The Rest and the Rightest
Thursday, December 4th, 2008 by RLRFrom uExpress
By Ted Rall
A bunch of Clinton- and Carter-era hacks. George W. Bush’s leftover defense secretary. Of the dozens of Obama’s top appointments announced to date, there’s only one liberal: David Bonior, who ran John Edwards’ primary campaign, as secretary of labor. Maybe.
Remember the Democratic primaries? Among the top three presidential contenders, Edwards was the liberal. Hillary Clinton, she of repeated votes for war against Afghanistan and Iraq (and Iran!), was to Edwards’ right. Obama, who also voted for war but didn’t commit to Clinton’s bigger healthcare plan, was even more conservative than she. “Mr. Obama,” David Sanger writes in The New York Times, “is planning to govern from the center-right of his party.”
If nothing else, I had guessed, the U. of Chicago egghead would appoint a team of the Best and Brightest. We’re getting the Rest and the Rightest.
Asked by a reporter how his center-right coalition of Republicans, pro-war Democrats and other assorted has-beens squares with a campaign marketing hope, change, and Soviet-inspired propaganda posters, Obama pledged to “combine experience with fresh thinking.”
“Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost,” Obama said. “It comes from me. That’s my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure then that my team is implementing [that vision].” Pretty words.
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