Scanning the comments of the previous thread about the Obama cabinet picks, and one thing is clear- when the Democrats are out of power, all energy is spent hating on the GOP, and when Democrats are in power, all that energy is directed towards hating on other Democrats. It really is pretty fun to watch.
In news that should make everyone happy (and which I am late mentioning), Obama appointed Shinseki to run the VA. While most of us get a touch excited about the fact that this really is a giant middle finger to Rumsfeld and company, Fallows is correct in that there is something nice about the Obama justification of Shinseki: “He was right.”
This is also why I am being patient about the Obama picks- folks on the progressive left are also correct when they point out that many of the Obama economic picks were, well, wrong about many things. Likewise, the conventional wisdom about his national security team is also something to keep an eye on.
Cassidy the Racist White Man
Now all he needs to do is bring back White and Brownlee and my dream team will be complete.
PaulW
Obama’s Playing it Cool.
The far left (the ones that are slightly more paranoid and militant than the Kos krowd) need to remember that Obama’s campaign for Change wasn’t change from conservative to liberal: the Change was from cronyist incompetence to insider competence.
/snerk
wvng
Publius says the whole durm and strang on the left over Obama’s picks "is essentially a giant Kabuki theater." I tend to agree. Don’t Throw Me In The Briar Patch
Comrade Jake
Fallows has a bunch of posts on Shinseki, and they’re all quite good.
Only the one that Cole links to is "must-read" though. Heh.
kid bitzer
but we can still find something to hate on in the shinseki thing if we just remember tammy duckworth.
it’s a slap in the face!
Comrade Stuck
I’m just disappointed he didn’t choose these guys for his National Security Team. We could have canceled the Military and used the money to bail out Britney Spears career.
Zifnab
Republicans like to pretend they’re the anti-government party, and they play a pretty good game. But nobody bashing big government liberals like the folks who just voted them into office.
Comrade Jake
I know that this is something of a "story" at the moment, that there are lots of folks on the left who are upset over Obama’s picks, but I just don’t see it. I read a fair number of lefty blogs, and while there’s some degree of reservation over this that or the other thing, in general he’s getting the benefit of the doubt.
Shocker that the media would make a story out of comments by a few vocal individuals. Because we’ve never seen that before. AMIRITE?
A more interesting question to me is whether or not Obama doesn’t mind so much if such stories get some traction. I actually think the notion that he’s currently perturbing the left a little probably helps him in the grand scheme of things. "You mean he’s not a socialist? Holy shit!"
Comrade Jake
Why the heck is my comment in moderation. WTF?
TheHatOnMyCat
Meh. I remember a picture of Rumsfeld and Cheney in "transition 2000" time, and the theme was, "The adults are back in charge." That was "conventional wisdom" eight years ago.
How did that work out? As for "when Democrats are in power, all that energy is directed towards hating on other Democrats," I wouldn’t mind seeing a poll of your regulars. I’ll wager $10 that the majority of them just agree with you, and are being patient.
Napoleon
I love the Shinseki pick, if for no other reason it says a message that if you stick to your guns about what you think is right you will be recognized for it in the end. Plus it was announced on Pearl Harbor day and he is of Japanese background and grew up in Hawaii.
Sinister eyebrow
I think there’s a bit of tunnel vision associated with evaluating Democrats’ or Liberals’ criticisms of Obama’s picks for his cabinet. Those loudly commenting online are prone to be emotinally invested in things and way more adamant about their views than most. That’s why they’re commenting about this online. And those who breathlessly overanalyze the "picks" in the media simply have nothing better to create meaningless drama with at the moment (real drama, like war and economic collapse would expose our Media Overlords to criticism for faulty analysis and poor command of facts and issues; phony drama over the overall meaning of Cabinet picks is something so subjective they can’t be called out on it)–those clowns earn their living with this stuff and are personally invested in it. Most of the rest of the world is not like those small subsets. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t care as long as the job gets done. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t know who the hell Eric Holder is, nor do they give a shit so long as he isn’t mini-Gonzo.
It is Kabuki. There are no legit complaints to be made until Obama’s in office and actually starts doing things. If he starts governing in a manner that is contrary to what he campaigned on, then there’s a gripe. If not, it doesn’t matter who his cabinet picks are so long as they implement his vision properly.
DougJ
That’s right. And it’s why we shouldn’t be worried about one party rule when that party is Democrats. There are checks and balances built into the Democratic party that explain why the government would function just fine if there were no Republican party.
The key to understanding the superiority of the Democratic party is watching how much Democrats like to bust each other’s balls. A Democratic president could never pull the shit Bush pulled because his own party wouldn’t let him. (I’ll grant that a real political mastermind like LBJ could probably get away with a lot of what Bush did, but that guy was a once in-a-lifetime.)
Dr. Squid
Which is a giant middle finger to conservatives who prefer to deal in something other than reality.
gwendy
I just think there’s a big vacuum in what became an insanely paced news cycle during the election, so bloggers, pundits, and more MSM newsy types are elevating what is a pretty small number of hand-wringers on the left to some higher level of concern. Read any given alarmist headline on HuffPo or Politico right now and you’ll see a pretty tame story underneath it.
It’s not a lot of fun to report that Obama’s transition is getting insanely high polling results from Dems and Independents so we act like David Sirota represents some large constintuency that’s "troublesome" or some such mess. I like publius’ take as well.
The Other Steve
See? We don’t really need Republicans at all.
The Democrats are their very own majority and opposition party rolled into one.
Indylib
I love the elegance of naming a Hawaiian-born Japanese- American to this post on Pearl Harbor Day while delivering the loudest FU to the Bushwhacked "support the troops" bunch of fuckwads heard so far from the Obama camp.
The truth is, the military expects to be fucked over to a certain extent when they go into the VA. It’s been underfunded and understaffed for years, probably forever. But this bunch of assholes has given "unacceptable" a whole new meaning.
Comrade Jake
Want to know how this story about the perturbed left is mostly a lot of smoke? It’s close to the top of Drudge’s site.
Comrade Stuck
Funhouse Proverb. Misdirected energy is better than no energy at all, unless it is misdirected Republican energy and you are brown. Then it’s time to duck.
HyperIon
OT but for folks who thought Larison would be a good choice for the (non-existent) Kristol vacancy, imagine reading this in the NYT:
he’s responding to you, Cole.
are you wearing your decoder ring?
DougJ
The Democrats are their very own majority and opposition party rolled into one.
Yup. I’ve recently discovered that I don’t even need to go to Republican blogs to find nuts to argue with. I can find plenty of Hillary dead-enders, autism-vaccine link believers, and anti-free trade extremists on the liberal blogs I frequent.
The Democratic party is completely self-sufficient. We don’t need any other parties.
Rook
People can learn from their mistakes, if given leadership that allows them to do just that. Under Bush, how many of these people were given a chance to correct their mistakes?
So, I am all for patience when it comes to Obama’s picks. Because, in the end, it’s his leadership that will allow these people to accomplish their objectives.
Under Bush, these same people wallowed in a sea of apathy and incompetence, with little support, and even less motivating leadership, to right their wrongs.
John Cole
@HyperIon: I actually read that post three times a little bit ago, and decided against responding because I had no clue what the hell he was talking about.
I will let Schwenkler and others decipher it.
That said, I still think Larison is interesting and provocative, while Kristol is just a dolt with an agenda.
Xecky Gilchrist
Under Bush, these same people wallowed in a sea of apathy and incompetence, with little support, and even less motivating leadership, to right their wrongs.
…or, as in Shinseki’s case, were fired for not making a mistake.
The Moar You Know
Don’t forget, the natural weapon of the Palestinians and their Mooslim allies, DemoncRATS, is the suicide vest.
-Party Hard
/Atanarjuat
Ben
Most of the left wing bloggers who are up-in-arms about Obama’s picks are the ones that annoy the friggen hell out of me to begin with.
I’m pretty happy with his picks for the most part. He’s pissed off the right people on both sides: the right and the left.
Now I can understand the concern with his core economic team. Who wouldn’t be concerned at this juncture?
Not to mention a lot of the cricticism is a healthy part of democracy as long as you don’t let it drive 100% of your policy. I think one of the reasons we don’t have Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers is because of the varied criticism.
DougJ
I agree. I don’t always agree with Larison, but he uses his brain. He’s better than Sully or Douthat too.
Jon H
kid bitzer wrote: "but we can still find something to hate on in the shinseki thing if we just remember tammy duckworth."
There are plenty of top appointee positions in the VA hierarchy which remain open for her.
p.a.
Really no reason for us on the far left to get paranoid and go into attack mode; he’s not president yet. But watchfulness is in order, or we’ll be back to fake 2-party rule; the Corporate Party and the Other Corporate Party.
And I guess ‘far left’ is now defined as being the non-corporatist wing of the Other Corporate Party.
OT: Sitdown strike in, I believe, Illinois. Could be an interesting couple of years coming up. "Don’t mourn for me. Organize!"
Snarki, child of Loki
I really, really look forward to:
Valerie Plame to head the CIA
C’mon, Obama, do it. And I’d bet that she’s about a million times better than Goss, particularly in areas of nonproliferation.
But, oh how it would give a finger to the repugnotards, sweet!
El Cid
How can we tell the difference between debating stuff — and without which, there’s not, um, likely to be people filling up your comments section and not just looking at kitty cat photos — and some sort of ‘beyond the pale’ internal Democrat / liberal hatred?
What, are people supposed to visit these kinds of blogs and debate whether or not Republicans suck?
Cause, they do.
But those aren’t the biggest questions right now.
demimondian
@John Cole: It’s pretty straightforward.
Liberals view individual autonomy — the right to make your own choices — as an core social norm. Conservatives, particularly religious conservatives, don’t. If they grant it the status which liberals accord it, they have lost the battle *right there*. Larison is honest enough to admit that the only stick with which the "pro-lifers" have to beat the rest of us is the God stick, and to recognize that if they give that up, and try to fight on empirical grounds, it’s game over.
Fwiffo
Obviously, rewarding Shinseki for being right by putting him in charge of something is A Good Thing. But putting him in charge of the thing he got right would be A Better Thing. And sure, putting competent people in charge of the economy is A Good Thing. But it would be A Better Thing to put competent people in charge who weren’t the "competent" people who got us into this mess (e.g. Summers, Ruben, et. al.)
And putting Brennan in charge of the CIA would have just been A Bad Thing. Hayden would also be A Bad Thing.
J.
when the Democrats are out of power, all energy is spent hating on the GOP, and when Democrats are in power, all that energy is directed towards hating on other Democrats
As opposed to the Republicans, who when out AND in power all energy is spent hating the Democrats — and when faced with losing a slew of Congressional seats because of their lame Republican president turn against the head of their party.
Oh yeah. HUGE difference.
jenniebee
With any luck, Obama and Shinseki will create a conventional wisdom among military families that when a Republican is in office, you have to fight the system to get even shit-poor care, but Democratic administrations take care of service members and their families.
For nanny-state concern trolls: anybody concerned about the "perversion of market incentives" created by giving financial support to people permanently and severely injured in combat zones can kiss my fat white ass.
liberal
@Sinister eyebrow:
How many times do I have to repeat that making cabinet picks is indeed "doing something"?
I never thought he would govern as anything other than a (perhaps slightly left-of-center) centrist, because that was what his voting record in the Senate was like. (Gave him big bucks anyway.)
But we don’t know what his precise vision is, and I claim that cabinet picks are fairly highly correlated with future governance.
The idea that people shouldn’t be allow to make objections based on reasonable predictions is just silly.
(That being said, I didn’t like the Gates pick, but wasn’t overly upset about it, because it appears he has at least a few "realist" bones in his body.)
Shawn in ShowMe
I think it’s important to keep in mind what positions are being filled when judging the nominees’ progressive credentials. How exactly can you have an anti-war Secretary of Defense or a Treasury Secretary hostile to Wall Street and get any cooperation from the military-industrial complex?
Obama didn’t come here to bury imperial capitalism, he came here to make it less destructive.
joe from Lowell
Barack Obama will be sworn in as president in 43 days. Within a month or two after that, it might be possible to write something intelligent about the initial ideological direction of his administration.
TheHatOnMyCat
You’d have enjoyed listening to some GOP congresscritter dolt, on Faux News just a few mins ago, stating that helping the auto industry was "nothing more than payback to the unions for getting Barack Obama elected."
It’s amazing to me that these potatoheads can diss the working stiff and the veteran stiff and keep getting away with it. I’ve never understood this (the "how they get away with it" part).
The Democratic Party has always stood for being on the side of the working guy. I think it’s wise to polish that badge as often as possible.
MattF
I’m neutral about Obama’s cabinet selections– so much so that it’s a bit unnerving. But the lesson from the Bush Years is that, yeah, it does matter who’s in charge. If the guy in charge is a pea-brained shithead, then the government will be imbued with pea-brained shitheadedness.
And if not– who can say? We haven’t had anyone like Obama in charge– certainly not in living memory, and maybe not ever.
TheHatOnMyCat
Three. That’s the rule. You have to repeat things at least three times. When you reach the point at which you are being told that you are "blithely ignoring" the retorts against your position, then you are just about at the right amount of repetitions.
Make sure it’s "blithely ignoring," though. Ordinary ignoring does not qualify for the rule.
I figure this stuff out, so you don’t have to.
Brachiator
What’s especially fun is how liberals are complaining that Obama has not appointed bona fide liberals to his cabinet. Note that there is no complaint about actual policy, but the boneheaded idea that someone who is branded 100% liberal by definition would be a competent choice with good ideas.
For example, a current yahoo news story notes:
This is nonsense. And the liberal fools who criticize Obama clearly are living in an alternate universe in which the economy is strong, unemployment is non-existent, and heaven is just around the corner.
These clowns are not much different from evangelicals. They are concerned about Obama’s ideological purity, not about the nature of his ideas or policies or actual achievements.
As a related aside, last week’s Bill Moyer’s Journal had an informative interview with Senator Feingold (still available online or via iTunes), who spoke intelligently about what some progressives might like to see from Obama.
Laura W
I can throw "take a haircut" under the bus now, please?
dbrown
@The Moar You Know: Yeah – try supporting your claim by giving one example
TheHatOnMyCat
I’m glad that’s up on the website. I tried to watch it at its scheduled time here and my cable service wasn’t working on that channel. I’m in the old part of town that is getting upgraded to new OrgasmOnDemand service and speed, which means that for weeks, my tv and internet signals are subject to being trashed for days at a time without notice and without any particular concern on the part of the provider.
gwangung
You need to support that claim. And which areas of the picks’ exertise will be highlighted.
TheHatOnMyCat
Unless you are in the haircut industry, yes.
MikeL
Hillayis44 still exists. I’d say it’s relevant to this thread.
Apparently, Obama is just like Jar Jar Binks. Mesa so incompetent!
I like the comparison, because of how measured it is. It’s not overtly racist, but it’s just on the edge – just a few inches short.
Laura W
@Brachiator:
Which is precisely why Tweety will be beating it to death in 4 short minutes.
TheHatOnMyCat
Tweety: Whatever happened to that progressive Democrat that liberals thought they had elected?
One minute in, and already he is as inane as a Broder column.
And can’t a guy who makes this kind of money afford a speech coach to help him stop saying "Hiwwary Cwinton?"
aimai
I think Napoleon’s comment up above is a very important one:
kay
I don’t mind the dissent, at all. It’s just part and parcel of being a Democrat.
I wish they would come up with some interesting alternatives, though. Some Washington Outsiders.
I stopped reading because they’re not choosing, oh, some brave, unsung liberal member of the Indiana Statehouse.
That would be interesting, the idea of having a "liberal bench" to promote to the big leagues. Instead they go for such recognizable names.
They can’t keep saying they want Russ Feingold for…Secretary of Everything.
demimondian
@jenniebee: Well, you know, you wouldn’t want to reward soldiers for doing their duty, now would you? They might actually get themselves hurt in war zones if we payed for their lives of agony thereafter, the little sillies.
Natascha
Calm down. There are like a total of 5 "librulz" who are flailing their arms and are trying to get attention by concern trolling Obama’s cabinet picks.
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
Tweety’s on a roll and you can just about hear the chipmonks, or chipmunks running that wheel toward genius. He’s got Obama figgered out alright. No Drama is just making a big head fake to the right with his picks, so he can cut left for the sprint to the endzone, and fool us all. This is welcome news Comrades, the Brash Blonde has our backs.
DougJ
I hope "it" means this story.
DougJ
I agree. All this insane union-bashing by the right recently seems calculated to drive away the working class.
protected static
@dbrown: psst… he was mocking one of the resident trolls*, hence the ‘closing tag’.
/pedant
*parody or otherwise
kay
@DougJ:
I’m a little bitter about that. I’m not a union member, but I once was. A lot of them vote for conservatives. A lot.
Sometimes it’s national security, sometimes it’s guns, and sometimes it’s taxes, but, as I said, it’s sometimes hard to get all teary when they get screwed.
Maybe they should start paying attention.
J. Michael Neal
No. If you’d like, the rest of you can stop using it, but this is standard parlance in the finance industry. Ditching it would be very inconvenient.
Francis
On outsiders:
Clinton brought a whole slew of friends, acquaintances and hangers-on to DC. They even had their own acronym, "FOB" for Friends of Bill.
Within a month of the inauguration, they misplayed the DADT issue. And Clinton spent much of the next 8 years playing defense.
The reason to hire insiders is that good governance is really hard. DC is full of people who know how to put a few key words in a bill or regulation. From bankruptcy to energy to military to agriculture, if you have amateurs on your team you’re going to get your clock cleaned.
Professionalism beats ideology any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck:
I know that you, like me, never miss an episode of SHOUTBALL. Therefore, I know you recall a week or two ago –maybe both — Tweety first floated this brilliant theory, nay — knowing — of his. He couldn’t get anyone on his panel to agree with him at that time, but lord knows he tried to interrupt them into submission and acquiescence.
I almost felt sorry for him tonight when it was clear he intended to drag out his dead horse again, this time, with a guest that he was certain "agrees with me". I went to feed the critters and heat some soup, tuning him out, for the most part. Which is pretty much how I watch him every night anyway. And thankfully someone has started addressing the issue of who might replace him.
Gotta unlink my cats’ blog from this site. I got about 100 hits today from BJ with the promise of boobage. I hate to disappoint.
DougJ
A fucking men.
The best thing that could possibly happen to liberalism or progressivism (or whatever the kids are calling the ideology that I myself subscribe to) would be for it to be thought of as the ideology of competence. American voters like competence. It’s why Bush is the most disliked president in American history. And if the most incompetent president in American history is the most unpopular, you can guess how Americans will feel about Obama if he puts together the most competent administration in history.
I’m not saying he has. I’m not saying he will. But that should be the goal.
DougJ
Union members generally vote Democrat something like 60% of the time. Why should that 60% get screwed because of the 40% dumb asses.
I’m not saying unions are always right. But they convince their members to vote intelligently, or at least a lost more intelligently than they would without the unions. Non-union white working class people vote overwhelmingly Republican (which is even dumber, because Republicans screw them even more than they screw union members). They’re the ones I might get a little less teary about (were it not for the fact that I don’t think the Democratic ones among them deserve to get screwed either).
Brachiator
@Francis:
A double amen to this. How soon we forget that we are in a mess because Dubya insisted on promoting loyalists, cronies, incompetents and ideologues.
And while I am sure that many liberals automatically believe that they have the solution to every problem, unless they are bringing some proof of competence to the table, these folk should be told to STFU.
FDR was famously branded as a traitor to his class because he dared to look beyond the stupid idea that any particular social class had a monopoly on the government’s attention. In a different way, but working from a similar perspective, Obama is showing that he is interested in trying to solve problems, not narrowly cater to the special interests of his own party.
He may run into some opposition down the road, but for now, I am liking everything that I am seeing.
TheHatOnMyCat
Exactly. One might not always agree with them, but at least they are voting their perceived interests, and not voting "values" or personalities.
JL
David Gregory’s promotion has done one positive thing, he is not longer on MSNBC at six. David Schuster is doing a decent job.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
"I really, really look forward to:
Valerie Plame to head the CIA
C’mon, Obama, do it. And I’d bet that she’s about a million times better than Goss, particularly in areas of nonproliferation.
But, oh how it would give a finger to the repugnotards, sweet!"
Downside: Larry Johnson at NoConnectionToTheRationalWorld might get a gig there, though.
Dave
The best thing that could possibly happen to liberalism or progressivism (or whatever the kids are calling the ideology that I myself subscribe to) would be for it to be thought of as the ideology of competence
Dougj
Well said! My basic takeaway from Obama’s appointments so far is that his basic premise is start with competent, hard-working people who actually have earned the right to at least be considered for the position. I see criticism of Obama that he considers himself a pragmatist. Most of my job as a finanial analyst is problem-solving, figuring out the best way to do something. I think of it as a compliment when someone tells me that I’m a pragmatist with repsect to my work.
I look at the Shinseki appointment as a good example. The guy showed his intelligence and his willingness to stand up for his principles. Maybe a few appointees like Shinseki and the military will start considering Democrats in elections. They voted for McCain almost 3 to 1 even though McCain was rated very poor on veteran’s issues.
We’ve had 8 years of a president who incompetent, and has surrounded himself with mostly incompetent advisors and appointees. Let’s give Obama a chance.
BC
What I love is the idea that the Democrats are beholden to the auto unions, but Sen Crocker (R-Honda) and Sen Shelby (R-Toyota) are just trying to save the American taxpayer some coin. And that Honda and Toyota are playing on a level ground. At the least, there should be some acknowledgement that Alabama and Tennessee have rival auto plants and that their representatives are as defensive of them as Sen Levin is of his.
Just Some Fuckhead
Certainly more interesting than you trolling your own blog.
J.
@JL (#67)
Are you kidding me?! David Schuster SUCKS. What is with his eyes? He always looks stoned. But I’m happy for David Gregory.
JL
@J.: Schuster actually called the Gov of South Carolina on his bullshit about bailing out the auto companies. What he did not do though is call him on his whining about the Federal deficit and how bad it is. If Repubs thought that the deficit mattered they should have stopped the Bush tax cuts in 2001…
kay
@BC:
I liked that those two got so blatant about it. If it’s going to be regional warfare, okay. Conservatives can defend the south and keep the last two cycle losing streak in the rust belt going.
I don’t think bashing the whole Great Lakes region, to the benefit of the "right to work" south, is the way to "grow" the Republican Party, at this JUNCTURE.
TheHatOnMyCat
Damn! How do you get away with that? I post that and three hyenas are kicking me in the junk. I am blithely ignoring John’s superior arguments. I’m a pussy, a coward, and a draft dodger. I am ruining this blog.
And those are the complimentary remarks.
Waiter, I’ll have what Fuckhead is having.
I need a new handle. How about That Motherfucker?
TheHatOnMyCat
Oh brother. Wait until you see my 6:58 and why it’s in moderation.
You guys really need to set your moderation trap to at least tolerate the language you yourselves use every day, eh?
Never mind. Whistling in the wind.
Xenos
@The Other Steve:
And the Republicans are essentially a criminal enterprise.
Comrade Jake
Schuster is better than Abrams. Abrams would seem intent on auditioning to host "Family Feud". What a joke.
Just Some Fuckhead
@TheHatOnMyCat: No one pays any attention to me is how I get away with it.
Charles
John, to paraphrase Will Rogers, the whole point of being a Democrat is being a free man/woman. The Republicans are totally organized, totally in lockstep, and marching to the beat of the band… as they walk the nation off a cliff.
The president gets paid a lot of money and gets to do all kinds of cool stuff. Private jet, security guards, room and board– it’s a pretty cushy gig. Meanwhile, a lot of people are wondering whether they’ll be living indoors in January. Others are wondering whether they can go to the doctor or the dentist. The stock market might be a few hundred points higher, but the nation still looks like it’s headed into irrelevance as an economic power as unemployment heads for 10%. Or more.
I think it’s time for the people in Washington to stop whining about how we aren’t loyal enough to them. A lot of people gave money they didn’t have to the campaign in the hope that somehow a Democrat would make it better. The Villagers are living very high on the hog. The auto workers… well, not so much.
I skimmed this thread and the one you linked for any deep sea people. I didn’t see any. Some creative cursing, maybe. But no one saying that Obama was a traitor because he wasn’t making ending animal cruelty his first act in office.
robertdsc
This is my thought, too.
Xenos
On the subject of Shinseki, has the Stryker Brigade system been considered a success now that there have been a number of deployments in Iraq? Righty militaristic bloggers and such were convinced the Stryker was an awful idea, and proof that Shinseki was a jerk and a danger to the troops.
So it would be very interesting to hear if the is a consensus on that issue. Shinseki’s other project, the ginormous artillery system from hell (I know, not the correct name, but I’m a civilian), never did get deployed, so who knows if it would have been useful in some way.
Xecky Gilchrist
While I don’t disagree with the several people above who’ve said that Bush & Co. are a bunch of rank cronyist incompetents, it’s important to keep in mind that their goals were also purest bullshit. Except when they were purest evil.
So in a way I’m glad they weren’t very competent.
HyperIon
Hayden?
Please tell me that Hayden is not going to be asked to stay.
When did that get floated/decided?
Hayden is a lying scumbag.
Gates? OK, for a bit.
but NOT HAYDEN!
MNPundit
See what you were missing when you were a Republican? You’d be stuck supporting Sarah Palin, Mittens, or Huckabee on What Conservatism Means.
vwcat
I read a post that quoted this:
‘Mostly, though, it’s just dire warnings that he couldn’t have been elected without progressives, so he’d better not bite the hand that feeds him. This sort of ridiculous posturing pervades every post campaign let down. Oh, yes, Barack Obama couldn’t have been elected without progressives. He also couldn’t have been elected without lower-middle class Moms who like to drive to Wal-Mart in their SUVs to buy enormous flat-screen televisions for the family room. Guess which group is larger? ‘
That pretty much sums it and quite well.
Phoenix Woman
Shinseki has always been interested in veterans issues, being a vet himself who left a part of a foot back in Vietnam in the course of earning two Purple Hearts for life-threatening injuries. This isn’t just a backhand to Bush, it’s also showing that the grownups really ARE in charge, as well as letting the PNAC Platoonies know that it’s time to brush up their CVs.
TheHatOnMyCat
Not so, my fine feathered fuckhead.
Chuck Butcher
Blue collar voting is a strange collage of reasons. I will point out to some of you who sneer ‘guns’ that thanks to that 2nd Amendment what they are protecting is a Right, not granted but one guaranteed. Not all workers are union and there is frequently resentment for being paid a fraction of union wages. You have to remember that the companies and their surrogates make their case to them in a near vacume of union representatives. They don’t think they’re ever going to get rich, but they have a fairly high sense of fairness and if you can appeal to that, even in the twisted Republican sense, you may get them to make the leap.
There certainly is that whole values thing. That one is probably a just a loss. It takes a whole lot of economic distress to over ride cultural structured sensibilities.
COMHat, Democrats are ‘supposed’ to be on the workers side. One could pretty easily point to a fair number of instances where this is not the case. I am inclined to howl about those short comings.
Ash Can
@kid bitzer:
(CC @Jon H: )
Not even! I know you’re being snarky, kb, but you’ve actually raised a great non-snarky point. Tammy Duckworth is a front-runner (if not the front-runner) in the speculation on who’s going to be named to Obama’s senate seat. The fact that she hasn’t yet been appointed to a spot in the Obama Administration indicates that this could still happen.
Xenos
Duckworth? Can’t we find an acceptable candidate who has a track record of actually winning a couple elections? The injured-war-hero running against the Bush machine moment has passed, I think. Feels reactive and defensive ("John Kerry! Reporting for Duty!" What was I thinking??), and not necessary or appropriate at this point.
Maybe Shinseki should give Duckworth a job at the VA.
Ash Can
@Xenos: Either Jesse Jackson Jr. or Luis Gutierrez would fill the bill in this respect, but there’s a doubt about their support downstate (which would be essential to re-election). Emil Jones would be little more than a placeholder — which, however, may turn out to be what Blagojevich and the IL Dems want. We’ll see. Duckworth ran a close race against a firmly entrenched incumbent in a very red district in 2006 and is well liked throughout the state. It’s a good point that while she lacks legislative experience, she does have veterans’ admin experience (with the state government). But her broad support in IL might persuade Blagojevich to decide she’s the best candidate under the circumstances.
shane
Well in this case, let’s remember that being "right" is relative. If you want to say yes, he was correct in his assessment of the troop numbers needed to avert the inevitable in Iraq, ok, yeah, he was indisputably right about that. But the larger context is that he made a prudent evaluation about a war that was fundamentally illegal, immoral, and unjustifiable. So in that regard, no kudos accrue to Shinseki.
MNPundit
Tammy Duckworth supports pathetically centrist policies last time I checked.