Tonight:
9°c
There's a strange sense of political limbo here in the States at the moment: this is the interregnum, with one American emperor dead but yet to be interred, while his successor is still to be crowned. Barack Obama may not have assumed the purple but he's assembling his praetorian guard around him, and it's these appointments that are beginning to make the liberals who voted him into office uneasy about what the future may hold: will the new ruler turn his slogan "Change" into a reality, or is the ancien régime about to reassert itself?
It was predictable that Hillary Clinton would get the State Department - in part as a sop to all her diehard supporters, and also as a message to the wider electorate: better a firebrand that's been temporised by some exposure to the rigours of office than a bright radical spark. As for Robert Gates at Defence, the feeling here is that his appointment is a cunning move on Obama's part to make withdrawal from Iraq palatable. Gates got the US into this mess - now he can be seen to be getting American forces out. Furthermore, his involvement will reassure the Bush neocons and their erstwhile supporters that there'll be no witch-hunt.
Less palatable to US liberals have been a slew of appointments to the commanding heights of the economy. The so-called "Rubinistas" clustered around Clinton's former treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, include Laurence Summers as senior Whitehouse economics adviser and Peter Orszag as budget director. Rubin himself was on the board at Citibank, and while he tries to blame its troubles and the wider collapse of the banking system on "a buckling financial system", critics are quick to point out that he was in the vanguard of the high-growth, fixed-income trading that's led to the meltdown.
Overall, the feeling that the president-designate is either too cautious or too vulnerable to avoid pandering to the old Washington-New York axis of power is inescapable. Liberals here point to Obama's need to appease the volatile markets, and the threat still presented by the Bush administration - who even at the eleventh hour are trying to ram through reactionary legislation on a slew of things from workplace safety to abortion and the environment. They also observe that past incoming Democrat presidents were hamstrung in their first few weeks of office by savage Washington infighting - as Clinton was over gays in the military.
Be that as it may, to the outsider there's still the suspicious thought: but if not now, when? One mild-mannered but fervent Obama supporter - an Ivy League academic no less - said to me: "You may be right about all of this, but we're still pleasantly reeling from the reality that America has elected a 47-year-old anti-war black professor." I only hope that pleasant reeling doesn't soon change to a giddy disbelief.
Elvis still lives
For Londoners, Elvis Costello will always be the skinny punk poet who snarled “I don't wanna go to Chelsea” but as I got off the downtown local at 23rd Street last night, on my way back to my hotel in Manhattan's Chelsea district, I saw a poster advertising a new TV programme that pulled me up short. Spectacle: Elvis Costello With … is a new chat show on the Sundance Channel that will air here in the States on Wednesday.
True, it's a very upmarket kind of chat show, for which Costello is musical director as well as host. But while guests may include the likes of Smokey Robinson and Lou Reed, performing as well as schmoozing, the fact remains that the man who sang “Sometimes I wish I could stop you from talking when I hear the silly things you say” is now doing it for a living.
* I'm in New York for my brother's wedding. Ever the romantic, he has arranged to tie the knot with his lovely bride in Grand Central Station.
If all goes according to plan, the guests will assemble this afternoon incognito, dotted around the concourse. Then, at the stroke of 4.27pm (it's the exact date, time and place that they first met three years ago), we'll all converge on the information booth and the couple will be married by Rabbi Julia Neuberger.
Even an old cynic like me is impressed by their chutzpah, and I hope the wedding party isn't moved on by the NYPD. But most impressive of all is Grand Central itself — an impossibly grandiose building for a railway terminus, with its huge sloping passages and vast halls it's closer to the Great Pyramid of Cheops in spirit than Euston. My brother may be getting married there — but I'd quite like to be buried in this pharaonic transport hub.
* As I strolled through Little Italy with my kids we were accosted by a busking comic whose shtick began: “Now that Obama's been elected and I'm just another black man with a job, perhaps you'll give me a few dollars if I make you laugh …”
Chuckle we did, and he kept on at us for a couple of blocks, discoursing on subjects as various as Luther Vandross's sexuality and Wal-Mart's secret plans to dominate the world not only commercially but politically, too.
He got his sawbuck then left us with this satiric observation about gentrification above 110th Street: “Now I've been paid, I guess I must be white — I wonder if I'm white enough to move back to Harlem?”
Reader views (9)
'Temporised', Mr Self? Do please look it up; you mean 'tempered'. Surely you should read your stuff twice before asking us to read it once.And what's a 'slew'? I know what you mean, but what does IT mean? It's one of those tic words that appear, journalists use compulsively for a while, and then vanishes. We read you because we know you're better than this, really.
- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london
Freddy,
This man as you put it was born in the US, on one of the Hawaiian islands but you Freddy would have missed that bit of information. One less thing for you to hold on to.
Regards.
- Miriam, London
If I'm there at the right time, can I crash the wedding?
- Bliss, Brooklyn, NY
I do get tired of feeling the wind from back-patting selves since electing an African American. Let's see that gap in income between African and Caucasian diminish before we hear talking heads with semis going on with the optimism of a late 90s IBM commercial ... you know, those tv spots that had such a rosy coloured view of the web connected world ... which has gone so well since then.
- James Witt, Toronto, Canada
This man is not fit to hold this "OFFICE" he was not born in the United States but in KENYA he is but a front man for the old Clinton regime Thespian comes to mind.
- Freddy,, Renfrew Scotland
He got a hell of alot more than the liberal vote.Can we let the man actually be President(American emperor)for a few years and then judge?As i recall the country was doing pretty well with all those Clinton people around.Ok even if you think the budget surplus was a mirage there was no recession and we felt good about ourselves.When Americans say we want change it's from the regime that is in office now.We want people who know what they are doing.Next up the Emperors Supreme Court picks.*smiles*
- M. Clement, Philadelphia,United States
What on earth was Will expecting?
- Michael Jones, w8 london
am too thick to make sense of this - Back to the Guardian for me.
- Ross, London
Oh come on Will, did you really think this man was any different to any other politician on the make? He is just an American Tony Blair, devoid of any other talent than to get elected, but with the Gordon Brown talent for disappearing when ever anything serious is required of him, as his voting record in the Senate shows. As for his cabinet, he has created an Establishment Clintonite regime around him, because the Democrats did not have anyone else.
The only question will be, who is the puppet and who is pulling the strings, the Clintons or the President?
- Stephen Rothbart, Prague, Czech Republic
