(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

From the New York Times, on Obama's first day as President-elect:

“The one thing he is not going to do is let anyone think he’s undermining the president,” said Mr. Craig, who has advised Mr. Obama on foreign policy. “There’s only one president, and he’ll take pains to make sure nothing he does is taken as undermining President Bush.”

As counterpoint to this, I'm currently trying and failing to find a news report I saw yesterday which suggests that the reverse is not the case, that the Bush administration is frantically abolishing as much environmental regulation and such like as they can so that it will take more time and trouble for Obama's lot to put it all back together. So much for a smooth transition of power.

I don't think I've asked this before, because the last time it happened was pre-blog for me; why is it that after you've had a change of government in America, the outgoing lot get two extra months to make more trouble for their successors? It's like paying someone who hates you for their house and then letting them live in it for the next two months. It's obvious they're going to trash the place--and despite all the warm fuzziness about working together and everyone on both sides loving America, we all know it's true. I'm quite sure that Clinton spent his last two months going out of his way to make things difficult for Bush 2, and so on back.

Not looking for an argument (see previous posts), just asking why it's arranged like that.

Comments

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Salon has some articles in recent archives about the damage Bush is looking to wreak before leaving office, policy-wise, and I don't think they included the recent cross-border attacks from Iraq.

The delay used to be a lot longer, actually - in the 1800s the next President wouldn't take office until March. I won't deny it has its problems, but it does give the President-elect time to put together the skeleton of a team and get a little information that isn't supposed to be available to the general public. There were concerns after the Y2K debacleelection that the Bush team had limited time to get things ready before assuming office. During the month of uncertainty the Clinton team, if I remember aright (and I may be wrong on this) had some lower level briefings with both candidates just in case.

Usually the outgoing President will spend some time with the incoming President to give briefings on the state of the country, what urgent issues are and so on. When the Bush administration came in the Clinton team told them that the biggest threat they would deal with was international terrorism, with some extra emphasis on Osama bin Ladin.

The Bush administration promptly did two things:
1) it claimed the Clintons had trashed the White House on the way out, leaving the interior a total shambles. This was demonstrably false but it definitely set the tone; and
2) it set about undoing everything Clinton it could, including increased counter-terrorism funding and attention. Why 9/11 remains a good thing for Bush remains beyond me in that it was one of his biggest failures.

Before Bush we actually had a certain assumption about professionalism regarding the office of the President. Republicans would hand over the office to Democrats, Democrats would hand over the office to Republicans, and there was, if not amity, at least a certain degree of cordiality and professionalism. Yes, Mr. Bush has wrecked a great deal about the office. Right now he is already under consideration as either second worst or the worst American President ever.

[occams_pyramid]

Yes, I've already commented elsewhere that I get the distinct impression that Bush may spend his last few days of power throwing screaming tantrums and his toys out of the pram.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I'm most worried that he'll try to mire us in another war and excuse himself with "but we needed to invade because they looked at us funny" or somesuch. Which, actually, is pretty much what he did with Iraq.

[occams_pyramid]

He's certainly done a lot of work setting up for an invasion of Iran, though I suppose anywhere they can loot for oil would do. But he may not have enough time left to get something of that scale sorted. And of course he won't be around to give out all the 'reconstruction' to his accomplices.