In the almost nine years I’ve lived in southern Westchester County, New York, the number of conservatives I’ve met who live here could be counted on one hand. This has now changed. For some reason, the place where I’ve been receiving physical therapy for my back problem is a nest of, well, not liberals. I’m talking about both the staff and the other patients. They aren’t Freepers, certainly, but they weren’t happy about the election, either. I mostly just listen because (a) I’m outnumbered, and (b) it’s a chance for me to hear what people who are not five-alarm politics nerds think.
So, this morning they were talking about how so many of Barack Obama’s cabinet choices are old Clinton hands. It’s going to be the Clinton Administration all over again, one patient said, gloomily.
I let that comment swish around in my mind awhile, wondering if this individual has noticed that the past eight years have been a lot worse than the Clinton Administration. But since then I’ve heard a couple of bobbleheads on television say the same thing. Tweety Matthews in particular seems certain that alleged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will take over the administration and run the world from her office in the State Department.
I doubt this will happen. I think if there’s one thing we’ve seen about Barack Obama during his campaign, is that he’s the guy in charge. And Obama appears to be a guy who can get everyone on his team moving as a team toward a common goal. No hotdogging. I think he’s picking strong people for cabinet positions with the expectation that they will be effective agents of his policies. Secretary of State Clinton will not be a free agent.
I could be wrong, but I’m betting that by June no one will be talking about a rerun of the Clinton Administration.
Well, they may not be writing about the third term of Bill Clinton, but you can be sure the infantile media will continue rooting around throughout the State Department for mini-scandals, like pigs searching for truffles. If they can’t find any, they’ll make them up, one after the other. The media are completely deranged about the Clintons; that will not change.
As much as I agree that the 90s were by far the better decade (so far), Bill Clinton showed in his first hours exactly what he would do for his whole time… he faded. On the first issue — “Don’t Ask, etc” — he made a deal that has been a major pain for every day since. He was wonderful at compromise… unfortunately, he compromised virtually everything and missed repeated chances to really set new standards for government. Everything was compromised, but we got a lot of “deals”. Bush/Cheney, on the other hand, only understands the vaguest notion of ‘compromise’, generally as “my way or the highway”, and we’ve lost virtually every significant point.
Obama has a clear vision of management, and (we can hope) at least as clear a notion of undoing the damages done. And he seems to have a spine, which we’ve sorely missed in public officials for all this time.
I think you miss the golden opportunity here… let’s hope that in June, the haters will only be able to wish it WAS the Clintons.
My take is that just because a few Clintonites, including some very high profile Clintonites are likely to be part of Obama’s administration, our nuance-challenged media and nuance challenged opposition take this to mean that Obama’s administration will be The Clintons, the Sequel. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the right it’s that they don’t do subtlety, and that they are easily fooled by appearances.
This is merely a tactic. (Actually, whenever you see a rightwinger say something, it’s best to assume it’s a tactic, because you’ll be right 99% of the time.) If Obama had picked people with no federal government experience those people would be using that against him. Since Obama is, sensibly, picking people with some federal government experience, it stands to reason that they will have been at some level in government during the Clinton years. Unless you think he should be restricting his picks to people who only worked with one or the other of the failed Bush administrations, or Reagan’s.
And that’s the only thing that would satisfy these nuts. They’re idiots, they’re not honest, and they only do tactics, not advice or critiques or whatever… just tactics.
If Obama had picked people with no federal government experience those people would be using that against him.
Exactly. This is the “Damned If You Do” aspect of being a Democrat, which is approximately the flip side of IOKIYAR.
Something else I’ve noticed. I’m trying to remember if previous new presidents were urged by so many people to do something, now!!! before they were even inaugurated. (Or were criticized for things they haven’t actually done yet.) Seems like a good dose of Remedial American Government could do wonders. Too bad it can’t be spooned down gullets like castor oil.
I know we’ve been through eight years of hell, but per the Constitution, the Obama administration won’t exist until after he takes the oath of office. I’m willing to wait until then before critiquing.
Gosh. I just noticed on my comment timestamp that today is the 45th anniversary of JFK’s assassination.