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[JuntaJoe]

Is it just me or does it seem like no one is bothering with checking out people they try to hire in Washington?

Richardson, Gietner, Daschle, and some under-something lady.


Oh, let's not hang it all on Obama either.

I liked Palin and couldn't care less about her daughter's pregnancy, but it still would have been smart for McCain to be ahead of that issue instead of waiting for it to come out and be a 3 week distraction right in the middle of the 2 month push from convention to election. In that 2 month window you have to be teflon slick to survive.

What do these leaders expect? The press are jackals looking for any weakness to rip at and sell copy.

The old days of just commentating on their actual job qualifications are over.


Yeah, people complained about the Bush residency being a brick wall of silence. But what got those people complaining? The press because they couldn't get enough dirt, so they made a story about that instead. Honestly, I always though that was a wise move from the Bush team. Don't give those buzzards anything you don't have to.

Sure, we all want transparency in government, but how are we supposed to get it when the only people you can hire are the lucky ones with no dirt at all?

Maybe we a need a paparazzi law or something. Yeah, I know. Freedom of the press etc.

But until we wise up about yellow journalism and quit feeding these leeches, the leaders need to quit naming people for jobs until they have been thoroughly grilled over the coals in their screenings.

Right, I know that politicos assign jobs as favors to their party machines. Patronage is as old as politics itself. But those party machines had better wise up fast and not push someone who is guaranteed to get roasted by the press.

The days of putting the best person or favored person into the job are over. Now it's the safest person.

As if we haven't already dumbed down the political process already......

[Batchman]

I know this is partly off topic, but it partly connects, too.

I am so disgusted with the country for putting Obama in the White House, I say let him do whatever he wants to for his first four years.

No obstruction. This is what the American people said they wanted. Let Obama have his way in everything. One of three things will happen.

1) He'll fix America. I will have to eat my words (and if he can fix America, I'll be glad to do so.)

2) He'll make things so bad that it will be the end of the Democratic Party, and the next guy in will have the needed power and support to really bring back conservatism.

3) Nothing will change. We'll be in the same bad shape, no better, no worse. Which will just go to show it makes no difference who we elect, these days.

But in any of the three results, we will have brought an end to the divisiveness which has come to make the political process so horrible.

[Che]

Quote: 2) He'll make things so bad that it will be the end of the Democratic Party, and the next guy in will have the needed power and support to really bring back conservatism.

That might work.

Eight years of Little Georgie certainly kicked the GOP in its big, fat arse :twisted:

He reduced the Republicans to a regional political party of bubbas and billy bobs.

I never thought that I would say this, but thank you King George.

[FrankyG888]

Don't get too excited about the end of the GOP. Remember 2004 when everybody was ready to totally write off the Democrats. Just two years later they took the Senate and the House and were poised to take the White House.

Joe is completely right. I cannot believe all of this garbage coming out about the appointees, and this from an administration which was trying to clean things up in Washington, off course this is hardly a unique phenomenon. Remember Harriet Meyers, and let’s not forget about John Ashcroft.

[s_stabeler]

or it could simply be that Obama needs people with connections in Washington through Congress? Obama has a vision of what he wants to do, but can;t push that vision throuhg on his own. look at how difficult he's finding it to push through the stimulus package, it's already been changed by the republicans. ( originally it was going to be something like 80% infrastructure spending and 20% tax cuts. not it's 52% infrastructure spending and 48% tax cuts) he needs people that know how to get stuff through the system. if he got 60 senate seats, possibly, but he doesn't, he has 58.

[JuntaJoe]

And now comes Leon Pannetta.


I have one piece of advice for Obama. Quit rummaging in the old Clinton bureaucracy for leaders. All of them have had 8 years out of office trying to make a buck like most ex-politicos do. Influence peddling. No way that crew can provide a host of influence-free resumes. Obama needs to be looking outside the Beltway for his team.