Obama Keeps Bush Appointees in Top Posts....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090831/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_s_republicans_analysis


WASHINGTON – For all the GOP howling about Barack Obama radically steering the government to the left and leading the nation toward socialism, some of his major appointments are Republican men and women of the middle.

In what may be the top two national posts in light of today's crises at home and abroad, Obama stuck with the picks of former President George W. Bush in reappointing Fed chief Ben Bernanke and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Bernanke last week was given another four-year term to preside over nothing less than saving the U.S. economy and then keeping it strong. He was appointed by Bush in 2006 after a short stint as chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. Gates was kept in his Pentagon post to wind down the war in Iraq and build up the one in Afghanistan.

The loss of Sen. Ted Kennedy to brain cancer led to a chorus of laments about the dearth of politicians these days able to reach across party lines. While Obama hasn't had much luck with the highly polarized Congress in building bipartisan support on legislation, he's reached out often to Republicans in filling key jobs.

The notion that he's moving the government to the left "is laughable, it's utterly laughable," said Thomas E. Mann, a government scholar at the Brookings Institution. Mann said the decision to keep Bernanke and Gates "doesn't buy him a thing with Republicans but was a sign of good judgment in both cases" because Bernanke and Gates were doing good jobs.

Obama's larger problem is that he still does not have his own people in a majority of the government's top policymaking positions requiring Senate confirmation. But those he has put in top positions include a number of Republicans or nontraditional Democrats.

Along with Gates and Bernanke, they include:

• Sheila Bair as holdover chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. She has played a major role in the management of the financial crisis. A one-time unsuccessful candidate for a Kansas House seat, Bair was first appointed by Bush in June 2006. Forbes Magazine ranks her as the second most powerful woman in the world behind German chancellor Angela Merkel.

• Ray LaHood, a former congressman from Illinois, as transportation secretary. He was elected as part of the "Gingrich Revolution" of 1994 and was so trusted by both Republicans and Democrats that he was selected to preside over the House during the impeachment vote against President Bill Clinton.

• Former Rep. John McHugh from upstate New York, as Army secretary. McHugh was known by his House colleagues for an even temperament and willingness to work with Democrats.

• Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who was a Mormon missionary in China in his youth, as ambassador to China.

• Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian, as director of the National Institutes of Health.

Unlike the others on the list, Collins is not a Republican and worked in the Obama presidential campaign. But he doesn't fit the usual mold of liberal Democrat as portrayed by many Republicans.

Collins discussed his religious views in a 2006 book. Although some questions have been raised about whether he could keep his religious views separate from his work, the physician-geneticist is well respected in his field for landmark discoveries of disease genes and as head of the Human Genome Project.

Meanwhile, Obama has been contending with an angry left upset at him for not insisting more forcefully on a government-run health insurance option and for his decisions to retain some Bush-era counterterrorism policies.

"The effort to portray Obama as dangerously leftist just doesn't have any traction," said Stephen Cimbala, a political science professor at Penn State. "I think if they want to pick up seats in 2010 and get back up off the floor where Bush left them, they're going to have to find a way to go beyond the very narrow core Republican base and reach out to moderates. The case they have to make against Obama is a case about competency and performance. Not about ideology."

Republicans are going all out on the war path, especially on health care overhaul and budget issues.

"Obama and his liberal congressional allies want to saddle taxpayers with even more debt through their government-run health care experiment that will cost trillions of dollars," said Republican party chief Michael Steele. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, accused Obama of a management style that's "not leadership, it's negligence." Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said in Saturday's GOP video and Internet address that Obama's Democrats favor "cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the elderly to create new government programs."

In asking Bernanke to stay on, Bush praised the former Princeton economist for "his calm and wisdom" in steering the economy through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

At the time he announced he was sticking with Gates at the Pentagon, Obama said he didn't ask the member of the Bush war cabinet to remain because of his party affiliation but because he felt he could best "serve the interests of the American people." Obama said he was "going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House."

Meanwhile, Obama returned from his vacation in Massachusetts on Martha's Vineyard and, after a few days at Camp David, will redouble his efforts "toward getting a bipartisan result" on health care overhaul, said deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton. "After he gets a little time to recharge his batteries...he's going to come back as rip-roaring as he was before," Burton said.


://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090831/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_s_republicans_analysis

compromises, is it any wonder why not much in the way of "liberal" actions have been taken by this administration?

The left is reduced to fighting for an impotent "public option" that will not improve the health care situation in this country by much.

I know the thing about keeping your enemies closer, but Obama does not consider the right his enemy - only the left serves that function to his administration.

lolhard

and in greater numbers. Gay Americans are still being discharged from the military. A center-right justice has joined the Supreme Court. The banks and Wall Street are swimming in our tax dollars. The list goes on and on... Every god damned issue that has been settled has been done so on reich-wing terms, with not one bone thrown to the Democratic wing of the party.

And health care is standing tall as prime example #1. IF the Dems "win" on this, the best outcome will be a worse-than-nothing "reform" that guarantees insurance company profits until long after my death and also guarantees that single-payer and real reform will not be dealt with again for decades.

I think she might be a sleeper our way.

I have heard the bank bailouts were needed, but I have a distrust for the MSM. Would like to hear more than the spin.

Yeah I guess so if you think anyone left of Karl Marx is a right winger

Edit or it should be locked, IMO.

:patriot:

:hi:

If this article bothers you, it has nothing to do with me.

I just posted it, verbatim.

Ostrich meet sand....

ostriches.

that created the whole mess we are in now?

Gotta take me some chess lessons.

.
while it's still open.... :evilgrin:

First, here's what some people forget we had for eight years:



For fun:



And what I really want to know: WHY?



This is me at work:



At play:



And, finally...





.

that the same policies keep getting promulgated regardless of who's in the top seats. It's mostly a matter of which party's ox gets gored and who gets to whine loudest.

I didn't even COMMENT on the damn article. I just posted it verbatim with the link.

I think Obama's political appointees and cabinet members are pretty important.

But, the ostriches on this board will stick head very deeply in the sand to avoid confronting the realities of 'their' President.

No. This isn't about me.

You are presented with facts about Obama's appointments and instead of addressing the implications of those appointments, you want to engage in a meaningless dialogue about my motivation for posting the article?

Why?

If the content of the article bothers you, it has NOTHING to do with me.

violation of copyright does). Why does it bother you?

There are some good picks, though. I like Hillary as Sec. of State, Solis as Sec. of Labor, am fine with Holder, like Shinseki as Sec. of Vet. Affairs, like Rice as UN ambassador, and think Jackson in EPA is fine.

I think the President wanted to look moderate by his appointments, but sometimes it can have consequences beyond just appearances. He needs to rein them in sometimes.

a good mod. :hi:

Other than telling me there are Bush holdovers this article doesn't really say anything about how well or badly they're doing thier job. I haven't heard or read anything bad about any of the people listed in article

haven't even heard of many of them. The President needs to have the final say, so we'll see what happens.

As long as these people implement Obama's agenda, I have no problem with them. The OP didn't tell us what HER problem is with everyone listed.

Not sure they can be trusted. So far I'd like to see more changes in foreign policy and towards the banks. It is still early, though.

Always been an Obama hater, always will be.

...is turned into the classic 'bash the poster' or more traditional 'kill the messenger'...

You can't face the content of the article, so you bash me. Posting FACTS about Obama is considered hateful? Posting his own cabinet choices and political appointments is a hateful thing to do?

Why?

I didn't even post a COMMENT with the article, only the article.

You've just been doing it longer than some...

about Obama. If you were even handed, it would be different. But you're not. So this IS about you. That's life. You made your bed and now you have to lie in it.

:hi:

with it. Like you said, you posted it with NO COMMENT. I'd love to know what your problem is with the article, why those certain people are bad picks to you. You don't have an answer, apparently, because I and others have asked you many times already and you haven't responded ONCE. You must've posted it JUST to say something else which YOU consider negative about Obama. But what IS your point of this article? I, and others, are still waiting.

:rofl:

Change...

Looking at corporatist Rahm, gay-hater Rick Warren, right-wing Evangelicals and anti-abortion Catholics in the Faith-Based office, MIC-friendly Republicans, and corporate insiders on the economic, agricultural and healthcare teams ~ THIS AIN'T A PRETTY PICTURE.

I understand that the president wants to be seen as bipartisan, but imo this is WAY too much.

It's just that I think the President is a good person and generally on our side. So I'll let this play out.

...the prez is getting the message that he's losing his base and will make some changes.

:hi:

Bipartisanship is not possible with the Republican party.

The President has not garnered ONE Republican allie in the healthcare battle yet he has given concession after concession after concession that has weakened the healthcare legislation.

Now, Obama is a smart man. Why would he allow health care legislation to be weakened when it garners NO support from the other side and harms the legislation?

Why?

This isn't about democrats and republicans. This is about corporate power dictating the legislation, and bipartisanship is the card they play for allowing the corporations to dictate the legislation and the debate.

What would they say without the bipartisan card? What excuse could they give?

It has been laid bare as an illusion.

thank you, Debbierlus, for this and other posts!

:hi:

and it ain't pretty...

so, so severly disappointed...

In the Pentagon in particular. Many of Bush's schedule-C appointees (those not requiring Senate confirmation), slid into permanent executive civil service positions.

and no amount of thrashing or trashing is going to change it. Move on.

:rofl:

...but who he didn't choose also tells a story.

Not a single appointment from the Progressive Caucus.
Not a single "anti-war" (voted NO on the IWR) appointment.
Howard Dean was banished.

When Obama promised that everyone would have a seat at the table, I was overjoyed.
I believed that The Left would have a voice for the first time in 30 years.
I was wrong.
The Republicans, the MIC, and the Lobbyists have a louder voice in Obama's White House than the Progressive Caucus.

Oh Well.
I take heart in that the Progressive Caucus is unified, and has promised to vote AGAINST a weak Public Option that is really just cover for a massive give away to the Health Insurance Industry.

Hang Tough, Progressive Caucus.

K&R