Bloomberg featured a long story this week that highlights Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s very public challenge to Democratic National Committee chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (“Insurrection Erupts at the Democratic National Committee“).
Of two dozen Democratic insiders with whom I spoke this week, including several DNC vice chairs, not one defended Wasserman Schultz’s treatment of Gabbard. Most called it ridiculous, outrageous, or worse. Many argued, further, that the debate plan enacted by the chairwoman is badly flawed—an assessment shared by many party activists, left-bent supporters of Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, and those candidates themselves, all of whom see it as a naked effort to aid and comfort Hillary Clinton. And they maintained that the plan was a clear reflection of Wasserman Schultz’s management style, which many of them see as endangering Democratic prospects in 2016 and beyond.
It’s definitely worthwhile reading for those interested in some of the behind-the-scenes dynamics on the D side of things.
And while digesting the Bloomberg article, I ran into the news that Gabbard just got a new legislative director following the departure of Hilo native, Wendy Yasuko Clerinx.
Clerinx, a graduate of Waiakea High School and Santa Clara University, with a law degree from George Washington University, had served as legislative director since January 2013. She previously had served as legislative director for Rep. Neil Abercrombie before following him back to Hawaii, where she served as policy director during the first two years of the governor’s administration.
Christine Wagner, who joined Gabbard’s staff in April 2014 as a legislative assistant, replaced Clerinx as Gabbard’s policy director this month.
Wagner holds a B.A. in political science and peace studies from the University of Hawaii (2010) and earned an M.A. in geography from King’s College London (England) in 2012.
Wagner served on the staff of the House Armed Services Committee in 2010-2011, and was a defense analyst for Science Applications International Corporation before joining Gabbard’s staff last year.
According to the website, CorpWatch.org:
Founded in 1969, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) is a major intelligence, military, aerospace, engineering and systems contractor. It is involved in defense/military (DoD), intelligence community, and homeland security contracting, as well as selected commercial markets.
As a March 2007 Vanity Fair article published by the investigative journalist duo Bartlett and Steele put it SAIC “sells human beings who have a particular expertise—expertise about weapons, about homeland security, about surveillance, about computer systems, about “information dominance” and “information warfare.” … What everyone agrees on is this: No Washington contractor pursues government money with more ingenuity and perseverance than SAIC. … No contractor seems to exploit conflicts of interest in Washington with more zeal. And no contractor cloaks its operations in greater secrecy. SAIC almost never touts its activities in public, preferring to stay well below the radar.”
So it appears Gabbard, who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, is beefing up her office’s expertise in defense and foreign policy issues.
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Aaarrgh! A hyperactive Ms. Autocorrect led to several errors in the original version of this post. My apologies to those whose names were “corrected”. I think I tracked down all the misspellings….
According to the Vanity Fair article quoted above, “No Washington contractor pursues government money with more ingenuity and perseverance than SAIC. … No contractor seems to exploit conflicts of interest in Washington with more zeal.
And we have the case ofChristine Wagner bouncing back and forth between government work and the SAIC–from the staff of the House Armed Services Committee to the SAIC and then to Gabbard’s staff.
Taking a page out of the Republican playbook. Why bother with lobbyists ?
“Ms. Autocorrect?” Maybe this is one case in which the new “Mx” title would be appropriate.
Wasserman-Schultz was a national co-chair of Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and made numerous appearances on the cable news show circuit stomping for Hillary. So yeah, the perception that DWS is in Hillary’s pocket is understandable. But while Gabbard might be getting popular support from other Dems for taking on the DNC chair on this particular issue, I don’t know if the same thing can be said for Tulsi taking on the president when it comes to US involvement in Syria and repeatedly criticizing him for not labeling ISIS as being radical Islamics. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine any of Tulsi’s recent appearances on cable news programs as pleasing to Obama and Clinton. When it comes to taking on the leaders of your party, one has to pick and choose their battles wisely. Publicly airing too many dissenting opinions and disagreements with the party standard-bearers, and folks will start to wonder if Gabbard is actually a DINO.
The USA doesn’t need to get into another bloody, protracted, regime-changing war in Syria, so I agree with Tulsi’s position against the Syrian war. Toppling Sectarian dictator Assad will ultimately cause more carnage and genocide in the region–just as we saw in Iraq after overthrowing Saddam Hussein and in Libya after toppling Gaddafi.
If we Democrats had stood up to Bush like Tulsi is to Obama on this, perhaps we wouldn’t have lost thousands of good soldiers and spent trillions of dollars in Iraq — and on top of that — be having to battle ISIS practically all over the Middle East and elsewhere.
“Ms. Autocorrect” is both appropriate and completely correct.
I find myself in the unusual spot of enthusiastically supporting Rep. Gabbard on the two high-profile matters in which she has spoken up.
As a very active Democrat, I have been appealed by Debbie Wasserman Schutlz autocratic “leadership” of the DNC. There is a video clip online of DWS informing the members of the DNC that she, and she alone, control policy over the debates and if they don’t like it, tough.
I have a hard time understanding how that behavior can be consistent with the Rules governing the DNC, the deliberative and governing body which SHOULD have more authority than the chair in setting policy for the party. In the absence of much actual–what’s the word?–“democracy” in the DNC, I am grateful for Rep. Gabbard and Mayor Ryback speaking up for fairness. And for the good of the Party, the electorate and the candidates themselves.
Gabbard has also articulated a very good criticism of US “policy” in Syria. It is contradictory and counter-productive to simultaneously work to overthrow Assad and defeat the Islamic extremists in the al-Nusra and ISIS networks. US national self-interest should prioritize the defeat of the terrorist groups and abandon the neoconservative conceit that we have to wisdom or ability to restructure
Syrian society. It is as if the pain and mass suffering we endured (but mostly inflicted on others) in Iraq has left us as arrogant and clueless as before.
I reserve the right to criticize Tulsi on other issues when I think she is wrong. But on these two, I strongly support what she has been saying.
t – I stand corrected. I had never seen it that way before.