vet him before the election, because they were too busy advancing his candidacy by every means at their disposal.
The Washington Post reports that Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and chief medical correspondent for CNN is being vetted for the job of surgeon general and that he is inclined to accept the position:
The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said. …
He was a White House fellow in the late 1990s, writing speeches and crafting policy for Hillary Clinton. …
His role as journalist and physician have sometimes overlapped. During the 2003 Iraq invasion, Gupta was embedded with a Navy unit called Devil Docs and, while covering its mission, performed brain surgery five times, the first of which was on a 2-year-old Iraqi boy.
The Stiletto can overlook Gupta's biased and offensive reporting on John McCain and supports his selection for these reasons: He can explain complex medical issues to a lay audience; unlike photojournalist Kevin Carter, who dispassionately did his job without intervening to save the life of a dying Sudanese child, he has the decency to know when a journalist should be a human being; and he was one of few journalists who challenged the veracity of Michael Moore’s paean to socialized medicine, “Sicko” (second item):
MediaBistro blog “TVNewser” reports that when word of Gupta’s talks with the Obama camp about the surgeon general job got out, CNN colleague John King read a statement from the cable news network on the air assuring viewers:
“Since first learning that Dr. Gupta was under consideration for the Surgeon General position, CNN made sure his on air reporting has been on health and wellness matters, not on healthcare policy or any matters concerning the new administration.”
This may be sufficient under the current circumstances, but things will get a bit stickier if, for some reason, the job offer is withdrawn or Gupta opts not to pursue it further. If he ends up continuing his gigs at CNN and CBS, where he is a medical correspondent, he may have to recuse himself from covering these topics and just stick to medical reporting while Obama remains in office.
Meanwhile, Broadcasting & Cable reports that Obama is considering replacing NM Gov. Bill Richardson with Richard Parsons - the recently former chairman of CNN parent Time Warner and a member of Citigroup’s board of directors - for the Commerce Secretary slot. Parsons is a member of Obama's Economic Advisory Board.
Editorial Note: NewsBusters lists other journalists who went to work for the Obama campaign or will join his administration.
Never Say “Never”
Politico reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed that “Norm Coleman will never ever serve [again] in the Senate.” This would be the same Harry Reid who – just a week ago – swore in a statement (.pdf) that “anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus” but has now talked himself into a face-saving way to effect a flip-flop. [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]
The Stiletto Scoops The New York Times
[O]ne thing elites like is being elite – and that’s how “Uncle Bernie” hooked ‘em. One victim, former Ft. Lee, NJ mayor and stockbroker Burt Ross, tells The Journal: “It was harder to get into Bernie's fund than to get into Harvard.”
- “Madoff’s Victims: Gullible Or Greedy?,” The Stiletto Blog, December 22, 2008
What he constructed was the investing equivalent of putting a red rope in front of an empty club and then letting no one in.
- “The Rules That Madoff’s Investors Ignored,” The New York Times, January 6, 2009
Editorial Note: In a richly ironic development, The National Law Journal reports that it may be in the best legal and financial interest for some Madoff investors to lay low and not to seek compensation for their losses:
[C]lients that invested in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, which allegedly defrauded investors of $50 billion, are worried about the possibility of clawback cases, which are extremely common in bankruptcies following Ponzi schemes. Investors targeted for clawbacks may have varying avenues of recourse, depending on which state they live in and whether they have assets besides their primary residence. …
Investors may be vulnerable if they've withdrawn money within the past six years -- the statute of limitations in New York state, where Madoff's company is headquartered, said Susman Godfrey partner Harry Susman. …
Investors who cashed out may be required to return capital gains, and possibly principal, Susman said.
"If there's any evidence that they knew something was foul when they withdrew the money would have to give back principal as well," Susman said. But even investors who are forced to disgorge money may get some of it back when the bankruptcy trustee distributes all the collected funds, Susman said.
"It will be put into a pot and distributed to everyone," Susman said. "They will still get something back."
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