Devil's Advocate re: Panetta and the other Obama staff picks

1. Obama is about to be put in charge of large swaths of our huge government.

2. "Our government" means dozens of insanely important and complex bureaucracies which deal with defense, environmental regulation, food, education, civil and criminal law, infrastructure, poverty, and so forth. Each department is it's own insane universe.

3. Obama needs to appoint people to run these things who are competent. Those in charge of this stuff need to be able to do the job, and the job is far from simple

4. 99.9% of his hires must not only be competent people, but must also be Democrats.

How many Democrats out there fulfil both needs? How many Democrats know how to run this government?

My guess: There are lots of the first kind, lots of the second kind, but not many who are both.

Example: Bill Clinton's first chief of staff, Mack McLarty, was not a DC insider and had none of the shady insider-y connections we've seen in a lot of Obama's picks. But Mack McLarty was a disaster as Chief of Staff, because he lacked the kind of competence, experience and know-how he absolutely needed for his position. His inexperience and mismanagement caused a lot of trouble for the Clinton administration during his first two years.

It seems inevitable...one cannot gain the necessary knowwledge/competence needed to run this government without becoming a DC insider to at least some degree; the two travel together.

So...what's the solution?

One that I would not even attempt to answer, not being savvy enough...

What do you think?

:shrug:

All his appointees could be pure in heart and deed, and still Obama could wind up watching his initiatives grind to a standstill because his people don't know the power levers to pull, the sandtraps to avoid, or how the phones work. If his people don't know the city, they'll get rolled by sneaky insiders who know the game.

Or.

All his appointees could be hardcore insiders who have personal agendas and/or other masters to appease, and Obama could wind up watching his initiatives get hijacked, dumbed down or diverted because they're doing their own thing.

I think the pool of Democrats who know how the phones work isn't all that big. I also think he's in grave danger of having his administration become the tool of said insiders and their agendas. Hobson's choice.

The only solution is for him to be a strong, present leader who keeps his appointees in the traces. Lincoln had at least two people in his immediate power-center (his Treasury Secretary, Chase, and McLellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac) run against him in '64; half his Cabinet were ardent abolitionists and half were more "moderates," and all labored to push their own agendas...and Lincoln managed them all by actively being in charge.

Not easy. But possible.

I agree with your solution...He will be a strong, present leader.

He's already shown us that...

And I think he can pull it off...

He's young, strong, competent.

(read liberals) might want?

Competence in pursuit of bad ends is not good.

I believe that is where strong leadership from Obama comes in.

A bull can be the star of the rodeo, or can annihilate a china shop, depending on who's holding the reins.

weeds in his garden he will dig them out.

people in charge who can handle the job from the get-go. Now, there are lots of lower level positions where you can begin to bring in good people who may not have the same level of experience, but still have important positions. Those lower level positions will give them important experience, and then in 8-years when they are appointed to the cabinet of another democratic president people can grumble about them having too many ties to the Obama administration!

They both operate in the Senate but Feinstein advocates for the "insiders" where Boxer operates among them and manages to hang onto her own priorities.

keeping my fingers crossed, hoping he can reverse most of what bushit did to this country.
:)
K&R to see what others have to say.

two criteria to running large bureaucracies well. And his leadership skills seem well geared to forging a working consensus out of the whole. The big picture. I'm looking forward to the mix.

how bad can I do after some of the appointees that Bush made over his 8 years.

http://change.gov/page/s/application

come to think of it, we could probably use some good progressive Dems with financial experience!

I think it's sometimes difficult for people to understand that politics is a profession, just like medicine or law or teaching, and the most experienced are usually the best at the practice of that profession.

Carter hired amateurs, as did Clinton with Mac, and the results were unfortunate.

Pros. You want the job done right, you hire the pros. So far, Obama's doing a great job of hiring the pros. A sure sign of an excellent CEO.

We wanted the smartest mofos in the room, remember?

Well, we're getting them.

The best chance we have is that President Obama can harness the energy of the grass roots, to produce the changes within the machine in DC that are so badly needed.

I think competence is more important than experience. You can gain experience but not competence. If you lack experience you may have a rough start but if you lack competence you are doomed forever. This applies to any job whether in government or private company.

Obama was elected on a mandate of "Change". No matter how moderate his cabinet picks are, they will still be working for Obama. I think an argument can be made that sweeping changes are easier to make by using people experienced in the very things that must be changed rather than newer people with only book or theoretical experience.

On the other hand we could be looking at what is essentially going to be a third Clinton administration.

Imagine what a Clinton administration could have done without an insane right-wing opposition Congress that impeached him?

Not a bad thought, all in all. Clinton's worst mistakes came because of his administration's disorganized beginning (McClarty), which led to Newt in '94, which led to 2,000+ subpoenas and terrible compromises, followed by impeachment.

And still, they got a lot of good done.

Could have done more.

So.

Just a thought.

I remember seeing "Impeach Clinton" bumper stickers within weeks of his inauguration.
And of course the relentless Whitewater Investigation and the "Contract ON America".
It's much to his credit that he accomplished as much as he did.

Obabma has much more political elbow room in which to operate. And the republican brand is severely damaged, and presumably will be through Obama's first one hundred days.

so who gives a shit if some leftists think this is just a "3rd Clinton term" ???

:kick::kick:

I liked THAT White House.

;)

1. No one should ever be seen as placed in charge of large swaths of our huge government, since this is a representative democracy, not a dictatorship. That is a dangerous concept of "leadership."

2. "Our government" means career opportunities for politicians, and that is a higher priority than the needs of the people.

3. Obama needs to appoint people who have little or no experience in the area they are going to run so that they won't make waves.

4. He must pick people who will be popular with Democrats, even if that means pulling people out of Senate seats and governorships for relatively short-term stints in the cabinet.

5. The main challenge is to find people who will create the illusion of change but who won't actually change anything, as changing things is dangerous to political careers and alienates fat cat donors.

If it means having ones hand in all sorts of pockets that's intended to buy the reps will through what is called campaign donations ie steer them to do the wrong thing and have a negative affect on the most people.

Perhaps DC should no longer been a place of position and comfort but rather looked at as a job one gets paid to do through knowledge and experience gained through time.

It's also high time each politician is forced to have a back ground check and have it shown to the people well before they toss their hat in the ring or are selected simply because they are part of the crowd or a friend or relative or are on the list of favors given in return.

This is the DC bubble.

The criticisms of Panetta revolve around the fact that he has no experience with intellignce services outside of briefings.

Makes one wonder whether there are better qualified folks out trhere than that.