President-elect promised change, picking insiders

[onehandle]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama promised the voters change but has started his Cabinet selection process by naming several Washington insiders to top posts.

Obama is enlisting former Senate leader Tom Daschle as his health secretary. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a well-known Washington personality, seemed more likely than ever to be his secretary of state.

Clinton is deciding whether to take that post as America's top diplomat, her associates said Wednesday
Obama is ready to announce that his attorney general will be Eric Holder, the Justice Department's No. 2 when Clinton's husband was president. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, is another veteran of the Clinton White House.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is Obama's primary choice to be secretary of the Homeland Security Department, several news organizations reported Thursday. The New York Times, citing Democrats with knowledge of the process, said Napolitano was about to be offered the job. The Washington Post also reported that she was Obama's choice.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081120/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_cabinet

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Obama is picking the best and brightest. Many will obviously come from the Clinton era, when we had geniuses keeping us out of wars and boosting our economy.

What should Obama do? Pick random people off the street and stick them in his cabinet?

The change will be in policy. Obama will achieve much that Clinton couldn't because of combative Republicans and their penis envy.

[mediaman007]

1. AP is now a right wing bird cage liner.

Calling "Hillary Rodham Clinton, a well-known Washington personality" is written by people with an agenda.

[Freddie Stubbs]

36. Right-wing? It could have been written by a DUer

[babylonsister]

2. Yep, there's going to be lots of whining. Seems to me, Napolitano

is change, Clinton has made no decisions, but so what. Just inbed the idea in people's skulls. I'm sure we'd all rather have inexperienced people running this ship that's headed for a sandbar.

[Malidictus Maximus]

31. I want Hillary on the Supreme Court

Justice Clinton, in your face for the next 35 years, conservatives:-)

[ixion]

3. Personally, I've not been impressed, thus far...

I keep hoping it will get better, but from what I've read 'change' amounts to shifting the deck chairs on the titanic.

[maseman]

7. Next time vote for Nader then

You want change...Bob Barr is your man.

[mdmc]

11. that would be real change

corporatism fears the third choices... but.they.would.be.stealing.votes.from.our.guy! Even a vote for Bob Barr...

[Roland99]

14. I'm not pleased with the DLC dandies filling top posts either.

*sigh*

[earth mom]

4. So where's that "change" Obama was selling?

:eyes:

[maseman]

6. Where's the change?

Are you fucking serious?

Change from BUSH! CHange from CHENEY! Change from RICE! Change from PERINO! Change from CHERTOFF! Change from PAULSON! Change from MURKASEY!

What else do you want in change? Jesus Christ I should be surprised but not that people on DU are bitching and whining about Obama and he is two months from becoming President. This place is fucking Debbie Downer.

[babylonsister]

9. Just ignore them, maseman. These are people who

were going to be complaining regardless. Not everyone on DU feels this way.

[maseman]

13. You are correct

I have not posted much since the election as "poster fatigue" had set in after the year. It is just a real downer to come here and read so much disdain and just plain whining after such a hard fought election. We elected Obama because he is the brightest on for the job. Now so many sit around "blogging" about how awful he has been thus far in his decision making.

[bob4460]

25. I want Obama to bring all the cronies

from some of the BEST times in American history.....The Clinton Years

[Dr.Phool]

20. Change from minority boxers to majority briefs.

For the midterms, they'll be trying on thongs.

[maseman]

5. Wait wait wait

How is Clinton, Daschle, and Napolitano "Insiders?" Insiders to what?

Hillary Clinton is a second term Senator who has never held a Cabinet post. Tom Daschle has been out of the Senate for some time and has never held a cabinet position. Napolitano is a Gov from Arizona who has (in my mind at least) never served a cabinet position. I don't see insiders here compared to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Libby, Armitage, Wolfowitz, etc.

The argument here is who is Obama going to fill the cabinet with? State senators and local city mayors who are not "Insiders?"

[Kierkegaard]

17. Their idea of 'insider' is someone who's name they've heard somewhere before.

He can't win this kind of critique. Anyone who is known is an 'insider' and anyone who isn't known would be unqualified for some other ridiculous reason.

[Alter Ego]

27. I've noticed this.

I get the feeling that Obama would have to go onto the streets of DC and hire random homeless people to placate the purity brigade.

Folks, guess what? Practically everyone who has been involved in government or has had any tangential relationship to Washington DC is gonna have SOME degree of separation to Bill Clinton. It's inescapable. Love him, hate him, or whatever, but Bill Clinton was the only Democratic president in the last 30 years. Throw a handful of pebbles down the Capitol steps and you'll hit a dozen former Clinton staffers, who will then bang into a dozen more, knocking over a dozen more.

[bullimiami]

8. will someone tell the ahole that its change from george bush and the repuke neocon insanity.

[mdmc]

10. The change will be in policy.

warning - sharp learning curve ahead.

My poor sister is pretty new to politics and just LOVES Obama. She thinks she is gonna see real change - like ending the drug war...

looks like more of the best and brightest - the same folk that lobby for GM or Wall Street.

[mwb970]

12. So people who know how the system works are inherently unable to bring change?

This is nonsense, is it not? The "change" we want is not new faces per se, it's new ideas. Putting experienced people ("insiders", even) in charge is the only way to efficiently bring about meaningful change.

What is the alternative? Brand new people who have never operated in Washington? How will they be able to change anything? They don't even know where the restrooms are yet.

This is a non-debate, it seems to me.

[Maeve]

24. Agreed--only the people who know how it works can change it

Newcomers spend too much time figuring out the mechanisms before they can get around to fixing them.

[grannylib]

15. Exactly. He's picking people with experience in getting things DONE

and as mentioned, the change will be in policy, in direction, in tone...not necessarily in personnel matters. If the rePigliCons aren't too obstructionist, the changes will come.

[Alter Ego]

28. Right. It's not Bill at the helm this time, it's Obama--and while the Cabinet

offers whatever input they can, guess who gets the last word?

Yep. It's that guy in the round room in the West Wing behind the Resolute desk.

[riona]

16. Again,the MSM illustrates that jumping to conclusions should be an Olympic event

[SIMPLYB1980]

30. Ain't that the truth.

[ChazII]

18. Interesting choice

Gov. Janet Napolitano is not a Washington insider.

[dmallind]

19. Once more with feeling

He promised change FROM BUSH. Is he picking Bush insiders?

[PassingFair]

21. Not Bush "insiders"... Bush "enablers".

No reward, no voice from people
who stood up to the Bush Administration.

Just roll-overs for roll-overs.

[high density]

23. Well, now they can "enable" Obama

Obama is not going to govern like Bush.

[PassingFair]

29. Or they will continue to enable corporate rip-off and war profiteers.

It's what they do.

[dmallind]

32. Sure - Rahm Emmanuel voted 100% with Bush, right?

[high density]

22. AP, if Bush was chosen for a third term via John McCain...

You are telling us that McCain's team would be choosing the same people that Obama is currently flirting with? Give me a break. If Obama wants Democrats who are experienced in government, then of course they will have links to the Clinton White House.

[Alter Ego]

26. I haven't even clicked the link

and I'll bet the article was written by Ron Fournier.

[Skwmom]

33. I think Clinton as SOS and talk of bringing back idiots like Summers is

what damages the change message.

[Jennicut]

34. I have two names for AP: Brownie and Mack McLarty

They were "change", they had never been to Washington before. They both did a "heck of a job" in Washington for Shrub and Bill Clinton. Cronies or experience, I'll take experience. Radicalism equals anarchy. Really, what were some people here expecting? An overthrow of the whole system?

[boilinmad]

35. Did you ever stop and think that.....

....putting QUALIFIED people in appropriate positions, in fact IS change, compared to W's ridiculous choices?