Hildog, State
Timothy Geithner, Treasury
Eric Holder, AG
Janet Napolitano, Securing the Homeland
Bill Richardson, Commerce
Bobby Gates, undisputed Defense champion of the world
Larry Summers, Council of Economic Whatevers Chair
Rahm Emmanuel, Chiefin' the Staff
So let's see here. One of these people IS a Clinton. Two of them served in the Clinton cabinet. Two of them were appointed US Attorneys by Clinton. One of them was appointed to the Fed by him, another was on his staff. The only non-Clinton alum is in the Bush Cabinet. Am I the only person compelled to ask: how is this change?
The message of Obama's campaign was that wispy, indistinct word change. Clearly people wanted a change from Bush, but the resolution we could gather from the primary season was that people wanted a changed Democratic Party as well. The neoliberal, triangulating, poll smoking and nihilistic pandering of the Clinton years was rejected and the public sought out someone with some sort of progressive vision rooted in leftish principles. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but there were plenty of options for people to choose from if they wanted Clintinismo to come back--not just Clinton herself but Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and a whole host of others offered this. Obama seemed to be selling a different set of goods and the public bought them.
Now, however, he puts into power some of the key architects and acolytes of the "pro-business" Democracy offered up by Clinton (Summers, Geithner), the man behind the Elian debacle who served in the same department that massacred the Branch Davidians (Holder), as well as frothing at the mouth Zionists and liberal internationalist true believers (Emmanuel, HRC, Richardson). Just about the only bright spot is perhaps Janet Napolitano. It is an open secret in Arizona that she is a gay woman and if she comes out she'll be the first openly gay person to serve in the US Cabinet. There are questions as to whether her one-time client Anita Hill's shocking presumption in standing up for herself in the face of a man bully might give Napolitano's confirmation some trouble. If the Anita Hill flare-up is still an issue then Iran-Contra--in which Robert Gates was involved--should be too and the traitor Gates should be rejected for renomination. But it is the word on the street that he is "widely respected on both sides of the aisle." I'm reminded of George Carlin's observation that whenever he hears of an effort or proposal receiving bipartisan support he knows that an even more excpetional level of evil than normal is going down. Obama rose to prominence with his purity in regards to the Iraq War. Now he has chosen to keep the military in the hands of one of its handmaidens. Change indeed.
Obama has been the president-elect for three weeks now and in that time he has done absolutely nothing to indicate that he will chart a course different in any meaningful way from the Clinton era, a time which was not much different (IMHO) than the Bush eras that bookended it. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong, but the sources of the agitation among the American people are a neoliberal economic framework, a liberal internationalist/neoconservative foreign policy (they differ primarily in their targets, not in their inanity or destructiveness) and government that says one thing and does another. Obama is keeping in tune with each of these perogatives and the weepy orgiastics of his disciples are quickly being made to look even more pathetic than before.
*Update*
Susan Rice is expected to be his UN Ambassador. From Wikipedia:
Rice served in the Clinton administration in various capacities: At the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997, as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995 and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs from 1995 to 1997. In 1997, she became Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, serving in that capacity until Clinton left office on January 20, 2001.
So, um, ditto with what I said above.
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