by Mark Silva
David Axelrod and President Barack Obama are close, but not so close, Axelrod said tonight, that he can tell whether his boss has started smoking again.
"The president and I are close, but we don't get that close,'' the president's senior political adviser said tonight, in the taping of the National Public Radio news quiz show, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me,'' a program that will air nationally this weekend.
Everyone knows how successful the president has been, host Peter Sagal asked the consultant before a packed house in an auditorium here, but is there anything they would have done differently in the campaign?
"The whole Barack Hussein Obama thing,'' Axelrod replied, joking. "We thought about changing that... Barry O, or something...''
Axelrod was seated in a gray suit, tie-less, on a stage at George Washington University, with a sold-out audience for an evening's taping of the weekly production of NPR and Chicago Public Radio in which well-known people are tossed questions in the category of: "Not My Job.'' That was his job tonight.
The show, which airs on NPR stations this weekend, normally is taped before an audience in Chicago. But for this on-the-road edition in Washington, the producers found a willing foil in the Chicago-based political consultant who helped the Chicagoan named Obama win the White House.
Sagal put Axelrod through paces, introducing the longtime adviser to the president as a seasoned political consultant who first met Obama in 1992, fell to one knee and said, "You're the one.''
"Everybody asks me, what's the key to being a success as a political consultant?'' Axelrod said. "Good taste.''
"That's why you worked for Eliot Spitzer,'' Sagal said of the former New York governor who quit after a spin with a call girl.
(Pictured weeks after the election, David Axelrod, above, listening to President-elect Barack Obama during a news conference in Chicago. Photo by Charles Dharapak / AP)
Obama has not changed, his longtime friend said tonight, but life has.
"Now I have to come to work every morning at 7 o'clock, and wear a tie,'' Axelrod said.
"What exactly do you do?'' Sagal asked.
""You sound like the president,'' Axelrod said.
The host asked how much political calculation goes into matters such as the selection of the first dog, Bo - an obvious play for the vote of the Portuguese American community.
"I only got called in for the final three,'' Axelrod joked, adding in a more serious vein: "I wasn't consulted.''
"Who were the other two?'' asked Mo Rocca, a comedian on the three-personality panel of the weekly radio show.
"One was Miss California,'' replied Axelrod, without missing a beat about the beauty queen whom the hosts of the show had spent some time joking about before he stepped on stage.
The administration suffered some criticism for working in the White House without ties, one of the panelists noted.
"That was carefully considered,'' Axelrod said of their predecessors. "We saw they always wore coats in the Oval Office, and we saw how things turned out.''
Is a typical day better or worse than the television serial, West Wing, Sagal asked. The day does start at 7, Axelrod said, recalling one day of endless crises falling in their laps, ending with word that Fargo was being evacuated for flooding.
"This is the West Wing,'' he said.
Is the dialog as "crackling?''
"Yes it is,'' Axelrod said, "but much like this show, we can re-record it.''
Has the administration ever grown weary of the word, 'change,'' Paula Poundstone, a comedienne on the panel, asked. It has gotten to be a bit much for her, she said - she couldn't even change a dollar.
"We thought about changing 'change,''' Axelrod said, but "we're so invested in it.''
Axelrod also went through a grilling of obscure historical questions, and it will suffice to say that winning NPR's signature voice of Carl Kassel on his home answering machine would be one of the bigger challenges for the president's close adviser at the end of this long day. But when all was said and done, it was noted that, while politicians come and go, consultants are here to stay.
"Barack Obama can only serve two terms,'' Poundstone told Axelrod. "But you can go on forever.''
The show, which airs on NPR stations this weekend , will be available after airing at NPR's Web site.
Comments
"The whole Barack Hussein Obama thing,'' Axelrod replied, joking."
Yes, it's absolutely hilarious how the Republican minions thought they were going to score political points by repeating President Obama's given middle name, over and over and over again.
Ha ha ha !
It's almost as funny as how Republicans currently think they're going to score political points with talk of Birth Certificates, Dijon mustard and Teleprompters!
Ha ha ha !
Posted by: Barney Rubble | May 14, 2009 10:05 PM
Axelrod is not Obama's spy nor is he his confessor. What Obama does on his own time...it belongs to Obama.
Posted by: mzmarlena | May 14, 2009 10:22 PM
I like the way the Republicans have brought in Frank Luntz develop "talking points" to try to stop health care reform. But when helath care industry people are clamoring to get on board it seems the GOP has missed the boat once again.
Posted by: Aaron | May 14, 2009 10:34 PM
Axelrod is not Obama's spy nor is he his confessor. What Obama does on his own time...it belongs to Obama.
Posted by: mzmarlena | May 14, 2009 11:04 PM
The 2nd Swamp article on their buddy Dave Axelrod's appearance at NPR.
Meanwhile, no Swamp article on how even the pro-Obama NY Times has discovered that President Stagflation/Debt/Messiah lied, lied big time, world class lied, about what the Swamp headlined as "$2 Trillion" savings in "Health Care":
"Health Care Leaders Say Obama Overstated Their Promise to Control Costs
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: May 14, 2009
WASHINGTON — Hospitals and insurance companies said Thursday that President Obama had substantially overstated their promise earlier this week to reduce the growth of health spending.
Mr. Obama invited health industry leaders to the White House on Monday to trumpet their cost-control commitments. But three days later, confusion swirled in Washington as the companies’ trade associations raced to tamp down angst among members around the country.
After meeting with six major health care organizations, Mr. Obama hailed their cost-cutting promise as historic.
“These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment,” Mr. Obama said. “Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion.”
Health care leaders who attended the meeting have a different interpretation. They say they agreed to slow health spending in a more gradual way and did not pledge specific year-by-year cuts.
“There’s been a lot of misunderstanding that has caused a lot of consternation among our members,” said Richard J. Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association. “I’ve spent the better part of the last three days trying to deal with it.”
Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said “the president misspoke” on Monday and again on Wednesday when he described the industry’s commitment in similar terms."
You can see why David Axelrod, and his Swamp buddies, want to hide this information. Read it and weep .... for this country.
Posted by: Bruce | May 15, 2009 8:47 AM
Both seem to be Socialist Comrades.
Posted by: Inky | May 15, 2009 9:15 AM
Socialism is the new Republican buzzword. Inky and his ilk should move overseas to a real socialist country.
Posted by: Doug R. | May 15, 2009 10:09 AM
Both seem to be Socialist Comrades.
Posted by: Inky | May 15, 2009 9:15 AM
Polly...Polly....Polly want a cracker?
Posted by: bill r. | May 15, 2009 10:19 AM
Axelrod commented on Obama's global warming intiatives to sacrifice hot showers, turning up the air or heat, all the while he turned up the heat to near 80F on a cold day in DC. Axelrod stated ever so dumb just after asking Americans to limit their so called carbon footprint, that Obama is from Hawaii and not used to the cold so he heated the WH up enough to grow Orchids. Huh? How hypocritical where Obama resided in frigid Chicago for years with his bestest pals Wright, Rezco and Ayers. This is the Audacity of Hope of those now in DC?
"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect."
--James Madison, to an unidentified correspondent, 1833
Posted by: Joe Lunchbox Lawyer | May 15, 2009 12:02 PM
dont lik obam socialism. might move to europe, ayers, Rezko, university of Chicago.
Posted by: Helsinky | May 15, 2009 1:39 PM
Socialism is the new Republican buzzword. Inky and his ilk should move overseas to a real socialist country.
Posted by: Doug R. | May 15, 2009 10:09 AM
Don't to move , Obama is bringing it here, wake up man-
Posted by: Inky | May 15, 2009 3:16 PM