WP, pg1: For Obama Cabinet, A Team of Moderates; In Picks, Few Hints About Policy Plans

[DeepModem Mom]

For Obama Cabinet, A Team of Moderates
In Picks, Few Hints About Policy Plans
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 20, 2008; A01

President-elect Barack Obama wrapped up his Cabinet appointments yesterday, meeting his ambitious holiday deadline by assembling a team full of outsize personalities with overlapping jurisdictions and nominees who are known more for pragmatism than for strong leanings on the issues they will oversee.

In Chicago, the president-elect announced his picks to lead the Departments of Labor and Transportation, the Small Business Administration and the office of trade representative. The announcement of the labor nominee, Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.), the daughter of a union family who has a strongly pro-labor voting record, came as a relief to some liberals who had grown slightly anxious about Obama's commitment to organized labor's agenda. "She's an inspired choice from a working-class background, who represented a working-class district with middle-class sensibilities," said AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Samuels.

But many of Obama's other picks reflect his apparent preference for practical-minded centrists who have straddled big policy debates rather than staking out the strongest pro-reform positions. Their reputations as moderates have won Obama plaudits from even some Republicans, but the choices offer relatively few clues to his plans in certain key areas.

"He's clearly been under great pressure to satisfy any number of constituencies, and to a certain extent, these appointments are prisms through which you can see what you want," said Paul C. Light of New York University's Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and a contributor to The Washington Post. "But at some point there will be tough decisions to make, and some of these Cabinet members are going to have to choose, and we'll see how that plays out."...

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To the most aggressive advocates for change in the course of government, Obama's preference for centrists such as (Tom) Vilsack who are amenable to rival camps is a discouraging sign that the status quo will prevail. "His appointments indicate small change," said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association. "The latest polls show that 60 percent of Americans say we're in serious straits and need some major changes . . . but he's going to have to be pushed if we're going to see anything other than small change."

Obama has signaled more ambitious plans with his picks in other areas, notably health care and energy. But it remains unclear just where the real centers of power will reside, given that he has added several key new staff positions to his White House team, suggesting that he will continue the decades-long trend of White House advisers asserting more authority over Cabinet departments....

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Among many advocacy groups, the hope is that Obama's intentions will become clearer when he appoints the deputy secretaries and other high-level personnel who will implement many policies -- a group that will in all likelihood represent a sharp break from those it will be replacing in the Bush administration....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121902086_pf.html

[MasonJar]

1. I seldom agree with the Post editorial staff anymore; however, Obama

needs to step up to the plate immediately to salvage his "change" rhetoric (I sincerely hope for our nation and the world's sake it is more than rhetoric) after choosing Warren.