Do it in the Pit. The OP was nothing more than a potshot, a shitty little hit and run with the OP not bothering to respond to any of the posts.
I have no problem with people slamming Obama for whatever stupid reason, but don’t pretend it’s a “debate”.
What were you expecting, plumbers and hockey moms? Then you’d complain about the inexperience of the Obama administration. There’s just no pleasing you people.
Well, I never real fell for the “change” gimmick in the first place. Obama, I believe, has a lot of integrity and will do his best for the country. Whether he brings in new people or Washington insiders is of little concern to me. New ideas are great and all, but you still have to run the government with people who know how to run the government.
Is it really necessary to bring up the scads of alleged “debates” that start exactly like this, only from the other side (henceforth known as the “correct” side lest they be confused with the “right” side)? What might I find were I to search for those threads? Might I find you participating eagerly in them?
Hell, I didn’t even have to look hard, you’re the first poster.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Hamlet.
I apologize to Klondike Geoff for insulting his well thought out OP and not doing the same to Fear Itself. I shall go say 10 Hail Marys and beg for forgiveness. Thank you for helping me identify my own biases.
If I want to read the nominations against BHO, I’d note the emphasis on Clintonian Era Flying Monkeys (CEFMs) in the most senior posts over his Awesome Election or Chicago Flying Monkeys (AECMs). He sorta rather fucked his loyal minions in terms of appointments.
If I want to cut BHO some slack, I’d note the continuous bitching about his lack of actual executive branch, Hell, any executive experience and suggest that maybe he’s putting in some Democrats with said executive branch experience - which would force the selection of CEFMs, unless he wanted some Geriatric Carter Era Flying Monkeys.
I suspect that the truth is in the middle, somewhere.
How do you figure that, particularly at this very early date? Holder was a longtime supporter, although he also has a strong Clinton connection. Jarret and Axelrod are senior advisers and both were part of Obama’s brain trust. Robert Gibbs, who was Obama’s communications director, will probably be WH press secretary. Pete Rouse was Obama’s senate chief and now he’s also a senior adviser. Greg Craig will apparently be WH counsel, and while he was a lawyer for Clinton, he also served as an advisor to Obama.
Rahm Emanual has close ties to the Clintons. You could argue Hillary Clinton (if she gest a cabinet post) does too. 
Daschle never had a position with the Clintons and has been advising Obama for a long while. And that’s almost everyone who has been named so far.
So who’s getting fucked exactly?
Methinks the apology is not without snark!
Seriously, though, he has a point. The OP never offered a response in that thread, either.
Again, giving the benefit of the doubt, I would not consider your attack on Klondike Geoff’s OP biased at all if you can explain to me why his OP is more incendiary than Fear Itself’s. Or, if they are both equally incendiary, why Fear Itself’s OP has more of a place on these boards than Klondike Geoff’s.
Mother of God and all her wacky neighbors, the man isn’t even at his first hundred days. He isn’t at his first one days. He hasn’t taken the office and all he’s doing is hiring a few Cabinet members and already there’s people talking like he’s failed.
Do give the man a chance to screw up, okay? Everyone does at some point. Nobody – that is, nobody worth listening to – thinks Obama is going to usher in a golden age where lions lie down with lambs, cheesecake grows on trees, and English majors manage to get jobs using their degrees. He’ll commit a boner at some point, I have no doubt, but conservatives are running into the much-decried liberal trap: screaming about every move the President makes, assuming it is ill-thought and a pack of lies because it has the man’s name on it.
And – I can’t stress this enough – he’s not even President yet.
And a new appointment just being reported now… Janet Napolitano (Arizona Gov.) for the Dept. of Homeland Security. She was also a longtime Obama supporter and was rumored to be an Attorney General candidate.
I was thinking, maybe he could have put his old chief of staff in the same job. Change and all that. the general drift of that argument is that he should be focusing on bringing in non-Clinton, non-DC types in a White House focused on new politics and change. Instead, he’s pulling in plenty of the DC-centric CEFMs.
I can see what he’s doing, but many of the Obamaniacs were likely expecting a revolution, rather than Obama re-hiring some old guards from the Clinton Era.
Ok. So you’re saying he fucked Pete Rouse by making him Senior Adviser to the President instead of White House Chief of Staff?
You are confusing “change” with “maverick.” It is McCain that said he was a “maverick” and wouldn’t get involved with “Washington insiders”. He chose Sarah Palin as his VP, probably one of the most monumentally stupid moves in history and no doubt it played a role in him losing the presidency.
Obama promised us that he wasn’t George Bush, which so far seems to be true.
The OP stands on its own. The fact that I condemned this OP, and didn’t condemn another, different OP, apparently means a great deal to Airman. I disagree, but so be it. If people think the two OPs are comparable, such is life. So I apologized for any unintended bias I may have.
Now, does anyone wish to actually agree with this OP?
Obama has been very canny with his picks so far. I have to give him a lot of credit. I also give him credit for pushing to have Lieberman reinstated in the party’s good graces, for reaching out to McCain, and for appointing people who know how to get things done. Very smart to pull the Clintons in close to him as well - he’s read his Machiavelli. The Clintons may try to build a fiefdom inside his government, but it’s better that where he can control it than having them on the outside trying to tear him down.
I never bought the ‘change’ line anyway. The ‘change’ he represents is the same old liberal policies every liberal Democrat has wanted for the past thirty years. The difference with Obama is that he’s building a large coalition government with a lot of heavy hitters in it that might just have a chance of getting it passed.
Not that I like the ‘change’ he’s pushing for - the problem GM and Ford have with the UAW is a good example of what happens when unions have too much power, and Obama’s all for extending union power. The huge fiscal imbalances and shortfalls in the various federal and state government pension plans are what you get when you let government control finances, and Obama wants more of that. And the list goes on.
But if I were a serious Democrat who wanted to achieve some realistic progressive goals, and not just an ankle-biting netroots lefty, I’d be very happy with Obama’s performance so far.
And apparently Penny Pritzker for Commerce Secretary.
Yes change - an administration full of capable people, an All-Star team really, ready to get to work on day one. What a novel idea! Amazing it hasn’t been done before really.
Oh about Penny Pritzker …
Funny how things come round.
The Annenberg Challenge … that Ayers terrorist supporting organization?! Oh my. 
No, it means a great deal to me that you recognize that your reaction is a direct result of the shoe being on the other foot, you’re no longer in the position to attack the President but rather to defend him, and your response was every bit the type of response that you have condemned for the last 8 years. It’s not a “gotcha” thing as much as it’s a loss of perspective. Principled opposition no more deserves that kind of dismissal than you did when you were dogging the Republicans.
To a certain degree, yes. I understand that there is a necessity for “experienced” people, but one of the people being floated is Hillary for Secretary of State, and to my mind that is the total antithesis of change, giving a Clinton a seat at the big table. Having voted for Obama (and seen Hillary savaged on these very boards) I can’t believe that he would a) give the Clintons a bite of the apple, b) open himself up for an potential undermining of his own agenda, and c) that he would have so much support for considering it from the same people that made it their life’s purpose to beat her into submission not a few short months ago.
The Pritzker pick is not as impressive. Her history is not good - Chicago’s education system is nothing to write home about. The Annenberg Challenge was a colossal failure. She was involved in a bank that has been accused of predatory lending practices and is implicated in the subprime mortgage mess. I think her confirmation hearings might dredge up a lot of dirt that Democrats would rather forget about.
Peter Orszag, who may be Obama’s pick for OMB, looks solid.
The Lieberman episode and Obama’s role in it is a pretty striking demonstration of change; I doubt Hillary Clinton would have made a comparable conciliatory gesture if she were President-elect. George W Bush certainly wouldn’t. On substantive policy grounds I am not sure it was wise but it was certainly canny politics.
As for appointments let’s wait till we see the full roster. It’s not surprising that Obama isn’t going for well-known faces for his first picks. One thing that is clear is that he is very savvy about his shortcomings and picks people who will compensate for them. His first pick was Joe Biden who has the Senate and foreign policy experience that Obama lacks. His second pick was Emmanuel who will bring the hard edge which is sometimes necessary and which Obama again lacks. Daschle brings the expertise on health issues combined with legislative savvy. I admit though that Clinton baffles me; I don’t think she really brings anything much to the table as SOS and I don’t think picking her was politically necessary either.
Now that he has got the big names in I am hoping he is more adventurous with his other picks. I would like to see Geithner instead of Summers for Treasury Sec; as chairman of the NYFed there is probably no one who understands the current crisis as well as he does. Someone like Fareed Zakaria for a foreign policy post would be great.
And there are a lot of second and third tier posts to be filled. These are more important than a lot of people realize and that is where we will see the fresh faces who will be the next generation of leaders.