What the hell is going on here? We voted to have a DEMOCRATIC administration, remember?
Barack Obama is taking some very bad advice. "Bipartisanship" only has some value if it helps us to accomplish something good for America. Just hiring Republicans is a rather pointless and ultimately highly counterproductive exercise.
But perhaps I'm confused... If we compromise with Republicans on matters of policy, or hire Republicans for important posts, aren't we supposed to receive some concession from Republicans in return for the favor rather than pretend that they're somehow doing us one by stooping to serve? For example, we incorporated HJGE tax cuts into Obama's stimulus plan in order to win Republican votes. It seems not to have actually won any, because, well, we gave them up freely before we got any concessions from them, so they played their little game of ignoring the concessions they already won and demand forever more and more, holding out their votes like a child riding on the back of a Galapagos tortoise holds out a carrot to steer the tortoise around. Every step the tortoise takes toward the carrot moves the carrot one step away from his mouth.
We need to make this stimulus bill OUR bill, not bipartisan at all, and if it fails to pass because of their obstructionism we need to hang that around their necks like an albatross, running attack ads in their home districts and everything. If they demand it be another Republican bill, they should be told where they can stick it.
And what about this Judd Gregg appointment? What the HELL is that about? Here we grant a very important cabinet post to the Republicans, an EXTREMELY valuable gift, and they have the chutzpah to lay conditions on it? And we ACCEPT the conditions? This is just stupid. It is THEY who should be offering US benefits in return for this favor.
Why on EARTH is his replacement going to be a Republican? What are we THINKING?
Judd Gregg is not somebody who should have his hand on the tiller of our Ship of State. He's one of the guys who helped us into this mess, and whose positions commerce and government assistance are very similar to those once held by Herbert Hoover.
Regarding Tom Daschle, he was never the right man to become HHS Secretary. His extensive ties to the health insurance industry render him unfit. Obama should have tapped former Pennsylvania Senator Harris Wofford or Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich for this post. We need a true reformer to help us heal our health care woes, not a captive of the very industry that lies at the core of our health care problems. This was a bad pick to start with.
By the way, it is FOUR Republicans in the cabinet now, not three as the press so widely reports. Gregg, LaHood, and Gates, PLUS Geithner. Geithner would not have survived his tax troubles had he actually been a Democrat. Democrats are never forgiven any transgression, but Republicans get a free pass. For example, contrast the opposite fates after identical wrongdoing of Elliott Spitzer, who is now the unemployed butt of jokes after being forced to resign hours after the public got wind of his dalliance, with David Vitter, who still sits in the U.S. Senate.
Although I am sure the Obama administration will be much better than the alternative in the last election, that is faint praise indeed. He is giving up the store here, and that's not what I voted for. I am rapidly losing faith in his wisdom.
The Republicans are NOT his (or our) friends. They will never help him succeed. They WANT him to fail. He'd better wise up to that fact REAL quick. I know Obama doesn't want this to be "us or them" but it IS, and it is because that's the only way Republicans will ever play it, and there is nothing he will ever be able to do about it.
Obama is setting himself for failure if he doesn't change course. He needs to act like a Democrat, not act like some damned wuss. The GOP wants him to fail, and that's why they threw the election in the first place. They believe they will come back next November and in 2012.
The march to third worldom continues.
By the way, John Edwards, with all of his flaws, would be a far better HHS secretary than Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich is a nutjob who yammers away in order to appeal to his lefty-left base but has NEVER accomplished anything of note in all of his years in Congress.
Here's more from the WSWS about Obama's pandering to the GOP.
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