Oh the scandalizing books ahead of election time. I remember them well and how work-place liberals loved to quote from their pages when it was the Bush team in the White House. Between them and the liberal press, one would think everyone was apart of the Bush administration besides you. Karl Rove was the devil incarnate, Bush was a pea-brained, and Cheney called the shots from inside his lair. Together they were all in a State of Denial but hell bent on empire and other neo-conservative designs.

Those were the good ol’days for liberals. But Obama was going to be different — just you wait! Obama’s supposed genius, moderation, and infinite wisdom enabled him to put together a team of the nation’s brightest. His team of rivals was second to none in the history of the world. A trusted team comprised of men, women, gays, Hispanics, blacks, and whites. Truly it was an inclusive team that bared the soul of a decent, humble, and empathetic man. Ivy League types, of course, but you get the picture.

Obama has said he admires Doris Kearns Goodwin’s wonderful Lincoln biography, Team of Rivals. “He talks about it all the time,” says a top aide. He is particularly intrigued by the notion that Lincoln assembled all the Republicans who had run against him for President in his war Cabinet, some of whom disagreed with him vehemently and persistently. “The lesson is to not let your ego or grudges get in the way of hiring absolutely the best people,” Obama told me. “I don’t think the American people are fundamentally ideological. They’re pragmatic … and so I have an interest in casting a wide net, seeking out people with a wide range of expertise, including Republicans,” for the highest positions in his government (Joe Klein).

That was the story anyway. The real one is much more believable.

The book, by Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, quotes White House documents that say Mr. Obama’s decisions were routinely “re-litigated” by the chairman of the National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers. Some decisions, including one to overhaul the debt-ridden Citibank, were carried out sluggishly or not at all by a resistant Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, according to the book.

Mr. Suskind quotes from two memos for the president in which Pete Rouse, a senior White House aide, wrote, “There is deep dissatisfaction within the economic team with what is perceived as Larry’s imperious and heavy-handed direction of the economic policy process.”

A copy of the book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President,” published by HarperCollins, was obtained by The New York Times before it officially goes on sale on Tuesday. The White House declined to comment on Mr. Suskind’s account, which he said was based on interviews with more than 200 people, including the president.

The book offers a portrait of a White House operating under intense pressure as it dealt with a cascade of crises, from insolvent banks to collapsing carmakers. And it details the rivalries among figures around the president, including Mr. Summers; Mr. Geithner; the former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel; and the budget director, Peter R. Orszag.

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It’s just so amazing how the Progressive Left is the champion of minorities and the elderly. Champions that is, so long as those demographics don’t dare dissent from the rigid party ideology. If any among the members of these otherwise protected groups are struck by an independent thought, they become targets for derision from the enlightened progressive movement.

Case in point: Condoleezza Rice being labeled an Uncle Tom (or worse).
Case in point: Sarah Palin being labeled stupid.

Both of these labels are inventions and slurs of the Left, reserved for anyone who strays from the Progressive reservation.

Another case in point is the Left’s rumblings over the older demographic on display at the Tea Party Convention last weekend.

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We’re accustomed to strange political phenomena rising out of Minnesota.

We can accept the occasional Jesse Ventura or Al Franken winning statewide office, because the state’s voters obviously like to be different.

But we doubt even the most offbeat citizens of that state would approve of the new K-12 teacher education program that’s been proposed for the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.

While the rest of the nation is trying to force teachers to help our children reach their potential, the university’s College of Education and Human Development wants to make sure future teachers are more anti-American, so they can share that philosophy with their future students.

We couldn’t even begin to make something like this up.

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