Obama Business
Now that the election is over and I had my moment of Hurrah!, it's time to get down to business; including my first criticism of Obama as president elect.
According to a number of sources, Obama has already begun preparing for his transition to the White House, including planning a series of key economic provisions that he hopes to pass in the coming 90 days, daily CIA briefings like the President gets, and selecting key figures in his cabinet.
My first impressions of his cabinet selections are mixed. Most sources indicate that Obama has selected Representative Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. Emanuel worked as a strategist in the Clinton white house before becoming an investment banker and inventually moving on to run for office in Congress. He is well known for being the ring leader and primary strategist behind the Democrats' takeover of congress in 2006, and his style is abrasive and partisan at best. Nonetheless, I think he is the right choice for Chief of Staff. For one thing, the man knows the ins and outs of both congress and the white house, having served in key strategic positions in both places. Obama is very knew to Washington, he will need a few guides in his White House to show him around. In addition, the two are close friends from Chicago and would work very well together even though they have very different styles. Some have said that Obama, Axelroad, and Emanuel would be "an unstoppable force." Above all else, Emmanuel works with incredible efficiency; he is the kind of person who can be on top of 100 things at once, and that is perhaps the most important qualification for a white house Chief of Staff.
Second, Obama has floated the idea of keeping Robert Gates in charge as Secretary of Defense, despite the fact that he's a Bush appointee. I also think this is a good idea. Choosing a new Secretary of Defense would mean completely changing the leadership in Iraq, months before we hope to pull out of the war. In addition, Gates has shown himself to be very non-partisan and an effective leader, very quickly changing the course of the Iraq war once he took control of it. It just makes sense to keep him in charge at least until were out of that mess.
Finally, Obama has been floating the idea of Larry Summers as his Secretary of Treasury. I think this would be a very, very bad decision. Summers was treasury secretary under Clinton and a former head of the World Bank. He is notorioius for his support of a number of free trade agreements that Obama has opposed. In addition, Summers is arrogant, and a member of the old guard of economists who stood by complacently while New York's financial markets tied themselves up in their current mess. He doesn't seem like the kind of "change" leader that Obama has talked about bringing to Washington, and it's not clear how he would help get the United States out of it's current economic mess. Summers has supported most of the economic ideas that Obama opposes. I think the idea is to make people feel comfortable and secure by appointing a treasury secretary from a time when the U.S. economy was doing very well. Nonetheless, Summers would be a mistake and Obama ought to look elsewhere to fresher faces with less traditional, stubborn economic ideas.
In general, with these three positions and with the other cabinet positions that Obama has been discussing, there seems to be a trend to pick old Clinton cabinet members. I have to say, this is a very disapointing trend. One of the few things Clinton did right was bring lots of fresh faces into the white house, give lots of young, new Democrats a chance to further there careers and set thehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Summersmselves up for future political posititions in Washington. In addition, these fresh faces bring a fresh perspective to a city that operates like a big, ugly echo chamber. If Obama is serious about "bringing change to Washington" then he needs to stop talking about appointing people like John Kerry and Bill Daley to his cabinet, and look for young, fresh, Washington outsiders.
Finally, I must make an appeal to Obama to give more cabinet positions to women. This wasn't just a historical election because we elected a black president; we also saw the first female vice presidential candidate for the Republican party, and a historical and powerful bid by Hillary Clintont to be the Democratic party's official nominee. The time is right for women to take a bigger role in politics; they make up half of our country and yet there are only a handful of women represented in Congress. Obama could dramatically affect this disparity by picking any number of women to fill a number of very important, cabinet positions.
According to a number of sources, Obama has already begun preparing for his transition to the White House, including planning a series of key economic provisions that he hopes to pass in the coming 90 days, daily CIA briefings like the President gets, and selecting key figures in his cabinet.
My first impressions of his cabinet selections are mixed. Most sources indicate that Obama has selected Representative Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. Emanuel worked as a strategist in the Clinton white house before becoming an investment banker and inventually moving on to run for office in Congress. He is well known for being the ring leader and primary strategist behind the Democrats' takeover of congress in 2006, and his style is abrasive and partisan at best. Nonetheless, I think he is the right choice for Chief of Staff. For one thing, the man knows the ins and outs of both congress and the white house, having served in key strategic positions in both places. Obama is very knew to Washington, he will need a few guides in his White House to show him around. In addition, the two are close friends from Chicago and would work very well together even though they have very different styles. Some have said that Obama, Axelroad, and Emanuel would be "an unstoppable force." Above all else, Emmanuel works with incredible efficiency; he is the kind of person who can be on top of 100 things at once, and that is perhaps the most important qualification for a white house Chief of Staff.
Second, Obama has floated the idea of keeping Robert Gates in charge as Secretary of Defense, despite the fact that he's a Bush appointee. I also think this is a good idea. Choosing a new Secretary of Defense would mean completely changing the leadership in Iraq, months before we hope to pull out of the war. In addition, Gates has shown himself to be very non-partisan and an effective leader, very quickly changing the course of the Iraq war once he took control of it. It just makes sense to keep him in charge at least until were out of that mess.
Finally, Obama has been floating the idea of Larry Summers as his Secretary of Treasury. I think this would be a very, very bad decision. Summers was treasury secretary under Clinton and a former head of the World Bank. He is notorioius for his support of a number of free trade agreements that Obama has opposed. In addition, Summers is arrogant, and a member of the old guard of economists who stood by complacently while New York's financial markets tied themselves up in their current mess. He doesn't seem like the kind of "change" leader that Obama has talked about bringing to Washington, and it's not clear how he would help get the United States out of it's current economic mess. Summers has supported most of the economic ideas that Obama opposes. I think the idea is to make people feel comfortable and secure by appointing a treasury secretary from a time when the U.S. economy was doing very well. Nonetheless, Summers would be a mistake and Obama ought to look elsewhere to fresher faces with less traditional, stubborn economic ideas.
In general, with these three positions and with the other cabinet positions that Obama has been discussing, there seems to be a trend to pick old Clinton cabinet members. I have to say, this is a very disapointing trend. One of the few things Clinton did right was bring lots of fresh faces into the white house, give lots of young, new Democrats a chance to further there careers and set thehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Summersmselves up for future political posititions in Washington. In addition, these fresh faces bring a fresh perspective to a city that operates like a big, ugly echo chamber. If Obama is serious about "bringing change to Washington" then he needs to stop talking about appointing people like John Kerry and Bill Daley to his cabinet, and look for young, fresh, Washington outsiders.
Finally, I must make an appeal to Obama to give more cabinet positions to women. This wasn't just a historical election because we elected a black president; we also saw the first female vice presidential candidate for the Republican party, and a historical and powerful bid by Hillary Clintont to be the Democratic party's official nominee. The time is right for women to take a bigger role in politics; they make up half of our country and yet there are only a handful of women represented in Congress. Obama could dramatically affect this disparity by picking any number of women to fill a number of very important, cabinet positions.